Mango Cheesecake

Indie Cafe in Chicago has this awesome mango cheesecake on their menu. Ever since I tried this wonderful, creamy dessert I have been trying to recreate it. I have to say, it's not as easy as I thought. I did quite a lot of research and apparently it is very hard to achieve this great "mango-ey" flavor I remember from Indie Cafe. In my cheesecake I used fresh mangoes and a mango puree thinking that might give me more flavor than just using fresh mangoes. I read several reviews on different blogs/sites, and there was a lot of complains that the mango flavor was just not strong enough.

For the crust, I used graham crackers with melted butter and a little bit of sugar. And I experimented with the cheese mixture portion. The final effect was pretty good... maybe a little too moist... so there is definitely room for improvement there. One thing I thought was great, is the taste - it was creamy, smooth and mango-ey! :)




For Crust: 1 1/2 cups of graham cracker crumbs mix with 1/2 cup of sugar and 3/4 of a stick of melted butter (unsalted). Stir cracker crumbs with sugar and add melted butter, mix until moistened. Lightly butter 9 " springform pan and press crumb mixture onto the bottom of the pan. Preheat oven to 325 F/160 C, bake until crust is set, about 12 minutes.

For Cheese Filling:
1 1/2 cups mango puree (from the can)
1 cup fresh mango - pureed in food processor or blender
3 8oz packages of cream cheese, room temperature
3/4 cup of granulated sugar
3/4 cup of condensed milk
1 vanilla sugar/2 tsp. vanilla
4 larg eggs
2 - 3 TBS fresh lemon juice (brings out the mango flavor)
3 TBS pudding powder

Beat cream cheese, sugar, vanilla sugar until smooth adding 1 TBS of condensed milk at the time. Add mango puree, mix well. Add eggs one at the time, beating well after each addition, add lemon juice and pudding powder to incorporate. Pour the cheesake mixture over the crust. Bake until set, puffed and golden around the edges, about 1 hr and 25 minutes. Cool 1 hour, refrigerate uncovered overnight. Serve with mango slices or mango puree. {I run out of mangoes, and served it with a blackberry and mint.}

This recipe is combining couple of my cheesecake recipes... basically taking bits and pieces of other recipes... the cheesecake was super moist, so maybe next time less mango puree or less condensed milk... oh, and while I was making it - I constantly tasted my cheesecake mix, making sure that it's not too sweet or too sour... making sure it tasted good... and that definitely helped. The cheesecake tasted pretty darn good!



Oh, and maybe next time I will use champagne mangoes instead of the regular ones {on the picture}... I think they might have more flavor...