I LOVE cheesecake. Like, a lot. It’s one of my favorite foods. But ever since I’ve been eating gluten-free, I’ve noticed that it’s really hard to find recipes without some kind of graham cracker crust at the bottom, unless you want to make individual cheesecake things in cups. Well, I don’t have any ramekins or little cups here in my dorm, and I really wanted to make a sort of no-bake cheesecake snack, so I decided to solve the crust problem in a different creative way.
Orange halves! I’ve seen plenty of ideas for fancy little salads or desserts served in hollowed-out citrus halves, so why not try it with cheesecake? I did some research of recipes on the internet to develop a formula for a two-serving, no-bake, few-ingredients-as-possible cheesecake. And here is what I came up with. The no-bake, five-ingredient, two-serving, honey-orange, glazed-fruit-topped cheesecake! Whoo!
I consider this five ingredients because although I used orange juice from a juice box, there is plenty of orange fruit that doesn’t get used in this recipe, and squeezing the leftover orange segments would give you all the juice you need to do it in just five ingredients. I used an orange (and juice), butter, sugar, cream cheese, and honey.
First, I unwrapped the butter and microwaved it for about 30 seconds to melt it.
Then, I added some sugar. I used ¼ of a cup, which is the same as 4 Tablespoons. But since I used sugar packets, each one is a teaspoon (so I had to use 12 packets). Yay for math!
I used a fork to stir the butter and sugar together until it was all fluffy and pretty :)
Then I added about 2 Tablespoons of orange juice and stirred it with the fork until it was just pourable.
Next, I added the four tubs of cream cheese that I got from the dining hall. Each one is an ounce, so you can just use 4 ounces of cream cheese off of a block if you have that or if you want to use it out of a regular tub of cream cheese it’s all the same.
Once the filling was mixed up, I cut the orange in half.
You want to cut it through both ends (not horizontally) so that when you take the fruit out, the ends don’t pull out and make holes in the bottom.
It should look like this, with the fruit sections vertical.
I removed the sections of orange to leave two hollowed-out bowls. It’s pretty easy to get the fruit out, cause you can just pull it out in sections, but it might help to run a spoon around the edge if you’re having a hard time getting that first piece out. Make sure to save the fruit from inside! If you want to use the orange juice from the orange instead of out of a carton (or a juice box, like I did haha) then cut and hollow out the orange first, and make the filling second, saving 3 or 4 orange sections and squeezing the rest into juice to make the filling with.
I filled the orange halves with the cheesecake, and then put them in the fridge to set.
Then, I took the orange sections that I had saved and I cut the fruit into small chunks.
Normally, glazed fruit toppings for desserts are made with fresh fruit boiled with sugar. But I like the flavor of honey with oranges, so I simply poured about a Tablespoon of honey onto the orange slices and stirred it to coat the fruit.
It makes a nice shiny glaze with a unique flavor that isn’t as overpoweringly sweet as straight sugar would be.
I put the fruit topping in the fridge with the cheesecakes.
When the cheesecake was thoroughly chilled, I put half of the fruit topping on it and drizzled it with some of the sauce at the bottom of the bowl (the honey mixed together with the juice of the orange pieces).
This cheesecake is seriously delicious and SUPER easy. And it makes exactly two servings if you use a medium sized orange! It’s not super sweet, but if you want to add more sugar it would still taste great.
Here’s the recipe. I used individual dining-hall-sized packs of all the ingredients, but I’ve put all the regular measurements here.
Individual No-Bake Orange Cheesecakes topped with Honey-Glazed Fruit
Ingredients:
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1 medium-sized orange
1 Tablespoon butter
4 Tablespoons sugar
2 Tablespoons orange juice
4 oz. (8 Tablespoons) cream cheese
1 Tablespoon honey
Directions:
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Melt the butter and stir it together with the sugar using a fork.
Add 2 Tablespoons of orange juice and mix well.
Stir in the cream cheese. Use the fork to beat it until it is creamy and fluffy.
Cut the orange in half and remove the fruit, saving 3 or 4 sections.
Fill the orange halves with the cheesecake mixture and refrigerate.
Cut the orange sections into small pieces and stir with honey to coat.
Chill the cheesecakes for about an hour, and then serve topped with the honey-glazed orange pieces.
