David Rocco’s No-Bake Cheesecake

My whole family has a bit of a sweet tooth. Myself, my husband, and unfortunately I believe that trait has been passed down to our children. I always thought it was normal to have dessert every night after dinner (or for a child if you ate a good dinner). I wasn’t until I became an adult and started learning about my friends’ childhoods that I became aware that dessert for other families was, in fact, a treat. Something you have for a celebration. What? Getting through a Tuesday isn’t a celebration?

Now not only does my husband have a sweet tooth, but he was lucky enough to marry a like-minded lady who also loves to bake up all those goodies. We’ve been without an oven or stove for over a month, I am getting tired of store-bought treats. The preservatives, chemicals, added sugar, etc. I can buy all-natural ice cream, but even I can’t eat ice cream every night. I need something satisfying that I can actually make homemade or at least semi-homemade 😉

I stumbled across David Rocco’s recipe for a no-bake cheesecake and it intrigued me because there is zero added sugar, except for the cookie crust and yogurt used. Absolutely no extra sugar in the batter. Could it really be that satisfying that one of my favorite chefs is raving about it? Let’s put it to the test. This post contains affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosures here.

The original recipe calls for chocolate wafer cookies which I totally see all the time in the store, but of course, I wandered around and couldn’t find them anywhere when I needed them. I settled for Oreo’s instead, which I’m not complaining about! I crushed them to a powder in my food processor and added melted butter. I had help from my son squishing the cookie crumbs into all the corners of the pan.

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Next, I (or my son 🙂 ) mixed the gelatin with the boiled milk and set it aside. David’s recipe calls for gelatin sheets which my store didn’t offer. So I substituted 1 packet of powdered gelatin and hoped for the best! Since I don’t have a stove to boil milk, I placed it in the microwave and heated it until it started it to bubble.

I absolutely love fresh whipped cream, so I was happy to see it as an ingredient in the cheesecake. I whipped the cream until stiff peaks formed and snuck a little taste for me. In a separate bowl, I used my hand mixer to combine the ricotta and the yogurt. The original recipe calls for plain yogurt, but I wanted to add a little extra flavor so I went with a vanilla bean Greek yogurt. Finally, I gently folded in the gelatin mixture and the whipped cream until it was smoothly combined.

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After the batter was made, I poured it into my Oreo cookie crust and placed it into the fridge to devour after dinner. The recipe says you should let it set for at least 3 hours. Trust me, it will be hard to wait that long.

After dinner, my son loved helping me top the cheesecake with more crushed Oreo’s. We all took a slice and YUM! It was so satisfying and delicious. It was not overly sweet, in fact, it had a little tang that my husband and I found refreshing. I can’t wait to try it again with different flavor profiles. Lemon or raspberry yogurt, add some mini chocolate chips or a graham cracker crust. I feel the possibilities are endless. If you’re someone who finds most desserts overly sweet or want to treat yourself to a cool, oven free treat for Summer, I definitely recommend David Rocco’s No-Bake Cheesecake. I’m even going to state that it tasted better the next day.

Please excuse the Christmas paper plates in March. I’m trying to keep our dish load down. Enjoy!