Strawberry Jelly Hearts Cheesecake

So for my brother-in-law's birthday I decided to cross one off of my "to bake list" and make him a strawberry jelly hearts cheesecake. I really had no idea what this was until I moved over here. But really, it's pretty much just a Jello-No Bake-Cheesecake, with a layer of strawberry jelly on top.

Strawberry Jelly Hearts Cheesecake

The crust is just crushed digestive biscuits, mixed with a little bit of butter. You can use graham crackers as a substitute. Maybe I'll try using crushed up Oreos next time. The "cheesecake" layer is made by whipping cream cheese with some sugar, adding vanilla for flavour and some gelatine to help it set. 

letters cut out of fresh strawberries!

It's called a "Strawberry Hearts" cheesecake because the fresh strawberries atop the cheesecake layer are cut into heart shapes. Of course, you can totally just used halved strawberries as they are, without cutting them into hearts, and it would taste just as nice!

Happy 30th Birthday, BIL!

Since it was a "birthday cake", instead of cutting the strawberries into hearts, I used the letter cutters that I normally use for fondant, to cut letters out of the strawberries! Worked pretty well! Of course, this generated a lot of scraps, but my kids weren't complaining. 

nice clean slices

Now, the trick to cutting this cake into neat slices is to use a sharp knife, cleaning the blade after each cut so that you don't mess up the jelly layer on the next slice. Ta-da! Strawberry Jelly Hearts Cheesecake, crossed off the list :)