Jelly Hearts

Am submitting this entry to Aspiring Bakers #4: Love in the Air (Feb 2011)! Super duper late entry for this month's theme, glad I made it though, so I don't break my AB streak since SSB started it.

Saw many making these dainty desserts quite a while ago but had been procrastinating to make them. Had many questions initially and finally got them answered at the recent bloggers meetup. Thanks to Jasmine who provided me lotsa useful tips to make them! She even texted me later on to check on my progress, to see everything turns out well. Touched ok. :P

An unfortunate accident happened. The jelly water was leaking out of the aluminium tray pan as I did not shrink wrap it, so the jelly layer thinned by a lot. So lesson learnt, use a good leak proof pan for jelly hearts. Nevertheless, these little cheesecake slices are not only pretty to look at, they taste delicious too.

Jelly Hearts

Ingredients:

Biscuit Base:
300g digestive biscuits, processed in a food blender
140g melted butter

Cheesecake filling:
250g cream cheese, room temperature
50g sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla essence (I use vanilla powder)
10g gelatine powder
120ml hot water
16 strawberry halves, cut into heart shapes

Jelly Topping:
1 box of Strawberry Jello
240ml boiling hot water
240ml cold water

Method:
1. Mix biscuit crumbs & melted butter together and press firmly onto the base of a 8"x8" square cake tin. Put cake tin in fridge for later use.

2. In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar and vanilla till thick and smooth.
3. Soak gelatin powder in water and transfer to double boiler.
4. Slowly add dissolved gelatin to cream cheese mixture and mix well.
5. Pour cheese filling onto prepared cake tin and spread evenly.
6. Lay the strawberries on the cream cheese mixture and chill for abt 3h.

7. Dissolve strawberry jello in boiling water. Add in the cold water after jelly dissolves.

8. Pour the jelly onto the chilled cheesecake. Chill in the fridge until jelly is set before removing from the cake tin. Serve as desire.