Fruity-Crusted Malted Buttermilk No-Bake Cheesecake

This recipe started as an idea. I'm over at my mom's house, and it's fun to see what I can come up with using the oft-changing contents of her cupboards. What if I pulsed some fruit and grain bars in the food processor and turned them into some sort of crust? I gave it a shot, and it looked like a pretty convincing crust, so my thoughts then turned to what would be put inside the crust.

Mom has lots of cream cheese, and pudding mixes. I thought of doing a layered pudding pie - with a cheesecake layer and a pudding layer. I found a no-bake cheesecake recipe that called for sweetened condensed milk. After the fact, Mom told me they have lots of cans of this sweet gooey goodness, but I couldn't find any, so I made my own. Except that Mom doesn't have dry milk. So I improvised.

Somewhere around this time the pudding layer disappeared in my mind and I started working on just making this into a really good cheesecake. As I mixed up the condensed milk using the ingredients available to me, I stuck my finger in for a quick taste.

Heaven.

I knew this would be One. Good. Cheesecake.

Fruity-Crusted Malted Buttermilk No-Bake Cheesecake
Crust:
5 Fruit and Grain Bars
3 graham cracker halves

Sweetened Condensed Malted Buttermilk:
1/3 cup water
4 tbsp. butter
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
3/4 cup powdered buttermilk
1/4 cup malted milk powder

Here's a picture of the milk powders I used:

Filling:
1 (8-oz) pkg. softened cream cheese
1 recipe sweetened condensed malted buttermilk
1/3 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup sour cream

To make crust: Break fruit and grain bars and graham crackers into food processor. Process into fine crumbs. Press crumbs into 9-inch pie plate; set aside.

To make sweetened condensed milk: Place water and butter into a glass jar and microwave on high until butter is melted and water is boiling. Pour over sugar, vanilla, and dry milks in medium bowl. Blend with electric mixer until smooth (a few small chunks is okay). Or whirl it all in a blender for a smoother texture. Set aside.

To make filling: In medium size bowl beat cream cheese until fluffy. Add sweetened condensed malted buttermilk, stir in lemon juice and sour cream; blend ingredients well. Chill 20 minutes then fill pie crust. Chill 2 hours.

Unfortunately, this cheesecake didn't set up as well as I would have liked (read: it barely set up at all. It was the texture of a very rich pudding). That being said, it was a very delicious un-set cheesecake. The unsightly mounds of gooey filling and the soft pieces of crust tasted so good together, despite looking, well, unsightly. Next time I make this, I would like to try making it into a frozen dessert - freeze the pie for several hours, then let it sit out at room temperature about 15 minutes to soften it a bit before slicing. I bet it would be great! I think another change I would try would be to pre-bake the crust and see if I could get it nice and toasted before filling it.

Sorry the pictures didn't turn out as good as usual. I left my camera at home and had to use Mom and Dad's, and I'm not used to it. I couldn't figure out how to get it to take a really clear, focused picture. Oh well. Guess I'll have to make this pie again sometime, you know, just to take some better pictures ;)

*You can used the sweetened condensed malted buttermilk recipe to make regular sweetened condensed milk: just substitute 1 cup powdered nonfat milk for the buttermilk and malted milk. Use as you would 1 14-oz. can sweetened condensed milk.