This no-bake cheesecake is devastatingly good

By Eric Kim, The New York Times

There’s a moving gag astir honeydew connected the Netflix animated bid “BoJack Horseman.” In a drawstring of jabs, the hapless melon is trodden connected arsenic “garbage fruit,” cantaloupe’s “dumb friend.”

Not without bully reason. Who hasn’t bitten into a bland, watery cube of honeydew from the apical of an airdrome effect cupful filled mostly with underripe melon?

But sinking your teeth into genuinely ripe, devastatingly saccharine melon tin beryllium an ethereal eating experience. It’s a tiny but mighty pleasance that tin beryllium expanded adjacent further by turning your adjacent honeydew oregon cantaloupe into dessert. Melons aren’t often utilized successful sweets, but they should be. Cream and sweetener really fortify what honeydew and cantaloupe already person going for them: Their soma is creamy erstwhile ripe, wherever the juicy edges by the seeds are truthful tattered that they look astir milky and afloat of fat.

Whether it’s jade-tinged honeydew dripping with chill nectar oregon orangish cantaloupe that’s ripened to honeyed creaminess, melons are, successful galore parts of the world, a nexus of late-summer’s bounty.

In 1992, the South Korean snack nutrient institution Binggrae debuted a caller product, Melona, a honeydew-scented crystal pick barroom that leaned into melon’s delicate flavor. The pastel greenish and rectangular dainty was an instant success, yet making its mode to the United States successful 1995, flooding crystal pick coolers from Atlanta’s Buford Highway, wherever Korean businesses abounded, to the shores of Hawaii, wherever Melona was particularly popular.

If you’ve ne'er bitten into a Melona (often called “melon bar” colloquially), past you should caput to your nearest Korean market store and snag a container immediately. The texture volition astonishment you: It’s softer than a fudge popular — little icy. Creamy and stretchy and adjacent a small chewy, it melts gloriously, with the benignant of tongue-coating dilatory melt that’s diagnostic of the champion kulfi and semifreddo. “Gelato connected a stick” is however Binggrae describes it.

Most of all, it’s little saccharine than galore crystal creams successful the States, fragrant with essence of honeydew (tasting arsenic if it has been dipped successful some chromatic and dew).

Similarly, these cheesecake bars observe melon for what it is: a softly aromatic fruit, afloat of foodstuff and untapped potential. Fresh cantaloupe purées into a smooth, fluffy pulp to spirit a cheesecake basal that doesn’t necessitate baking, acknowledgment to gelatin. For the smoothest texture and the champion set, powdered gelatin archetypal needs to beryllium bloomed successful water, turning it into a translucent jelly, earlier it is whisked into hot, scalded pick to dissolve completely. Cream food helps present voluptuous texture, portion besides lending savory equilibrium and accentuating melon’s soft, floral flavor.

Recipe: No-Bake Melon Cheesecake Bars

Total time: 20 minutes, positive 6 hours’ chilling

Yield: 16 bars

Reminiscent of creamy, honeydew-scented Korean crystal pick bars, this no-bake cheesecake leans into a effect spirit that hasn’t had capable clip successful the sun: melon. Here, caller cantaloupe purées into a smooth, fluffy pulp that sets into cheesecake, acknowledgment to gelatin. Where the thick, salty-sweet basal furniture of buttery crackers volition fulfill the crust lovers retired there, the creamy, soft-set filling volition alteration minds astir what melon tin genuinely do. Though the last drizzle of chromatic is optional, its floral sensation works beautifully with the cantaloupe.

Ingredients

For the crust:

• 9 1/2 ounces (269 grams) graham crackers (about 18 full crackers)
• 1/2 cupful (115 grams) unsalted butter, melted
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 spoon kosher brackish (Diamond Crystal)

For the filling:

• 2 (1/4-ounce/7-gram) packets powdered gelatin (about 5 teaspoons)
• 1 1/4 pounds (566 grams) peeled cantaloupe, diced (about 3 cups)
• 1 (8-ounce/226-gram) bundle pick cheese, astatine country temperature
• 1/2 cupful (100 grams) sugar
• 1/4 spoon kosher brackish (Diamond Crystal)
• 1/2 cupful (120 milliliters) dense whipping cream
• Honey, for drizzling (optional)

Preparation

1. Prepare the crust: Place the graham crackers successful a resealable integrative bag. Close the container and, utilizing a rolling pin, dense tin oregon different blunt object, crush the graham crackers into a coarse rubble. To the bag, adhd the melted butter, sweetener and salt, and premix thoroughly.

2. Transfer the crumbs to an 8- oregon 9-inch quadrate baking cookware and property into the bottommost of the cookware with your hands, forming a thick, sturdy base. Place successful the freezer to acceptable portion you marque the filling.

3. Make the filling: In a tiny vessel oregon measuring cup, disturbance unneurotic 1/4 cupful acold pat h2o and the gelatin. Let beryllium to bloom. Meanwhile, usage a blender to purée the cantaloupe, pick cheese, sweetener and brackish until smooth.

4. Heat the pick successful a tiny saucepan connected the stovetop implicit mean until simmering astatine the edges oregon successful a tiny vessel successful the microwave until blistery to the touch, 45 to 60 seconds connected high. Add the bloomed gelatin to the blistery pick and disturbance vigorously until smooth. Transfer the pick to the blender and blend with the cantaloupe until smooth.

5. Take the cookware retired of the freezer and determination the filling implicit the graham cracker crust. Cover and refrigerate until set, astatine slightest 6 hours oregon up to overnight. Cut into bars and serve, drizzled with honey, if you like.

This nonfiction primitively appeared successful The New York Times.

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