Nigella Lawson’s white chocolate cheesecake is a no-bake dessert of melted white chocolate folded through cream cheese and softly whipped cream, set overnight on a gingernut biscuit base. It uses a 20cm springform tin, needs no oven at all, and cuts into 8. The white chocolate does double duty, adding gentle vanilla sweetness and setting the filling as it chills.
The recipe is from At My Table (2017), and she made it on Episode 5 of the BBC Two series. Nigella jokes that her ancestors would be horrified by an unbaked cheesecake spiked with white chocolate, but stands firm, promising the chocolate is a delicate presence with “nothing to offend a white-chocolate-hater”. Against the tang of cream cheese and the spice of the gingernut base, it reads as a rounded vanilla note rather than sweetness.
Here’s the part that decides whether it works. The white chocolate isn’t just for flavour, its cocoa butter is what sets the cheesecake, so the quality of the chocolate matters more than anything else you do. Use a proper one and it firms to a tender slice overnight; use a cheap, sugary bar and it may never set.
Nigella Lawson White Chocolate Cheesecake
Course: DessertCuisine: BritishDifficulty: Easy8
servings25
minutes580
kcal25
minutesNigella’s no-bake white chocolate cheesecake from At My Table, an almost-moussy filling on a gingernut crumb base. No oven, just an overnight set in the fridge. Lovely plain, or partyfied with pistachios and pomegranate seeds.
Ingredients
200g white cooking chocolate, roughly chopped
300g full-fat cream cheese, at room temperature, drained of any liquid
300ml double cream
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
- For the base:
175g gingernut biscuits
50g unsalted butter, soft
Directions
- Melt the chocolate: Put the white chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Bring a pan with 3-4cm of water to the boil, sit the bowl on top without letting it touch the water, and turn the heat down. Let the chocolate melt very gently, stirring occasionally with a silicone spatula. When only a few small lumps remain, stir once more, then set the bowl aside for about 10 minutes until liquid but cooled to room temperature.
- Make the base: Blitz the gingernuts to almost-crumbs in a food processor. Add the butter and process until the mixture clumps and cleaves to the blade. By hand, crush the biscuits in a bag, then stir in the melted butter until well mixed.
- Line the tin: Press the biscuit mixture into the springform tin, letting some come a little way up the sides. The back of a dessert spoon works best. Chill the tin while you make the filling.
- Start the filling: Beat the cream cheese in a large bowl with a wooden spoon until soft. Gently fold in the slightly cooled melted white chocolate.
- Fold and fill: Softly whip the cream so it thickens but the peaks don’t hold, then fold it into the white chocolate mixture in two batches. Fold in the lemon juice and vanilla. Pour and scrape the pale, almost-moussy mixture into the base and smooth the top.
- Set overnight: Cover the tin with cling film and refrigerate overnight before serving.
- Serve: Let it stand out of the fridge for 10 minutes before unclipping the tin and slicing. Don’t expect to lift the whole cheesecake off the tin base unless you’re very patient and dexterous.
Notes
- Chilling Overnight
- Kit: a food processor and a 20cm springform cake tin.
FAQs
What white chocolate should I use?
This is the most important choice in the recipe. Nigella’s team recommends a white chocolate with a cocoa butter content of around 30%, or one that lists cocoa butter among its first ingredients. It’s the cocoa butter, firming up as it chills, that sets the whole cheesecake, so it’s structural, not just a flavour.
The recipe says “white cooking chocolate” simply because that was the label on the bar Nigella used, but a good eating white chocolate with enough cocoa butter works just as well. Check the label rather than the wording on the front, since a proper cocoa butter content is what you’re actually after.
Why didn’t my cheesecake set?
Almost always, it’s the chocolate. Nigella’s team explains this is a no-bake, mousse-like cheesecake, softer than a baked one, but it should still be set rather than runny. If it stayed loose, the likely culprit is white chocolate high in sugar, milk solids and vegetable fats, which won’t firm up even after a long chill.
The other factor is the cream cheese. Use full-fat, drained of any liquid as the recipe specifies, since low-fat versions carry more water and loosen the filling. Whip the cream only to soft, floppy peaks too, because over-whipping before folding can split the mixture and stop it setting cleanly.
Can I make it ahead?
Yes, and it’s built for it. The overnight set in the fridge isn’t optional, it’s how the cheesecake reaches its tenderly firm consistency, so you have to make it at least the day before. That makes it an ideal dinner-party dessert you prepare in advance and forget about.
It keeps well chilled for a couple of days beyond that, though the gingernut base gradually softens as it sits against the filling. If you’re planning a whole meal from the same book, it pairs naturally after her chicken with red grapes and Marsala, which comes from the same At My Table series and is equally happy made partly ahead.
Why a gingernut base instead of digestives?
The spice is the point. Nigella chooses gingernuts because their warm, gingery bite offsets the buttery vanilla of the white chocolate and the tang of the cream cheese, giving the dessert some backbone against an otherwise very pale, creamy filling. Digestives would be blander and let the sweetness dominate.
Gingernuts also bring more butter-binding crunch, setting into a firm base. If you can’t get them, other spiced biscuits like ginger thins work, but avoid anything too soft or sugary, which won’t hold the base together under the weight of the filling.
How should I decorate it?
Nigella loves it pale, plain and unadorned, so decoration is entirely optional. When she wants to dress it up, she partyfies it with a sprinkling of chopped pistachios and a bright scattering of pomegranate seeds, which add colour, crunch and a little sharpness against the creamy top.
Those additions also make it look festive with almost no effort, handy for Christmas or a celebration. A fruit swirl or compote works too, since the mild filling takes to sharp fruit well, in the same way her prodigious pavlova leans on bright winter fruit against a sweet base.
Can I remove it from the tin base?
Nigella advises against it, from experience. She warns you shouldn’t expect to lift the whole cheesecake cleanly off the tin’s metal base unless you’re both patient and dexterous, admitting she was once foolhardy enough to try. The soft, no-bake filling simply isn’t firm enough to survive the manoeuvre reliably.
The safe approach is to serve it straight from the springform base, unclipping and removing only the ring. Let it sit out for 10 minutes first, which takes the fridge-hard chill off and gives you cleaner slices, wiping the knife between cuts.
