Cake baking is fun, exciting, simple, and delicious, but somehow, it always results in a lot of waste. Whether it's the shaving of cake crumbs off the top of a cake, the extra decorations that somehow never get finished, or the giant pot of leftover frosting going bad in the fridge, there is plenty of excess to work with.
Unfortunately, this excess often gets completely wasted.
I too have been stuck in the place of having to throw away leftover cake frosting that I didn’t use, but after multiple occasions of this devastating act, I decided to make a change.
So after making cream cheese frosting and gaining a lot of leftover, I used the remaining frosting to make cheesecake!
With the simple addition of more cream cheese and more chocolate, I was able to make a delicious no-bake cheesecake batter that was as good as any cheesecake I have ever made. You could even add ricotta cheese, mascarpone cheese, or heavy whipping cream to get an even creamier and lighter cake. Tip: make sure to whip your batter with a whisk for a few minutes to get a fluffy and light cake batter!
As for the crust, I improvised. With an absence of graham crackers, I made a quick almond brittle, blended it up to make a praline, and used that as the crust. Of course, graham crackers would work just as well, but the praline was a quick and easy way to improvise a crunchy, sweet, and savory crust.
Lastly, I packed the praline into a cake pan, layered the cake batter on top, and left the cake to rest in the fridge for four hours. The resulting chocolate almond praline cheesecake was scrumptious!
No, this isn’t a conventional or specific recipe, but its a practical way for anyone to reuse and recycle old cake frosting. All kinds of frosting work well, and the type and amount of frosting affects the amount of cream cheese to add to the batter. To take your cake to the next level, you can even add additional flavoring or toppings to create a whole new experience. Cinnamon, lemon, vanilla, chocolate, cookie crumble, sorbet—the list is endless.
While recent years have brought creative new foods and desserts to household kitchens across the world, an often overlooked consequence has been an excess of food waste and unused materials. Now more than ever, it's pertinent to make the most of every resource we are given and create as little waste as possible. By doing these simple things, such as using leftover frosting to make new foods, we can not only conserve materials and preserve food, but also create deliciously mouth-watering byproducts. My own personal favorite: cheesecake:)
Enjoy!