Gingerbread Orange No-Bake Cheesecake

✏️ Why you'll love this recipe

This easy cheesecake is a delicious holiday dessert, perfect for any festive celebration or dinner party. This festive no-bake cheesecake recipe is super simple and can be made days in advance.

This no-bake gingerbread orange cheesecake has a ginger cookie crust full of flavour. The Christmas cheesecake filling has an orange flavour to add a smooth zesty taste, but using orange extract for an easy Christmas dessert recipe.

Add fresh orange zest for an extra kick too – it brings out the tangy taste of the cream cheese!

For Christmas and the festive holidays, I love decorating this cheesecake with little gingerbread men and fluffy swirls of whipped cream.

🥘 Ingredients

This ginger orange cheesecake recipe calls for the following ingredients:

1. Base:

• Ginger cookies: e.g. gingersnap cookies, gingernut biscuits or gingerbread
• Butter: use unsalted for a low-salt and sweeter base.

2. Cheesecake Filling:

• Cream cheese: must be full-fat cream cheese (I like Philadelphia for its low water content too). Use room temperature for ease of mixing.
• Powdered icing sugar: sieve your confectioners’ sugar for a smooth filling.
• Orange extract
• Vanilla extract: use extract over essence for a purer flavour.
• Orange zest (optional): finely grated for the best texture.
• Heavy cream (e.g. double cream): use cold cream straight from the fridge for whipping success.

See the recipe card for quantities.

Top tip: For accuracy, it’s best to weigh your ingredients rather than using cups.

♻️ Substitutions / Variations

I love making this gingerbread orange cheesecake for a cute Christmas Day dessert, but it’s great year-round! The crust is made of ginger cookies such as ginger snaps or ginger nuts, which you can buy at grocery stores any time of year.

During the holidays, you can swap ginger cookies for gingerbread. It’s a great way to use up leftover gingerbread!

Instead of ginger cookies, you can use graham crackers or digestive biscuits for the cheesecake base. Add ⅛ teaspoon of ground ginger to keep the spiced ginger flavour.

You can swap powdered confectioners’ sugar for finely granulated white sugar (e.g. caster sugar).

If you don't have orange zest, you can exclude this but it's much tastier with it!

📖 Method

Base

1. Place the cookies into a food processor or blender and whizz until you get small crumbs. Or you can put the cookies in a freezer bag and bash them till you get crumbs. Tip these into a mixing bowl.
2. Melt the butter in a microwave and pour this over the crushed ginger cookies. Mix these together until combined.
3. Press the mix into a lined tin (see tips), using the back of a spoon or measuring cup to help firmly press down. Put this in the fridge or freezer while making the cheesecake filling.

Cheesecake filling

1. In a bowl, beat the cream cheese until smooth and fluffy, then sieve in the icing sugar and add the vanilla, orange extract and the orange zest, stirring until just smooth.
2. Whip the cream for several minutes, using an electric mixer or stand mixer, until it forms soft peaks. Gently fold the whipped cream into the cream cheese mix until just combined.
3. Spread the filling evenly over the biscuit base, then cover the tin with cling film and refrigerate for at least 2hrs or overnight. After this has set and is firm to touch, you can decorate your cheesecake then enjoy!

💭 Top tips

• Using a springform tin (or loose-bottom tin) is easier to get your cheesecake out after.
• Check out these springform pan lining tips to see how best to line your cheesecake tin.
• Instead of a food processor, crush your ginger cookies by placing them into a plastic food bag and bashing them with a rolling pin.
• To help your Christmas cheesecake set, whip cold cream to soft peaks and fold it into your orange cheesecake filling mixture gently.
• To help prevent a soggy base, check whether your ginger cookie base layer is completely cool before you add the cheesecake filling. If not, pop it back into the fridge or freezer for another 10mins until it’s cold.
• Where possible, make your gingerbread cheesecake the day before serving. This way you can let the cheesecake set overnight to be sure it’s nice and firm.
• I like to take my no-bake cheesecake out of the fridge roughly 30mins before serving, bringing it to room temperature. This helps to give you a soft but still crisp base and really gives your gingerbread cheesecake that melt-in-your-mouth texture.
• For Christmas, decorate your festive cheesecake with gingerbread men (store-bought or homemade). Outside the holidays, I decorate my ginger orange no-bake cheesecake with mandarin slices or whipped cream and crumbled ginger cookies.

🧁 Other goodies

Love a festive cheesecake? Check out these tasty Christmas cheesecake ideas:

• White chocolate orange no-bake cheesecake
• No-bake Bailey's white Christmas cheesecake
• Zesty chocolate orange no-bake cheesecake
• Bailey’s Irish cream chocolate no-bake cheesecake
• White mocha baked cheesecake

For more festive sweet treats, take a look at my boozy spiced orange rum brownie cookies – delicious fresh from the oven or great as a gift!

If you're after easy no-bake festive desserts, check out this list of the 80+ best no-bake Christmas dessert recipes!