My Second Attempt at No-bake Jello Blueberry Cheesecake

I saw this recipe (in Chinese) a long time ago and actually made it before... with a catastrophic result: 

Figure 1. The Golden Standard

Figure 2. Disaster Overlook

Figure 3. Disaster Sliced Look

Granted, it tasted pretty well, but the presentation was well... it needed improvement. I thought I would never make this cake again due to the complexity, but since I accidentally backed into my neighbour's car a few days ago and he didn't even want compensation, my mother-in-law suggested to make him this cake as an apology.

Following is the recipe, translated, and with my own adaptation...

Materials:

• 1 bag of Oreo cookies (yeah, this was vague, so I just bought enough mini chocolate cookies from the bulk section... however, I noticed that there was something called Oreo Baking Crumbs that you can buy in a box, so this would be more convenient next time)
• 40 g butter (I used salted, it worked fine; however you should probably use as much butter as needed to make your crumbs semi-stick)
• 250 g cream cheese
• 30 g granulated sugar
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 250 mL whipping cream
• 40 g icing sugar
• 200 g (+some for decoration) of blueberries
• 30 g rock sugar (this sugar tends to taste less sweet than granulated, but I guess this is not readily available in non-Asian kitchens, so maybe one can substitute it with 25 g granulated sugar and taste around the same)
• 1 tbsp maltose (this isn't even readily available in Asian kitchens, so I just substituted it with 1 tbsp honey... honey is a bit sweeter though)
• 1 tbsp rum (I didn't add this, don't know what it does)
• 1 pack of blueberry-flavoured jello (I couldn't find this, so I used grape-flavoured jello... was good enough)
• 1/3 gelatine sheet (I couldn't find it in sheets, so I just used 2 packs of Knox powdered gelatin. )

Process (there are very nice pictures in the original recipe):

The Blueberry Filling

1. Wash the blueberries.
2. Heat the berries in a pot and crush them a little in the process.
3. Add the 30 g rock sugar (or 25 g granulated sugar) and 1 tbsp maltose (or 1 tbsp honey) to the mixture when the mixture boils.
4. Cook it until it thickens.
5. Add 1 tbsp of rum and chill for later use (I put the whole pot in an ice-water bath).

The Crust

1. Crush the cookies in a grinder.
2. Add enough room-temperature butter to the cookie crumbs and mix them until you get a semi-sticking lump (I usually don't plan ahead enough to obtain room-temperature of anything, so I just melted the butter. Don't know if this affects the sticky property.)
3. Line the bottom of the cake pan with tin foil.
4. Spread and press the buttered cookie crumbs evenly across the pan.

The Cake

1. Soak the gelatine leaf in cold water for 20-30 minutes (ignore this if using powdered gelatin).
2. Cut the cream cheese into small chunks and blend them in a container that is immersed in a warm water bath. Refer to Figure 4 below if confused.



Figure 4. Cream Cheese and Warm Water Bath

3. Blend in the 30 g granulated sugar and 1 tsp lemon juice until no visible chunks are present. Put aside.
4. Pour the 250 mL whipping cream and 40 g icing sugar into one of those big yogurt containers (or something about as tall and big).
5. Blend the whipping cream at high speed while immersing the container in an ice bath, similar to the warm water bath setup before. Stop when the cream reaches the "stiff peak" stage. Refer to the video below, starting at around the 1 minute mark.







Pour the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture and blend.
If you are using the powdered gelatin, follow the instructions on the package. In this case, I had to dissolve 2 packs of powder in 1/2 cup of cold water then 1/2 cup of boiling water. 
Blend the liquid gelatin with the cream cheese/whipped cream mixture.
Pour half of the cake mix into the cake pan.
Pour the filling into the pan and distribute it eventually.
Pour the rest of the cake mix into the cake pan.
Follow the instructions on the jello package. I took the package's suggestion for a quick set and just added 2 cups of ice (instead of 1 cup of cold water) and stirred until it thickened (take out the unmelted ice). THIS WAS MY FAILING POINT LAST TIME. What happened was that the jello was too hot for the mixture and so it punctured through the softly-settled cake mix and submerged to the bottom. Since the jello this time is already semi-set when you take out the ice, you can spoon off small portions of jello and gently spread it across the cake without breaking the surface tension. 
Drop fresh blueberries on top of the jello to decorate.
Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
Use a blow dryer to melt the edges before removing the cake from the mould to ensure the cake can dissociate freely.

And voila! Here is the result this time, MUCH prettier:

Figure 5. Success Overlook

Figure 6. Success Sliced

It tasted AWESOME!! <3