Cheesecake thoughts

Last night I made a cheesecake for no particular reason. I've been doing a lot of cooking and baking and for some reason last night, I just started baking. The kitchen was all clean. Dishes were put away, stove and sink clear...and I just had to bake. So I started making cheesecake. It helped that I had some cream cheese that I had accidentally left out for a few hours, so I used it.

The cheesecake recipe is from Christy's mother-in-law. She reappropriated and retitled it (Doyle's Secret Cheesecake) from another source. Christy's brother-in-law made it for her baby shower and it was delicious. So I asked for the recipe and last night, I made it for the first time. I'll include it below unless Christy objects, in which case I will reappropriate it from her, retitle it and post it with a slight modification. :D

Anyhow, this is the first cheesecake I've made that did not involve a bain marie. Interestingly, it is baked directly in a springform without the bain marie. Texturally, it worked pretty well, but the sour cream thing. Sigh. That didn't work so well.

The sour cream topping is an important part of cheesecake for me. It is a contrast to the sweetness of the cream cheese part, which is the majority of the cheesecake. Unfortunately, during baking the cheesecake itself is still quite delicate. And...the sour cream is rather dense...and well, it sank. The whole center two inches of my cheesecake is sour cream. In an...unpleasant way. At least for me. Eating a whole bite of sour cream is not exactly my idea of dessert. At least the rest of the cheesecake turned out well. The texture was a little softer than I wanted. I think I will try baking it in a bain marie, more so that it solidifies a little more but doesn't brown quite so much. Plus, it will keep the sides down a little and keep the whole thing a little more uniform in texture.

Anyhow, it at least looks nice. Not too much cracking. Note that after taking the cheesecake out, I ran a knife around the edge of the cheesecake immediately so that as it cooled, the whole cheesecake would contract and not crack. It was a little cracked prior to the application of the sour cream, and there were three tiny little cracks in the center after it cooled for 24 hours in the fridge. But given what I've seen in the past, this was fantastic!



But here, after I unmolded and sliced it, where you can see how far down the sour cream went. It certainly explained a lot about why the top layer felt thin and I could see the darkness of the toasted cream cheese part. It almost looks like I was making a two-flavor cheesecake or something.





All in all, I think this is a good base recipe. I had to fight my tendencies to mess with the recipe. I wanted to add Meyer lemon zest and juice to make it nice and lemony, but I figured I should get the base model down first.

So here is the recipe, exactly as provided to me by Christy. And my notes about it follow.

Doyle's Secret Cheesecake

Ingredients:
1 pkg Graham crackers
1 cube butter
1 Tablespoon sugar
4 large eggs
1 cup sugar
3 x 8 oz. cream cheese
2 Teaspoons vanilla
1 pint sour cream

Take cream cheese from frig 30 min. prior.

Mix:
1 pkg. Graham crackers, crumbed or smashed
1 cube butter, melted
1 Tablespoon sugar
Press into bottom of a 9" spring form pan.
Bake 375 degrees for 8 min.

Filling:
Beat eggs and 1 cup sugar.
Add one at a time, 3 x 8oz. pkgs. cream cheese.
Beat well after each addition and add 2 tsp. vanilla and beat again until smooth.
Pour into crust and bake at 375 degrees for 35 minutes.
Remove pan from oven and top with 1 pt. sour cream to which you have added 2 Tblsp. sugar and 1 tsp. vanilla and mix well.
Bake whole cheesecake for 5 more minutes at 475.
Cool and store overnight in refrigerator.

Amy's notes:

I used a 1/2 cup of butter (one stick) for the crust. I think it could be done with less as the crust was a little butterier than I would like for this type of dessert.

I also ran the crust about a half inch up the side of the springform. I actually like crusts and would have preferred even more, maybe even an inch up since the finished cheesecake was almost two inches high.

The cream cheese I used had been left out for almost four hours. It was *ahem* very soft. It made beating very easy. But as a result, I think I over whipped the cheesecake. It was very soft and I think it contributed to the ease with which the sour cream sank into the middle.

Also, the eggs were at room temperature. One of the keys to getting cheesecake very smooth and creamy is to have everything at room temperature so it blends together nicely. Eggs are no exception. Having used cold eggs once, I learned that they will sieze the cream cheese, making all that time spent bringing the cream cheese up to room temperature a complete loss. So don't use cold eggs!

I applied the sour cream in a practical way without thinking. Next time, I will probably put it into a plastic zip top bag, snip a corner and apply carefully to the edges and let it sink into the center on its own. I also might not use quite so much. The outer third of the cheesecake was actually above the top of the springform when I applied the cream cheese (probably due to over whipping the filling), so the sour cream just fell right down into the middle. I think in a bain marie, that it would not rise quite so much because the water would equalize the cooking from center to edge and that the sour cream would not fall quite so far down into the cheesecake.

The whole thing was softer than expected. I think the cheesecake part could stand another ten minutes of baking prior to applying the sour cream.

After baking, do run a nice thin, sharp knife around the edge, making sure to go all the way down to the bottom (which for me involves a little bit of crust that I run up the sides because I like crusts) so that as it contracts, it will not form Grand Canyon sized cracks.

I sliced the cheesecake using Bon Appetit's recommended method - I ran hot water in the sink and heated the knife before each slice, wiping it with a cloth to dry it and then slicing. The slices were perfectly smooth and there was no tearing or leaking of the layers. It was really nice and clean looking, despite the softness of the cheesecake.

I also served the cheesecake with a blueberry compote. I heated two cups of frozen blueberries with a 1/2 cup of sugar and the juice of half a lemon. After it was nice a syrupy and most of the blueberries popped, about 15 minutes, I took it off the heat and then added two more cups of frozen blueberries to it and put it aside to cool down. It was a nice combination of texture and not too sweet, which worked really well with the cheesecake. I like fruit with cheesecake, but not on top of it.

And that's it. I think I'll be obsessing with cheesecake for a while. If anyone else has any recommendations as to cheesecake recipes, send them on over. I'll be baking a few in the next few weeks. I suspect some people at work will not be happy with me for messing with their new year's resolutions.