Sunday, February 14, 2010

Happy Valentine's Day with Cheesecake!

Valentine's Day is upon us and I had a request from friend for a cheesecake. The conversation mentioned both chocolate cake and cheesecake so I knew I needed to incorporate chocolate. So, while I should have been baking my dearest something for lover's day (hey, he said he wants to lose some weight anyways!), I was whipping up this amazing cheesecake. I would have loved a slice!
The cheesecake recipe I have is a basic play on a New York style cheesecake (and a cheesecake isn't a cheesecake to me unless its been baked). You can use the basic recipe and throw in whatever you'd like. Melt down some white chocolate, throw in cookie pieces (I used Oreos), pieces of candy bar or chocolate chips. Leave it plain. Go crazy. Now, if you want just cheesecake, no thick crust or topping, go to the Lindy's link below and use the full recipe. I cut it down because I wasn't aiming for a thick cake.
Crust, that's up to you. I used chocolate cookies, oreos, a bit of sugar and a bit of butter. I don't measure anything, but you can look this stuff up. I usually prefer using graham crackers for cheesecake crust.

Basic New York Style Cheesecake
adapted from Lindy's New York Cheesecake

Ingredients
600g (that was three tubs for me) of cream cheese
1 cup sugar
2 tbsp flour
3 large eggs
1 egg yolk
2 vanilla pods, seeded (or 2 tsp vanilla... you can omit if you don't like vanilla).
4 tbsp heavy cream

Directions

Preheat that oven of yours to max. 450F, 500F, 230C, whatever you've got.
If you have a lower rack, put it on the bottom and put a pan of water in the oven.

Beat your cream cheese.
Add sugar, vanilla, flour.
Add eggs one at a time, then the egg yolk.
Add the cream.

Don't over beat, just beat it until mixed. On a low speed. If you mix it at a high speed you are going to put bubbles into your cheesecake and its going to crack in the oven.
Gently stir in your mixins, if you want any.

Pour it in a springform pan, 9 or 10". Then, run a knife through the batter in a S-shape a few times.

Put in the oven for 10 minutes. In 10 minutes, cut the oven down to 250F/120C. For one hour. DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN. EVER. AT ALL. FOR THE WHOLE HOUR AND TEN. You'll crack that cheese cake.
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On my cake, I waited for it to cool, melted down some chocolate and made sure it stayed tempered, then poured it over the top of my cheesecake and put it in the fridge overnight. Perfect. The writing on my cake is in royal icing.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

That's so interesting! The cheesecake I make doesn't use flour. Is that specific to NY cheesecake?

Candace said...

Seems to be-- I don't think it affects the texture so much as helps keep it from cracking :)

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