Daring Bakers April Challenge: Cheesecake

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

This month’s challenge left the daring bakers with a lot of liberty.  Jenny provided the recipe for her friend Abbey’s Infamous cheesecake (which is found further along in this post), which is a basic cheesecake recipe and left the flavoring and decor up to individual taste.  Being American, I really enjoy a creamy cheesecake, however I’ve only made real cheesecake a couple times, so I was somewhat nervous about this challenge.  First of all I had to do some ingredient substitution.  In France, it is not always easy to find cream cheese.  There are some overpriced stores that carry american cream cheese, catering to American/expats, as well as what you can find in the standard markets, the french call it fromage à tartiner (spreadable cream cheese) and turns into a liquid mess the moment you begin to stir it.  Having already made that mistake once, I chose to substitute with mascarpone cheese, just to see what would happen.

Inspired by my favorite meal of the day, breakfast, I decided to perfume my cheesecake with a blend of Earl Grey and Jasmine teas.  For the graham cracker crust, I used bolacha Maria, crisp portuguese cookies that are easily found in local groceries, toasted ground almonds, oatmeal flour and orange zest. 

I was sad to find that even though I tightly covered my moulds with layers of aluminum foil, that water still leaked in and in some cases not just a little.  Two of the little moulds were flooded.  I usually don’t have any problems baking with a bain-marie, but it happens.  C’est la vie, that’s life.  

here are the little cheesecakes, all sorts and sizes ready to be baked in their bain-marie (water bath) 

Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake:

crust:
2 cups / 180 g graham cracker crumbs
1 stick / 4 oz butter, melted
2 tbsp. / 24 g sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

cheesecake:
3 sticks of cream cheese, 8 oz each (total of 24 oz) room temperature
1 cup / 210 g sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup / 8 oz heavy cream
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean)
1 tbsp liqueur, optional, but choose what will work well with your cheesecake

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (Gas Mark 4 = 180C = Moderate heat). Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker’s choice. Set crust aside.

3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.

4. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

5. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done - this can be hard to judge, but you’re looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don’t want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won’t crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve.