DB: Cheesecake! Delish...

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

I was excited to see Cheesecake as this month's Daring Baker's challenge! As usual every month I get a little apprehensive with the challenges. Always something just a bit out of my comfort zone. Things I like to eat, but not necessarily make. Close to something I know or have tried, but always just out of the reach of familiarity. I've made little cheesecakelets, but never made a whole cake at once, never made the crust, and never dealt with a water bath or a springform pan. The concept of something needing a water bath scares me away from pursuing that recipe. I didn't even have a springform pan until I stole one of my mom's a few months ago because she had two. The pan is a square one, nontraditional, but its what my mom had in her closet. The square pan was problematic when it came to the water bath.

This cheesecake was easy to assemble and bake. Much less complicated than I expected. There was not much clean up and very few steps involved. There were many different variations on the original cheesecake. Part of the challenge was to take a basic Cheeecake recipe and make it our own. We were supposed to put a personal spin on the recipe, so if you read other Daring Bakers you'll see thousands of cheesecake ideas, from vegan to double decker, there's something different for every one! I decided on the Key Lime Cheesecake with a chocolate graham crust. Refreshing and citrusy, perfect for all the hot weather we've been having! Today is supposed to get up to 94 degrees! I made a chocolate graham crust, that ended up being chocolate Teddy Grahams, Graham Crackers and Vanilla Wafers ground. I was short on the Teddy Grahams, and then only had a few graham crackers, and just enough vanilla wafers to make the needed 2 cups. Here's the cake in the pan. You can see a couple spots where the Saran Wrap touched the top and pulled out a divot, and a nibble mark on the side where my mom and I tasted it while it was still cooling. We couldn't wait hours and hours for it to cool down, we needed to know how it was Right THEN!

The side view, you can see the chocolate graham crust. It's a teensy bit soggy, I don't think my springform pan is 100% waterproof.

Yum! the cake is sooo good! When I pulled out the first piece I took a fork and went to town on the cake in the pan. It was delicious! Light, refreshing, creamy summery treat. The lime taste comes through strong but not overpowering.

I will definitely make this Cheesecake again, probably with a different variation, caramel apple sounds good right? MmmMmmm. As always, check out all the Daring Baker's creations, they are truly amazing!

Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake:

crust:
2 cups / 180 g graham cracker crumbs (Or combo chocolate Teddy Grahams, graham crackers, and vanilla wafers)
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
3 tbsp. Lime juice

Zest of 1 lime

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 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.

Pan note: The creator of this recipe used to use a springform pan, but no matter how well she wrapped the thing in tin foil, water would always seep in and make the crust soggy. Now she uses one of those 1-use foil "casserole" shaped pans from the grocery store. They're 8 or 9 inches wide and really deep, and best of all, water-tight. When it comes time to serve, just cut the foil away.

Go Green...like a Leprachaun!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! To celebrate the luck o' the Irish I made Irish soda bread and cupcake number 6 of my Martha's cupcake countdown, Cheesecake! Who doesn't love cheesecake? I put green food coloring in it to make it more festive. They were super easy to make, especially when you substitute a single vanilla wafer in the bottom of each muffin liner instead of the given crust! It's a simple switch, and it cuts down on like 20 min of the recipe. You can find the recipe here. I also made a blackberry sauce to go on top instead of the apricot jam topping. YUMMM!!

Mini Cheesecakes

Makes 18.

18 vanilla wafers

1 pound cream cheese, softened (2 blocks)

1/2 teaspoon pure vani

lla extract

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

1/2 cup sour cream

Green Food Coloring (if desired)

Pinch of salt

Berries, and sugar to taste

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Line 18 cupcake tins with

liner and place one vanilla wafer in the bottom of each. Beat cream cheese with a mixer on medium speed until light and smooth. Add remaining 1/2 cup sugar, then vanilla. With mixer running, add eggs slowly, scraping down side of bowl. Add sour cream and salt. Add food coloring if desired. Fill almost to top.

Bake until sides are set but centers are wobbly, about 20 minutes. Let cool in tins on wire racks. Wrap tins tightly with plastic, and refrigerate 4 hours or overnight. Macerate berries and sugar, let sit 30 min, to let the berries soften and juices release. Top with berries and serve! Enjoy!

I also made an Irish Soda Bread! MKMW this month chose Ireland as the destination, how fitting! I wanted to make corned beef, but was behind the eight ball in terms of brining the meat for 2 weeks as I saw suggested! It all turned out fine though, the bread was delicious, and not something I probably would have made by my own volition.

I was worried because I tasted one version at our local grocery store and I did not like it one bit! It was dry and salty and a little bitter from the soda. Not a fan. But I went ahead and made it anyways, and boy am I glad I did! It is cakelike, but with a thicker crust, and less sweet. I added cinnamon and golden raisins instead of caraway and raisins... I don't have caraway in the spice cabinet, and I prefer golden raisins. It is FANTASTIC served with butter toasted. Super good! I will definitely make it again and I'm contemplating trying to turn it into french toast... hmm.. we'll see!

Irish Soda Bread

2.5 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tablespoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, cut into cubes, room temperature

1 1/4 cups raisins

2 tablespoons cinnamon

1 1/4 cups buttermilk (I used milk with vinegar, buttermilk had succumbed to spoilage)

3/4 large egg

Preheat oven to 350°F. Generously butter 9 in cake pan. Whisk first 5 ingredients and cinnamon in large bowl to blend. Add butter; using fingertips, rub in until coarse crumbs form. Stir in raisins. Whisk buttermilk and egg in measuring cup to blend. Add to dough; using silicone spatula, stir just until well incorporated (dough will be very sticky).

Transfer dough to prepared pan. Bake until bread is cooked through and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 1 hour 15 minutes. Cool bread in skillet 10 minutes. Turn out onto rack and cool completely. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Wrap tightly in foil; store at room temperature.) Serve toasted with a generous application of butter!

Lastly, I would like to shout out Bev's Ice Cream, here in Richmond, Va, for a Samoas ice cream that really made my rainy Saturday special!!! Bev's is a local ice cream shop that makes in store all sorts of delicious ice cream flavors and other yummy desserts. It's the perfect way to end a meal! They have a standard set of about 12 or so flavors, then featured flavors of ice cream, sorbet, sugar free, etc. It is a gem of a place, worth every penny! This Samoas ice cream was homemade chocolate ice cream, caramel, coconut and chunks of samoa cookies. DELICIOUS!