Daring Cheesecake

The Daring Bakers have rolled up their collective sleeves and worked on the lastest challenge... cheesecake! The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

There isn't a lot of cheese cake in this house. Although we find it on every restaurant menu, we don't tend to order it. Usually we find the texture a bit pasty and the cheesecake sticks to the roof of the mouth. But, but, this cheesecake.... well, holy moly the texture was divine!

Jenny would be so proud of her friend for bringing another person over to the cheese cake side of life. The recipe was modified to be gluten free and booze free - booze on the side please, it packs a bigger punch! The original recipe can be found at Jenny Bakes or at the Daring Kitchen where there is a gorgeous slide show of some of the creations of our members.

Rather than contend with a potentially soggy crust, I bought disposable aluminium tins for smaller cheesecakes. The recipe made a total of 8 cheesecakes and each serves at least 3 people. The added bonus was that the baking time was cut in half because of the smaller cheesecakes.

Just Poured Cheesecake



Cheesecake based on Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake

Crust
200 gram (1 & 2/3 cups) sweetened flaked coconut
60 mL (1/4 cup) flax seed meal
60 mL (1/4 cup) coconut flour (can be omitted but I had leftovers.... so in it went)
30 mL (2 tbsp) sugar
125 mL (1/2 cup) butter
5 mL (1 tsp) pure vanilla extract


Cheesecake
3 sticks of cream cheese room temperature
1 cup / 383 g sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup / 8 oz heavy cream
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
1 tbsp liqueur, optional

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven 350 degrees F. Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

2. Mix together 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 & sugar in bowl of stand-mixer, cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl 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.

Ready for the Oven


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.

Note When cooked in one large pan, the cheesecake does need to bake for almost an hour, cool in the oven for an hour, and chill overnight before it is served. Please plan accordingly! The smaller pans required only 1/2 hour cooking and 1/2 hour cooling in the oven.

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Styling my cheesecake turned out to be a gloopy mashed potato mess of a disaster. Even though the worst disasters make the best stories, my strategy was a cover up. The sprinkling of coconut and caramel sauce was my attempt at camouflage.

Quellia, the next time I complain about my heap of cake, I will take pictures!

Oops, my cheesecake had an accident... the shame... the shame...



Lessons Learned

1) Smaller cheesecakes save time and make more sense for portion size.

2) Take pictures of decorating disasters instead of just eating them. That way your friends can laugh with you.

3) Never judge a cheesecake by previous cheesecakes.

4) My new motto for my lack of decorating skills is "I don't play with your food before you do."