The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.
I hate to admit, but I am not a fan of cheesecake. I love cake. I love cheese. I love cream cheese (particularly on bagels!), but not a fan of cheesecake. (I am also not a fan of ice-cream cake though I love ice cream and I love cake. Go figure…)
My sister’s husband, on the other hand, is a big fan of cheesecake. So cheesecake has featured a couple of times as my selection of birthday cake for him in the past. My first attempt though was disastrous. I found a seemingly simple baked cheesecake recipe and managed to make a mess of it. I prepared and baked it per instruction, but was left with a massive crack or two along the top. I fondly termed it the San Andreas Cheesecake to play up the error.
After the failure, I obviously needed to do some troubleshooting. I identified the problem. No water bath. So when another birthday for my brother in law rolled around, I gave the cheesecake another whirl. This time, I am pleased to announce success.
So for this month’s Daring Baker’s challenge, I was quietly confident I could produce a ‘crack free’ cake. The only question was how creative could be. After considering a few outrageous flavour combinations, I settled on a simple caramel cheesecake. I always seem to opt for simple.
Why caramel? Mostly because I have never filled a cheesecake before and wanted to trial that outcome. Also, because my lovely Chilean friend K. is always thinking about caramel so the flavour was top of mind.
As challenges go, this for me was pretty simple having made cheesecake before. I was secretly grateful given some of the more time intensive baked goods I have been tackling this month (sourdough, bagels, brioche and croissants).
If you love cheesecake, this is a perfect recipe. Proof? After taking photos for this post, the cake was practically inhaled. Major contributors include my partner (another cheesecake lover), my brother-in-law (of course), and my little Easter helpers, my nieces. Every time I turned around another chunk had disappeared. So proof enough for me!
Here is the basic recipe.
{ Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake }
* Ingredients *
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.
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.
Prep notes: While the actual making of this cheesecake is a minimal time commitment, it 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.
April 27, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Julia, as if I’m not going to visit your blog to see your fabulous cheesecake! tsk. First off, the colours are gorgeous! And your cheesecake looks perfect! I’m with you about loving cheese and cake, but not usually together. Wish I were related to people who were cheesecake lovers though! I don’t mind baking the odd one.
April 27, 2009 at 8:57 pm
Oh, wow! Your cheesecake is elegant and sophisticated, and the photographs wonderful.
How lovely!
April 27, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Julia, your cheesecake turns out perfect!! No cracks, even top, even with that gooey sticky delicious caramel filling between the crust and the cheesecake. Excellent job!!
April 27, 2009 at 9:25 pm
Your cheesecake looks fabulous and once again, your photographs are fantastic. Thanks for sharing.
April 27, 2009 at 9:41 pm
Y – well, secretly I was hoping you’d take a peek. 😉 But seriously, where do you get your creativity? Amazing.
Lisa – thank you. I was trying to channel ‘simple and elegant’. But your versions were great, too! 🙂
Christy – yes, pretty happy. Always good to turn out a cake that doesn’t look like a fault line! Next time that happens to me, I’ll resort to your Plan B. Good idea….
Corry – thanks. 🙂 Checked your blog earlier tonight and noticed you didn’t participate in DB?? Are you going to sign up?
April 28, 2009 at 10:49 pm
Yes, I definitely will be. What a great group.
April 27, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Very nice indeed! And what do you mean yours was a predictable cake. It looks fabulous!
April 27, 2009 at 10:28 pm
Beautiful cheesecake, Julia. I love coming to your site and viewing your photos. I’m linking you on my website.
April 27, 2009 at 10:38 pm
Your cheesecake looks incredibly scrumptious and beautiful! I can’t resist anything made with caramel!
Cheers,
Rosa
April 28, 2009 at 2:09 am
I LOVE caramel cheesecake, and yours is gorgeous! Love your photos and how you presented it in the photos – incredible job!!
April 28, 2009 at 3:03 am
Nicely presented and absolutely delicious looking cheesecakes.
April 28, 2009 at 6:24 am
this is a great cake…
well done my dear…
I am going to do the caramel cake
next week for my friend..
April 28, 2009 at 6:54 am
Lovely photos and the caramel sounds so delicious!!! Beautiful blog!
April 30, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Julia, that looks amazing! Such a lovely collage 🙂 XOXO
April 30, 2009 at 9:22 pm
Beautiful photos and great idea! Did you try the cheesecake and like it? Like you, I don’t really like cheesecake (also love them separately), but am interested to see if I would like a different version like your caramel cheesecake.
June 6, 2009 at 4:24 am
This looks gorgeous, so perfect and creamy. And I really love that caramel oozing out at the bottom. I’m so glad the recipe went over so well. Sorry I am late in getting to your post. I’m determined to visit each of the 1k+ Daring Bakers who did this challenge. Thanks for being a part of it!
Jenny of JennyBakes
July 31, 2009 at 7:57 pm
[…] Caramel Cheesecake :: Stylish and sweet. A foolproof recipe for baked cheesecake. Use lashings of gooey caramel […]
August 4, 2009 at 6:26 pm
I was attracted by the fool-proof description of this recipe. Will give it a go. It looks fantastic. Thanks for sharing!
August 23, 2009 at 8:35 am
Hi
Is this your version of the caramel cheesecake you made. Also what kind of liqueur did you use.