Saturday's Sweets: New York Style Cheesecake

Hello, everyone. 

I hope you are having a beautiful weekend and really take these two days to rest, relax and center yourselves. You deserve it.

This week's recipe is very special because it comes from a fabulous fellow blogger. 

Maria from Shade of Whim has written a rather delightful guest post on her first (and very successful) attempt at making a cheesecake! This is one of those recipes that most of us are afraid to try. It is a baking milestone, if I may. One that I have not yet reached, but that Maria has given me inspiration to try.

Enjoy!

I was so excited when the lovely Amanda Rose asked me be her guest blogger today!  I've been admiring her baking-star-powers for so long that I was crossing fingers and toes to get my recipe right. I really wanted to try something new for this post, something I hadn't been brave enough to tackle in the baking department yet – baked cheesecake!  Admittedly, it’s probably not the safest choice but the end result was a gorgeous (and delicious) success! Everyone thought I’d been slaving over mixers and spring form pans but in reality, this cake is simpler to whip up than I thought.  In 2 hours (plus chilling time) you can have your own classic New York cheesecake too. My interpretation of Martha Stewart’s recipe went like this…

New York Style Cheesecake

Ingredients:

For crust:

5 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted, plus room-temperature butter for the pan

12 graham crackers, 3-by-5 inch (these are digestive biscuits in Australia)

1/4 c. sugar

1/4 tsp. coarse salt

For cake filling:

2 1/2 lbs. bar cream cheese, room temperature

1 1/2 c. sugar

1 tsp. finely grated lemon zest

1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice

1/2 tsp. coarse salt

4 large eggs

1 c. sour cream

Instructions:

-preheat oven to 180 degrees-

1.  Butter a 9x3 inch spring form pan. In a food processor, pulse graham crackers until fine crumbs form; add melted butter, sugar, and salt, and pulse to combine.

Press crumb mixture into pan and about 1 inch up side of pan. Bake until set, 12-15 minutes; let cool on a wire rack.

2. Set a kettle of water to boil. With an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese in a bowl on medium until fluffy, scraping down the side of the bowl. Gradually add the sugar, beating until fluffy   Next, beat in lemon zest, lemon juice and salt. Then, beat in eggs, on at a time, scraping down the side of the bowl after each addition. Finally, beat in the sour cream.

3. Wrap the bottom half of the spring form pan in foil. Pour the cake filling in and place in a roasting pan. Then, pour boiling water around the spring form pan until it comes halfway up the side. Bake until just set in the center, about 1 3/4 hours. It might not seem done, but it is and will set more while cooling. Remove the pan from the water, let cool for 20 minutes. Run a paring knife around the edge, let cool completely. Once cooled, run a paring knife around the edge just to be sure the cake is not going to stick. Then unlock and remove the spring form pan. Remove the cake from the pan base, carefully sliding it off, again using the paring knife to run underneath the graham cracker base. Cover and chill overnight for best results before serving. 

This would be delicious topped with some fresh berries or chocolate flakes!