Daring Bakers April 2009 Cheesecake

Woo Hoo!! Another DB Challenge. Fun. I'm enjoying this.


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

So I was going to do a Tiramisu Cheesecake and make ladyfingers from scratch and all that but I ran out of time.



I ended up making a chocolate, coffee and vanilla cheesecake with a gingersnap crust and a little ganache decoration on top.



I think it looks pretty good. The vanilla to coffee layer is a little uneven but .... depends on where you look!




Here's a different side view.


I made a 7 inch cake and had batter left over so two little cheesecakes (3 inch) were born.




Here's the whole family. Sadly I have already eaten one of the small ones by myself. I must admit, they are really good.

It's a great, easy recipe and came out just fine. I didn't add any sugar or vanilla to the gingersnap crust. I did add some powdered ginger on top of it before I put down the cheesecake filling so it gave it some extra snap.

The insides.




I made the recipe as instructed then split the batter into thirds and added 4oz of bittersweet chocolate to the chocolate layer. For the coffee layer I dissolved 1TB instant espresso powder in 3TB boiling water, then kept adding to the batter until i got the taste I wanted. I like it strong so it was almost the whole amount. I left the vanilla layer as is per the recipe, then poured each layer in and that was it!

Thanks Jenny Bakes! Now to get rid of the rest of the cheesecake before I eat all of it!!!


Here's the Recipe:

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.

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!

My FIRST Daring Baker Challenge!!!

My first challenge! I don't cook - I bake, so this was really a challenge. I have never made pasta before so I decided to go ahead with the recipe even though I usually stay off the gluten. Figured it would be best to start with the normal way of making it before I get all modification-y on it.


The beginning of the pasta mixing is a mess.



Finally the dough is in a ball and resting

Rolling it out was very very tough. I was concerned that it did not get silky and the gluten was building it up and I was making something more like kindergarten paste but I kept at it!




Here's the pasta rolled out and cut. I'm pretty sure I'm not doing this right but.... Onward!

So I'm veggie and chose to use an onion ragu for this dish rather than the meat one and because of the bechamel and the parmesan I thought choosing a "white" ragu could be kinda cool.

Here's the recipe found online:

Onion Ragu
(adapted from Scopa)

1 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 TB finely chopped garlic
4 Lbs Spanish onions, peeled & thinly sliced
5 to 6 scallions, sliced to make 1 cup
2 leeks, white and light green parts only, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
1/2 cup fnely chopped pickled cherry peppers
1/2 cup liquid from pickled cherry peppers
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley


1. In a large heavy-bottomed pot over low heat, warm olive oil and add garlic. Slowly saute garlic just until light golden brown. Add onions, scallions and leeks, and mix well. Cover and simmer until onions are very soft and beginning to caramelize, about 1 1/2 hours.

2. Add cherry peppers and pickling liquid, and mix well. Cover, and simmer for 20 minutes.

4. Season ragu with salt and pepper to taste, and mix in the parsley.

Yield: 6 to 8 servings.





Lots of onions to chop! The house smelled pretty good though I must say.



Dried pasta ready to go. It was too thick. I rolled and rolled and I think it was too thick.

So I had the ragu ready, had the bechamel ready and followed the pasta directions for boiling, dipping in cool water, then draining on paper towels. I began the assembly. But then ---



Bechemel a la floor. I got about half of the lasagna put together with the bechemel. Oh well. No counter space in the kitchen. Grrrr. The dog enjoyed it.



Okay so here we are assembled and ready to bake. The pickled peppers seem like a strange addition to an onion ragu but it does add color.

So 40 minutes covered at 350 degrees, then another 10 minutes without the foil, then 10 minutes of resting and voila!


It looks pretty good and smells good too.




It does slip and slide a little but it is actually really good. Hubby went back twice. I had thought about adding a small can of tomato paste to the ragu but since I hadn't made it before I thought I'd just try it per the recipe this time. I think next time I will add the paste. And I might buy the pasta or buy a roller machine if I'm going to this often. Plus you can always use the roller for fondant and gum paste. This is how I'm trying to, in my mind, justify getting the roller thingy.

All in all pretty fun. I look forward to making sweets on the next one. This was definitely outside any kind of baking comfort zone I have. Thanks!!

Blog coming soon...

This blog coming soon. When I DB.