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4/27/09

Daring Bakers: Cheesecake

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

Since I've made cheesecake before, I wasn't afraid of this challenge (something that typically doesn't happen after I read what Daring Bakers challenge us to do!).

Alas, somehow I was uninspired to come up with something extraordinary, and settled on following the recipe to a "t" and only adding zest of an entire orange to the filling. I also made the cheesecakes in muffin liners: individual portions are always my favorite!

Overall, the recipe came together without a hitch. But, after the cheesecake muffins were baked for 30 minutes, I opened the oven door and could not believe my eyes: they rose by at least one inch and were completely cracked! I was horrified, and too upset to take any photographs.

After sitting in the oven for an hour, however, the cheesecake leveled off, and actually fell slightly. Alas, after chilling in the refrigerator over night it sunk even further.

I was thinking of making sugared orange zest to go on top of the cheesecakes, but then changed my mind: they really were sweet and orange-y enough. And so, below are my un-adorned Orange Zest Cheesecakes.



Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake
crust
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 stick butter, melted
2 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

cheesecake
3 sticks of cream cheese, 8 oz each at room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup 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. 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.

NOTES: I used 2/3rds of the recipe and made 12 individual "muffin" cheesecakes and baked them for 30 minutes. Also, my muffin tin did not fit into any other container. So instead of using a water bath, I just placed a 9x13 Pyrex dish (Thanks, Jenny!!!) with boiling water on the oven rack below the one that was holding up the muffin tin.

20 comments:

♥♥♥♥♥ Jennifer™® ♥♥♥♥♥ said...

your blog is feel good

Esi said...

Mine cracked too, but the taste was good and in the end, that's what matters. Orange sounds good!

Jude said...

Gotta have some form of citrus with cheesecake if you ask me. Sorry to hear about your little mishap. I'm sure they were delicious regardless.

Unknown said...

Great job, these look gorgeous! I have always been intimidated from making cheesecake, but they look less scary as a cupcake. I am going to book mark this and attempt it later. I can tell these would be delish!!

Anonymous said...

I think those look adorable! And delicious too!

Simones Kitchen said...

Mine cracked too... (as you can see on my blog) but well it tasted quite good and the part I used for the photo you can't tell...:)

Dewi said...

I also made it using small individual moulds. They still look delicious even though cracked a little bit.

Justin said...

i love anything in miniature form, especially cheesecake

Ninette said...

Hi Olga, thanks for stopping by my blog. I'm glad you're a Bouchon lover too! My mango cheesecake for the challenge didn't rise or crack at all -- beginner's luck. I read in the forums that overbeating the mixture and adding too much air in the batter will cause the rising/falling thing.

Jenny Tan said...

Hi Olga, thanks for stopping by. I'm sorry 'bout ur mishap =( But I sure like the little portions - and orange! yum...love citrus dessert! ;)

Elissa said...

I remember seeing these on the DB forum. They're absolutely adorable! It would be something dangerous to make in my kitchen because I'd probably eat five or six in one sitting.

Sara said...

These look so good! I like that they're individual, great for portion control :)

Rachel said...

Cute little muffin and love the ornagey flavour

zorra said...

Cute cheesecakes, love'em!

Celeste said...

I love the cute little individual servings! My cheesecake cracked too...the taste is all that matters. ;)

ice tea: sugar high said...

So sorry to hear that your cheesecake cracked, but they still look fabulous and I bet they also taste good.

Audax said...

Sorry to hear that they were "problems" but is part of the fun of BDers. Thanks for the nice comments on my blog.

Chantal said...

Sorry that you were disappointed with the result but I look at those dips in your mini cakes and I see a seat for a whipped cream rosette :-)

Unknown said...

Sounds delicious; I just love citrus with this recipe. 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

helenahimm said...

this looks deli, i want to make them! =)