cheesecakes Archives

There aren’t many things you’ll see me do because they are cool and there are very few people I (almost always) agree with or trust (almost always) blindly. My dear B. will tell you I spend my life with an imaginary raised eyebrow and my right ear pointed up. I am not skeptical, I am curious. Sometimes cautious. Sometimes not at all.

When Shauna mentioned that she was working on gluten free graham crackers, I had my ears tuned in to her updates. When she posted them, I blindly and happily followed her trail and made a batch. Then two. Then B. said they’d be even better under a cheesecake. So I made a batch of mini Lemon Goat Cheese Cheesecakes with Blood Orange Syrup. Then two.

I often talk about tea time as being an important ritual of my day (as much as my schedule lets me) and when I moved to the US, I became quite fond of having a few graham crackers with my tea. I was a student, they were cheap and a box lasted a while between roomie and myself.

Then I stopped having a cookie with tea altogether. Partly because it’s not that much fun a ritual when done alone so I’d save those moments for when my parents would visit and partly when I discovered it was not helping my health issues. I stopped. Until last week.

I made a batch of Shauna’s gluten free graham crackers as soon as I came home from Atlanta. I sat down with my cup of tea and my just baked cookies and sighed. Content and thankful. Bill started saying that they were pretty close to the real thing but not quite until I stopped him, with my eyebrow raised, and asked "if the real thing is what makes us truly happy then these are it for me" and added "it’s ok if you don’t like them as much…more for me!"

Men don’t generally take a hint and yet mine likes to give me some, especially when it comes to desserts. He starts by fidgeting around the cookie jar. Opens the fridge, closes it. Plays with the cookie jar some more. Until I break down and ask if he has a suggestion. He may not bake or cook, but he’s got good ideas about eating. I had all forms of citrus laid out on the countertop for an article I was working on and he suggested we use some of the lemons and make a cheesecake if possible.

Since it was spur of the moment, I had about half the quantity of cream cheese I needed but being a big fan of goat cheese in desserts, I used some to make up the difference. The tang of the fresh goat cheese worked perfectly with the tang of the lemons. I felt it needed some color though and made a quick blood orange syrup to go with it.

This first forray into a completely gluten free cheesecake was such a success that I made another batch a couple of days later. Yes. That good.

Lemon Goat Cheese Cheesecakes with Blood Orange Syrup:

Makes 8 mini cheesecakes

For the graham crakers: follow the recipe on Shauna’s site blindly…you won’t be disappointed, and grind enough graham crakers to make 1 cup crumbs.

For the cheesecake:

1 cup (250ml) graham cracker crumbs

4 tablespoons (60gr) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

1 cup (200gr) sugar, divided

8 oz (240r) fresh mild goat cheese, at room temperature

8 oz (240gr) cream cheese, at room temperature

juice and zest of a whole lemon

3 large eggs

Preheat the oven to 325F and position a rack in the middle. Line 8 standard sized muffin tins with liners and slighly spray with cooking spray. Place the muffin pan in a large roasting pan. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, stir together the graham cracker crumbs, the melted butter and 1/4 cup (50gr) sugar. Divide the mixture evenly among the prepared muffin liners and pat with the back of a spoon. Bake for 5 minutes. Let cool. Lower the heat to 300F.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the remaining sugar with the cheeses and the lemon zest on medium speed until the mixture is completely smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time and beating well after each addition. Add the lemon juice and beat another 30 seconds. Divide the mixture evenly among the muffin liners. Add hot water to the roasting pan but do not worry about coming up halfway the side of the muffin pan too much. The oven temperature is already so low that the water is just to be on the safe side. Add at least one inch inside the roasting pan.

Bake the mini cheesecakes for 20 minutes or until slightly giggling (or jiggle – whatever suits your mood) in the middle still. Keep an eye on them as they bake rather fast this way. Let cool completely before unmolding and serving with the blood orange syrup.

Notes: I made 8 small ones (baked in muffin tins) but you could make two 4-inch ones and bake them for about 10 minutes longer at the same heat.

For the blood orange syrup:

1 cup (250ml) fresh blood orange juice

1/2 cup (100gr) sugar

In a heavy bottomed medium saucepan, stir together the blood orange juice and the sugar over medium high heat until the sugar dissolves and the mixture comes to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer down until the liquid is about reduced by half. Let cool and serve with the cheesecakes.

————————————————————————————-

Le P’tit Coin Francais:

Pour les fonds de cheesecakes: suivez la recette de Shauna ici ou utilisez des miettes de Petits Lu ou sables bretons.

Pour les cheesecakes:

250ml de miettes de petits gateaux

60 gr de beurre mou, fondu

200 gr de sucre, utilise en 2 fois

240 gr de fromage de chevre (frais et doux)

240 gr de cream cheese ou autre fromage frais

jus et zeste d’un citron

3 oeufs

Prechauffez le four a 160C. Habillez des moules a muffins avec des caissettes en papier de la meme taille et badigeonnez l’interieur d’huile avec un pinceau (ou utilisez un spray a huile comme ici). Placer les moules dans une grande et profonde leche frite par example.

Dans un bol de taille moyenne, melangez les miettes de biscuits, le beurre fondu et la moitie du sucre. Melangez bien avec une spatule et distribuez de facon egale a l’interieur des moules prepares. Tassez avec le dos de la spatule. Faites cuires pendant 5 minutes. Mettere de cote. Baissez la temperature du four a 150C.

Dans le bol d’un mixeur, battez au fouet les deux fromages, le reste de sucre et le zeste de citron jusqu’a ce que la pate soit lisse. Ajoutez les oeufs, un a un et en battant bien apres chaque ajout. Ajoutez le jus de citron et battez 30 secondes de plus jusqu’a obtenir une pate lisse.

Repartissez la pate entre les moules et ajoutez environ 2 centimetres d’eau chaude dans la leche frite. Faites cuire environ 20 minutes. Retirez les cheesecakes du four avant qu’ils soit completement cuits. Laissez refroidir completement avant de demouler. Servir avec le sirop a l’orange sanguine

Sirop a l’orange sanguine:

250 ml jus d’orange sanguine (frais de preference)

100 gr sucre

Placez le jus d’orange et le sucre dans une casserole a fond epais et portez a ebullition. Reduire la temperature sous la casserole et faire reduire le sirop de moitie. Servir avec les cheesecakes.

I giggle everytime I look a the picture above. It’s Daring Bakers time today and my Cherry Blossom Strawberry Cheesecake looks like it is smiling. Maybe it’s just me as I am eating some while typing this and smiling to know there is plenty left in the fridge.

And when I mean plenty, I am not exaggerating! For a household of two people this month challenge just kept on giving and we had no problem with it! We were given a simple cheesecake recipe and let loose with our creativity. If you let me loose in the kitchen on a Daring Baker’s challenge this can happen, or this.

It might look like I did again but really I did contain myself (no snorting Jen). Somewhat…

This recipe was really straightforward and the end result was smooth, creamy and not overly sweet which I really like. I started by making the entire recipe and used half to make 4 individual cheesecakes. Two were Cherry Blossom and Strawberry Lava Cheesecakes and two were Peanut Butter topped with a chocolate ganache. I piped the remaining batter in different cups and jars and played a bit.

I drew my inspiration from Spring since cherry trees are still blooming and used cherry blossom extract that Rachael from La Fuji Mama sent me while she was still in Japan. For the strawberry lava center, I cooked about a cup of fresh strawberries with some sugar, strained it and thickened it on the stove before spooning it in between the cheesecake layers.

For the Peanut Butter ones, I just followed B’s strong desire to have a peanut butter and chocolate dessert. I mixed some of the batter with chunky peanut butter and added a few tablespoons of heavy cream and poured a simple bittersweet chocolate ganache on top with chopped roasted peanuts.

For the remaining batter, I spooned some of the graham cracker crumbs in different jars and topped with some plain cheesecake batter. The others were topped with a quick cranberry compote using frozen cranberries, sugar and lemon zest. And some were baked without crust and topped with a sprinkle of graham cracker crumbs and chopped pistachios.

One year ago: Daring Bakers – Cheesecake Pops.
Two years ago: Outrageous Brownies

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

Helen’s Kitchen Notes: For the cheesecakes baked in individual dessert rings, I lined them with parchment paper and wrapped them around a couple of layers of foil to prevent leaking since they were to be baked in a water bath. Just don’t be shy with the foil or you will have some leakage. I lowered the oven to 275F (convection) and baked them for the same amount of time. I also baked all the jars and cups in a water bath at 275F. The possibilities are endless with such an easy going recipe thus I including the recipe as given by the host and my variations and tips at the end.

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

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (Gas Mark 4 = 180C = Moderate heat). Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.
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.
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.
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.
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!

Variations I used:
For the strawberry lava center: cook down 1 cup of clean strawberries with 1/4 cup of sugar and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice. Strain and cook the syrp until reduced by half. Let cool. Spoon some cake batter over the crumb crust, add some strawberry juice and seal with more batter.

For the peanut butter cheesecake: I added 1/3 cup of peanut butter to 1/4 of the recipe and added 3 tablespoons of heavy cream to make sure the batter would remain smooth.

For the chocolate gananche: I heated up 1/3 cup of heavy cream over medium heat and poured it over 2/3 cup of bittersweet chocolate. Let stand 2 minutes and stir to smooth.

For the cheesecake in souffle cups: I just buttered the cups and baked them without the crust which I sprinkled later on with some chopped pistachios.

For the cranberry topped ones: I poured some crumb crust at the bottom of glass jars, topped with the batter and baked them like that. Once cooled I added the cranberry compote that I made by cooking 2 cups of frozen cranberries with 1/4 cup of sugar, a dash of cinnamon and some lemon juice.

cheesecakes

Lemon Goat Cheese Cheesecakes With Blood Orange Sauce

Daring Bakers: One Cheesecake, Two Cheesecakes, Three Cheesecakes….