TWD: Low and Lush Chocolate Cheesecake

First of all, let's have a little heart-to-heart, m'kay?

It's winter here in Middle Tennessee. Which, in a word, sucks. That's not to say that it's worse than Buffalo, NY or Wisconsin or whatever, but, it's cold, it's dark and it's wet a lot more than it's not, it seems. And that SUCKS.

You know what else sucks this time of year? Natural Light (No, not that Natural Light, the lack of real natural light). I mean... sure if I didn't have day job and I was just baking away all day instead of rushing around like a banshee trying to finish things before Christmas maybe I could get better pictures of my baked goodies than this atrocity:

I know. I'm embarrassed. It's awful. But let me set the scene for you...

It's christmas morning. My family loads up the car and heads to my uncles house. I secretly hope that when we get there no one else (well, besides my uncle) is there. But of course... we pull up and we're not the first ones. Drats! So, I have to figure out a way to get a picture of my cheesecake without my entire family thinking I'm a nutjob (they dont know I have a blog and honestly... I think they'd be a little embarrassed of me to find out how I cuss like a sailor when I'm not around them, so I keep the blog on the d/l.).

This is not an easy feat. So, I take to the laundry room and sneak 2 photos of the cheesecake while it sits on the washing machine. Seriously. 2 photos. And this is the least offensive. I'm sorry. Picture a lightly shaded chocolate sliver on a crisp white plate.

Don't let my awful photo scare you away. People loved this cheesecake. As in... there was only a small slice left at the end of the day. Now, I'm going to be honest with you... I am a plain cheesecake fan. I'm not usually crazy about the flavor of chocolate and cheesecake together. But, I did actually like this cheesecake a lot more than I thought I would. And a few members of my family thought this cheesecake was better than the plain cheesecake I made a couple days earlier. (More on that in another post).

Basically... if you love chocolate cheesecake, you will die when you have this particular cheesecake. And if you like regular cheesecake, I think you'll enjoy it, too.

Low & Lush Chocolate Cheesecake
Recipe by Dorie Greenspan
Chosen for Tuesdays with Dorie by The Tea Lady of Tea and Scones

Easy. Delicious. Of course I omitted the cinnamon in the crust. But otherwise followed the recipe to the letter. It comes out rich and creamy with just enough chocolate to flavor but not overpower the cream cheese.

It's not a pretty cheesecake. The chocolate color is an unappetizing light brown, but I thought, if I'd had the time that it would have looked pretty with some whipped cream piped along the edges or something.

Recipe Here.

White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cheesecake

I've been extremely lucky my whole life. I was born into an amazingly supportive and loving family. I was raised with good values and morals, but was also allowed to spread my wings, be independent and find things out on my own. And aside from my family and the environment I've grown up in, I've also been extremely lucky to find friends that I don't deserve.

Not to toot my own horn anything... but my friends are seriously some of the best people around. Not only are they loving and supportive like my family... but they're dependable and stable, they put up with my fickle and moody nature. I mean, I gotta be honest with you folks... I am a hard person to love. I'm stubborn and fiercely independent, at times. I am a complete contrarian and will assuredly change my mind just when you think you've gotten me figured out. I can be extremely private, which I'm sure makes people feel isolated from me. I try to keep my true feelings to myself as much as possible. I mean, damn. I wouldn't be friends with me.

But, despite these things... I still have some really kick ass friends (I guess having a baking blog doesn't hurt).

My friend Sara had a birthday back in June. Sara is one of those friends that you wish you could freelance out. Like... I feel fairly confident in saying that if a lot of bad people in the world had a friend like Sara, they wouldn't be so bad. All my friends are great in their own ways... but Sara is definitely the friend that I can depend on. If it were 2am and I was stuck on the side of the road in Alaska and I could only make one phone call... I would call Sara. Because it wouldn't matter that she was 1000s of miles away. Regardless of the fact that I might not have talked to her in 2 months, I could rest assured that she would do whatever it was that I needed and THEN SOME.

She is also loyal beyond belief. I know without a doubt, that we could have had the biggest argument of our lives.... but if someone else tried to badmouth me. She'd be standing up for me. Now, that, is loyalty, my friends.

But, I don't want it to sound like I'm just using her for her dependability and her loyalty. Oh no... I also use her for comic relief. She is hysterically funny and she's up for anything. She'll go and do practically anything you want. She's always up for a shopping trip, a car ride, a dinner, a drink, a walk. As long as her schedule is clear... she's good to go.

So, for her birthday, I wanted to make her whatever she wanted. And what she wanted... was White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cheesecake. This request immediately reminded me of one of our favorite past times in college: watching Golden Girls. Sara and I always say that when we're old and gray we're going to move down to Florida and live together. We're going to smoke cigarettes and drink whiskey all day, eat cheesecake and walk around in moo-moos and flip flops. Cheesecake was the perfect choice for her birthday.

I didn't have a specific recipe for that variation of cheesecake, so I set off to adjust the Dorie Greenspan Cheesecake recipe that I adore. Hopefully she enjoyed it at least half as much as I've enjoyed her friendship.

Happy Birthday, Sara!

Thank you for being a friend
Traveled down the road and back again
Your heart is true, you're a pal and a confidant.

And if you threw a party
Invited everyone you knew
You would see the biggest gift would be from me
And the card attached would say thank you for being a friend.

White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cheesecake
adapted from Dorie Greenspan

This is adapted from my favorite cheesecake recipe. It's creamy, rich and dense.

Ingredients
For the crust:
2 1/2 cups vanilla wafer crumbs
1/2 cup chopped macadamia nuts
3 tablespoons sugar
Pinch of salt
6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

For the cheesecake:
2 pounds (four 8-ounce boxes) cream cheese, at room temperature
1 1/3 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/3 cups heavy cream
4 ozs of white chocolate melted and cooled.
chopped macadamia nuts for garnish

Procedure
To make the crust:

Butter a 9-inch springform pan—choose one that has sides that are 2 3/4 inches high (if the sides are lower, you will have cheesecake batter leftover)—and wrap the bottom of the pan in a double layer of aluminum foil; put the pan on a baking sheet.

Stir the crumbs, nuts, sugar and salt together in a medium bowl. Pour over the melted butter and stir until all of the dry ingredients are uniformly moist. (I do this with my fingers.) Turn the ingredients into the buttered springform pan and use your fingers to pat an even layer of crumbs along the bottom of the pan and about halfway up the sides. Don't worry if the sides are not perfectly even or if the crumbs reach above or below the midway mark on the sides—this doesn't have to be a precision job. Put the pan in the freezer while you preheat the oven.

Center a rack in the oven, preheat the oven to 350°F and place the springform on a baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes. Set the crust aside to cool on a rack while you make the cheesecake.

Reduce the oven temperature to 325°F.

To make the cheesecake:
Put a kettle of water on to boil.

Working in a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the cream cheese at medium speed until it is soft and lives up to the creamy part of its name, about 4 minutes. With the mixer running, add the sugar and salt and continue to beat another 4 minutes or so, until the cream cheese is light. Beat in the vanilla. Add the eggs one by one, beating for a full minute after each addition—you want a well-aerated batter. Reduce the mixer speed to low and stir in the heavy cream. Turn off your mixer and pour in the cooled melted white chocolate. Stir into the batter with a rubber spatula.

Put the foil-wrapped springform pan in the roaster pan.

Give the batter a few stirs with a rubber spatula, just to make sure that nothing has been left unmixed at the bottom of the bowl, and scrape the batter into the springform pan. The batter will reach the brim of the pan. (If you have a pan with lower sides and have leftover batter, you can bake the batter in a buttered ramekin or small soufflé mold.) Put the roasting pan in the oven and pour enough boiling water into the roaster to come halfway up the sides of the springform pan.

Bake the cheesecake for 1 hour and 30 minutes, at which point the top will be browned (and perhaps cracked) and may have risen just a little above the rim of the pan. Turn off the oven's heat and prop the oven door open with a wooden spoon. Allow the cheesecake to luxuriate in its water bath for another hour.

After 1 hour, carefully pull the setup out of the oven, lift the springform pan out of the roaster—be careful, there may be some hot water in the aluminum foil—remove the foil. Let the cheesecake come to room temperature on a cooling rack.

When the cake is cool, cover the top lightly and chill the cake for at least 4 hours, although overnight would be better.

Serving:
Remove the sides of the springform pan— I use a hairdryer to do this (use the dryer to warm the sides of the pan and ever so slightly melt the edges of the cake)—and set the cake, still on the pan's base, on a serving platter. Adorn the top of the cheesecake with the chopped macadamia nuts. The easiest way to cut cheesecake is to use a long, thin knife that has been run under hot water and lightly wiped. Keep warming the knife as you cut slices of the cake.

Storing:
Wrapped well, the cake will keep for up to 1 week in the refrigerator or for up to 2 months in the freezer. It's best to defrost the still-wrapped cheesecake overnight in the refrigerator.

Bailey's Irish Cream Cheesecake

I've said it before... and I'll say it again: I'm obsessed with all things Irish. From the color green, to Guinness to shamrocks to irish car bombs (the shot, not the real thing) to Ireland, itself... I love any and everything associated with Ireland.

So, it makes sense that my favorite holiday is St. Patrick's Day.

This year, I hosted my 2nd Annual St. Patrick's Day Party. And amongst the Guinness, Harp, and Irish Car Bombs (I think we did 6-7 car bombs during the course of the party. I think 10 was the max that I made at once), I had some Irish-y themed baked goods as well. This cheesecake is one of those items.

I made this cheesecake last year, as well. But, this year, I made a few changes to it. I love Baileys, don't get me wrong... but I wanted something a little less IN YOUR FACE Baileys, this year. If you like Baileys, you'll love this cheesecake. And like all cheesecakes, this one is super easy. (Although, we bakers should make a pact right now... we should stop insisting to people how easy cheesecakes are to make... we wouldn't want to take away the wow factor when we present our yummy treats, right?)

Bailey's Irish Cream Cheesecake
Original Recipe Here

First of all, I made this recipe with your regular graham cracker crust. But, I think next year... I might switch it up again and use a vanilla wafer crust or possibly a shortbread crust.

Also, I think this cheesecake would be just as delicious without the addition of the chocolate chips. They look pretty in and on top of the cake, but it's almost overkill for me. The cheesecake is so rich on it's own, it doesn't need too much embellishing (then again, I'm a SUCKER for a plain cheesecake).

Ingredients

Crust:
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/4 cup sugar
6 tbsp of melted butter
pinch of salt

Filling:
2 1/4 lbs of cream cheese, softened (I used some 1/3 less fat packages)
1 2/3 cups sugar
5 eggs, at room temperature
1/2 cup Baileys Irish Cream
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp vanilla
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Crust Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Mix all crust ingredients together and press into the bottom of a 10 inch springform pan.

Bake for 7-10 minutes and then allow to cool before you pour in cheesecake filling.

Filling Directions:

Beat cream cheese with electric mixer until smooth. Beat sugar in gradually, make sure to keep the sides of the bowl scraped down during this whole process. Add eggs in one at a time and beat until incorporated.

Beat in Baileys, heavy cream, and vanilla.

Sprinkle half of the chocolate chips onto the cooled crust (before you pour the cheesecake filling in). Then gently pour in the filling and sprinkle the rest on top of the cheesecake.

Place a pan of water on the bottom rack of your oven and then place your cheesecake on the rack above it and bake at 325 for 1 hour and 20 minutes or until puffed, springy in center and golden-y brown.

Cool cake completely. And in a perfect world, refrigerate for at least a day before serving.

TWD: Tall & Creamy Cheesecake

Cheesecake is hands down one of my favorite desserts. Not only are cheesecakes delicious... but they're so simple and inexpensive to make and yet... when you make one from scratch and take it somewhere... people act like you're a baking genius. Seriously... you want to make something easy, cheap, and something that can be done ahead of time that will knock people's socks off?? Cheesecake is your answer.

I was excited that Anne of Anne Strawberry chose Dorie's Basic cheesecake recipe Tall and Creamy Cheesecake for this week's Tuesdays with Dorie, because I love trying out new recipes.

My previous go-to recipe for Cheesecake was a Tyler Florence recipe. It's foolproof. I've made it 100 times... with splenda, with sugar, with a water bath, without a waterbath. Seriously folks you can't mess this cheesecake up. It's light and fluffy with a little tang from the sour cream and lemon and it's white and crack-proof on top. A gorgeous, delicious cheesecake.

But, move over Tyler... there's a new cheesecake in town. Dorie's cheesecake is texturally my favorite cheesecake. It's cheesecake how I like it... soft and creamy, but not gooey (as I find cheesecake factory's cheesecakes to be). I think after making a few cheesecakes now... that I prefer cheesecakes with more heavy cream than sour cream. I think the cream is what makes for a browned top, but I don't mind that. I'll take flavor over looks any day. This recipe calls for both, but you can choose to omit one and use entirely the other, or a mixture of sour cream and cream. I used a mixture. Some sour cream and some heavy cream.

This cheesecake is dynamite and will definitely be my cheesecake recipe from now on.

Brown Sugar Apple Cheesecake.

Ummm... let's see... what to say, what to say...

I could sit here and write and write and tell you just how damn delicious this cheesecake is. I mean, I could mention that the gingersnaps meld into a chewy, moist lightly spiced crust that compliments the creaminess of the cheesecake perfectly. I could also say that the addition of the fried apples overcame my fear of being a textural no-no and turned into little bites of apple-y goodness dotted throughout the cake. Maybe I'd also talk a little about the sweetness and homey-ness that the cake imparts due to the apple cider, cinnamon, and the brown sugar added to the batter. Oh yeah, I wouldn't want to forget the silky smooth texture that glides over your tongue from the sour cream, cream cheese, and heavy cream in the recipe.

Yeah, I could say all those things.

Or I could just say...

GET OFF YOUR ASS AND MAKE THIS CHEESECAKE IMMEDIATELY.

or

THIS CHEESECAKE IS THE BEST CHEESECAKE, EVER.

or maybe even

WHY ARE YOU STILL READING THIS. SERIOUSLY. MAKE NOW.

I've made a lot of cheesecakes folks... But this one is amazing.

This was a Tuesdays with Dorie recipe that was completed the week before I joined. Jaime of Good Eats 'n Sweet Treats chose this one. I'm so glad I went back and decided to catch up on this recipe sooner rather than later.

Make it, you won't be sorry.

Brown Sugar-Apple Cheesecake
from Baking: From My Home to Yours, by Dorie Greenspan

This cheesecake is so freaking good. The only thing different that I might do next time, is make 1.5 of the crust, just a personal preference, but I prefer to have more of the crust go up the sides of my cheesecake, as written in the recipe you really only get a layer for the bottom of the crust.

I cut my apples wayyyyy thinner than Dorie tells you. I basically cut mine into thinnish slices, because I was really nervous about the texture being too weird in the cheesecake. I think it turned out great this way and will do it next time, too. I also didn't add all my apples (I used 3 huge fuji's) to the cheesecake, I just placed one layer of the thin apples on the cheesecake and ended up with a crap load of fried apples left over. Next time, I'll just slice up an apple and a half or so.

Also, my bowl of batter wasn't placed on my scale right, and I think I ended up adding as much as a 1/4 cup of MORE of brown sugar than the recipe called for... it turned out sweet, but not crazy sweet, so next time, I might go ahead and intentionally add a couple extra tablespoons of brown sugar to the batter.

I can never find apple cider. Arg! So, as usual when a recipe calls for it... I just used 100% apple juice. No problems.

I skipped the apple jelly and confectioners sugar. It was awesome enough without it.

For the Crust:
30 gingersnaps (or a scant 2 cups graham cracker crumbs)
2 tbsp light brown sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (optional)
1/2 stick (4 tbsp) unsalted butter, melted

For the Apples:
1/2 stick (4 tbsp) unsalted butter
3 large Golden Delicious or Fuji apples, peeled, cored and cut into eighths
2 tbsp (packed) light brown sugar

For the Filling:
1 1/2 pounds (three 8-ounce packages) cream cheese, at room temperature
3/4 cup (packed) light brown sugar
6 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp apple cider
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 tsp ground cinnamon
3 large eggs
3/4 cup sour cream
1/3 cup heavy cream

Apple jelly, for glazing, or confectioner's sugar, for dusting (optional)

To Make the Crust:
Butter the bottom and sides of a 10-inch springform pan.

Put the gingersnaps in a food processor and whir until you have crumbs; you should have a scant 2 cups. (If you are using graham cracker crumbs, just put them in the food processor.) Pulse in the sugar and cinnamon, if you're using it, then pour over the melted butter and pulse until the crumbs are moistened. Turn the crumbs into the springform pan and, using your fingertips, firmly press them evenly over the bottom and up the sides of the pan as far as they'll go. Put the pan in the freezer while you preheat the oven. (The crust can be covered and frozen for up to 2 months.)

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Remove the pan from the freezer and wrap the bottom tightly in aluminum foil, going up the sides. Place the pan on a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes, or until the crust is set and lightly browned. Transfer to a rack to cool while you make the apples and the filling. Leave the oven at 350 degrees F.

To Make the Apples:
Melt 2 tablespoons of the butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. When the foam subsides, toss in half of the apple slices and cook, turning once, until they are golden brown, about 3 minutes. Sprinkle the apples with 1 tablespoon of the sugar and cook them, turning, just until coated, another minute or so. Scrape the apples onto a plate, wipe out the skillet and repeat with the remaining apples. Let the apples cool while you make the filling.


Getting Ready to Bake:
Have a roasting pan large enough to hold the springform pan at hand. Put a kettle of water on to boil.

To Make the Filling:
Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the cream cheese on medium speed, scraping down the bowl often, for about 4 minutes, or until it is velvety smooth. Add the sugars and beat for another 2 minutes. Beat in the cider, vanilla, and cinnamon. Reduce the speed to low and beat in the eggs one by one, beating for 1 minute after each egg goes in. Finally, beat in the sour cream and heavy cream, beating just until the batter is smooth.

Pour about one third of the batter into the baked crust. Drain the apples by lifting them off the plate with a slotted spoon or spatula, and spoon them into the pan. Cover with the remaining batter and, if needed, jiggle the pan to even the top. Place the springform pan in the roasting pan and pour in enough boiling water to come halfway up the sides of the springform pan.

Bake the cheesecake for 1 hour and 30 to 45 minutes, covering the cake loosely with a foil tent at the 45-minute mark. The cake will rise evenly and crack around the edges, and it should be fully set except, possibly, in the very center--if the center shimmies, that's just fine. Gently transfer the cake, still in the pan, to a cooling rack and let it cool to room temperature, then refrigerate it for at least 6 hours; overnight would be better.

Run a blunt knife around the edges of the pan to loosen the crust, open the pan's latch and release and remove the sides

Bailey's Irish Cream Cheesecake

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

This weekend I had a little mini dinner party for my family to celebrate St. Patricks. (It was mini, because two people couldn't come). There was guinness, there was harp, there were potatoes, and there was Bailey's Cheesecake.

YUM. This cheesecake was simple to make and absolutely delicious. But, beware. You have to like Baileys to like this cheesecake, because it tastes just like it! But it's very good. Very rich and very smooth and silky.

The crust was a little different... it was oreo cookies and toasted pecans. But the crust might have been one of my favorite parts.

Everytime I make a cheesecake, I'm reminded of how delicious homemade cheesecakes are, and how simple they are to make! This beats any Cheesecake Factory Cheesecake!

Enjoy!

Baileys Cheesecake Recipe

(I didn't make the coffee cream topping or add the 1/2 cup of chocolate chips to the top of the cake. I did add the 1/2 cup of chocolate chips to the bottom of the cake before I poured the filling in, though).

Savannah Cheesecake Squares

Yup, another Paula Deen recipe. I know, I should be cut off, but she makes such yummy, easy desserts! It's hard to say no!

This is what I made for Christmas at my Grandma's House. It's always an issue to figure out what to make to take there. Obviously, I want to take pictures and blog about the dessert. And that's fairly easy to do when you're only making 4-5 people wait on you (like in my immediate family gatherings) to take 31 pictures of your dessert, but when you've got 25+ people gearing up to hit the dessert line, it's a little harder to snap so many photos. So, I got smart this time. I decided to make a bar cookie. That way, I could cut them out, take pictures of them at home and then transport them to grandma's. Perfect!

These are good. Not WOW good. But, good. I opted to eat other things on the dessert table... pecan pie, white chocolate covered peanut butter cracker sandwiches (mmmmm.. I gotta make those), brownies. But, I did eat one of these while I was cutting them and plating them and they are good, rich cheesecake bars. I think they need a little more pizazz. Like some chocolate chips or nuts or fruit or something. But good for times when you just need something basic and creamy.

I did get a few compliments on them though... and they were even competing against a whole other cheesecake on the buffet line!

Savannah Cheesecake Squares

(What makes these "savannah" cheesecake squares instead of just regular cheesecake squares, I have no idea. I guess Savannah just sounds better).

Pecan Pie Cheesecake

Jennifer at Bake or Break has never let me down. I've made quite a few of the recipes that I've seen on her site and they always turn out delicious!

When I saw this recipe on her site a few weeks ago for Pecan Pie Cheesecake, I knew I had to try it for my family's Christmas Dinner. My favorite pie (maybe even dessert) is a pecan pie. And so this cheesecake immediately spoke to me.

Every Christmas, my family has a cheesecake. It used to be a turtle cheesecake that my mom bought. But for the past couple of years, I've been making the cheesecake. This year, I wanted to try something a little different... A little more special than your typical cheesecake and this fit the bill.

This cheesecake is absolutely amazing. I think I overcooked the pecan pie filling on the stove, because it turned out REALLY hard to eat. It had an amazing flavor, but it was just soooo hard and chewy. Next time (and yes, there will definitely be a next time) I will cook that filling less. But the texture and flavor of the cheesecake was delicious. I am also going to try this cheesecake as just a plain cheesecake sometime, without the pecan pie part. The filling is just so rich and decadent, I think it's the brown sugar. I had never made a cheesecake with a vanilla wafer crust, either and found it to be awesome, also!

This cheesecake was so good, that even those non-sweet eaters in my family were raving over it. Oh my god. Go out and make this cheesecake immediately. You will not be sorry.

I can't even write a coherent post because just thinking about this cheesecake makes my head spin.

Thank you, Jennifer.

Reese Peanut Butter Cheesecake

Sometimes, 1500 calories consumed in 10 minutes is worth it.

This cheesecake is extremely decadent. And extremely tasty. This is the only time that I've ventured away from my typical cheesecake recipe. And I'd say I was pretty successful. I first saw the recipe here and it looked delicious! So, I decided to make this for Chad's Birthday cake. He told me that his grandma always made him a cheesecake for his birthday, so I decided this was a perfect opportunity to to bake a different cheesecake!

So, first off, this cheesecake has 4 blocks of cream cheese. And did you know that a block of cream cheese has 800 calories? Yeah, neither did I. Shocking and very disappointing.

I made a few changes, so mine doesn't have QUITE that many calories. For one, I omitted the topping and I also only used about half of the batter (the other half is frozen in the freezer). I also used half and half instead of whipping cream. And I omitted the peanuts in the crust and only used a half stick of butter. I'm not crazy about the oreo crust, I'd prefer just a graham cracker crust (and that would save a few calories, too). So next time, regular graham cracker crust for me. I felt like the oreos got a little burned... they tasted coffee-like.

So, here is the recipe. Save it for a special occasion, but its definitely worth trying. (and incidentally, I only ate a sliver of this cake and it took all the willpower I had to keep from eating more than that).

Cheesecake... my specialty.

My mom has her cornbread, my aunt Evelyn has her broccoli & potato casserole, my aunt Rita had her pecan pie, and I...well, I have cheesecake.

It all started when I was a kid.. when I was around 7 or 8, I remember my mom buying a turtle cheesecake to go with our christmas dinner. It was the first time I had ever had cheesecake that didn't come out of a box and it was marvelous. So, for years we had this cheesecake every christmas. We looked forward to it, almost as much as our presents!

A few years ago, I was watching the food network (as I often do) and caught an episode of Tyler's Ultimate about Cheesecakes. I printed the recipe and made my first cheesecake and it was so easy and it was amazing! I mean, like the perfect cheesecake. Light and moist (I don't like dry cheescakes), creamy and mild. It was a hit and since then, I've made the recipe at least 20 times. It's foolproof. I've overcooked it, I've undercooked it and it still always tastes incredible. My mom has made the recipe and just dumped all the ingredients in at once instead of following the directions and it was still delicious. I've even made a low carb version with a pecan crust and splenda. Delicious. Now, I always make it with splenda instead of sugar. Why add the extra calories when it tastes great without!

So, without further ado... here is the recipe. It's quick, easy, cheap, and fantastic!

Ultimate Cheesecake
Recipe Courtesy of Tyler Florence

Crust:
2 cups finely ground graham crackers
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 stick of unsalted butter, melted

Filling:
1 pound of cream cheese, 2 (8 oz) blocks, softened
3 eggs
1 cup sugar (I use a cup of splenda)
1 pint sour cream
1 lemon, zested
1 dash of vanilla extract (I actually measure 1 tsp)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and put on some water to boil because the cheesecake cooks in a water bath.

For the crust, in a mixnig bowl, combine the ingredients with a fork until evenly moistened. Lightly coat the bottom and sides of an 8-inch springform pan with non-stick cooking spray. Then cover the outside of the pan with lots of layers of foil tightly, to keep the water bath from soaking into the cheesecake.

Pour the crumbs into the pan and, using the bottom of a measuring cup or the smooth bottom of a glass, press the crumbs down into the base and up the sides of the pan to your desired crust thickness. (I usually bring it almost all the way up the sides). Refrigerate for 5 minutes.

For the filling, In the bowl of an electric mixer (I use a food processor), beat the cream cheese on low speed for 1 minute until creamy and free of lumps. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, and continue to beat slowly until combined. Gradually add the sugar and beat until creamy, for 1 to 2 minutes.

Add sour cream, lemon zest, and vanilla. Periodically scrape down the sides of the bowl and the beaters. The batter should be well-mixed but not overbeaten. Pour the filling into the crust-lined pan and smooth the top with a spatula.

Place the cake pan in a large roasting pan. Pour the boiling water into the raosting pan until the water is abuot hafway up the sides of the cheesecake pan. Bake for 45 minutes. The cheesecake should still jiggle (it will firm up after chilling), so be careful not to overcook. Let cook in pan for 30 minutes. Chill in the refrigerator, loosely covered, for at least 4 hours.

We usually serve with a side of strawberries that have been cut and soaked with splenda. The original recipe seen here has an awesome lemon blueberry topping that I serve on the side sometimes, too.