Daring Bakers' Challenge - Cheesecake!!

Lemon-Chambord Cheesecake with Toasted Almond Crust

The fun of taking part in the Daring Baker's Challenge is that, you don't know what's waiting for you the following month. This is my 2nd challenge, but I believe, every month, after we get our challenge up on our blog, we're all sitting in front of the computer, waiting for the next month's challenge to be revealed (though we know WHEN they will be posted)! :)

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

Many people have tried baking cheesecake, and many more that have shied away because a baked cheesecake is a lot trickier. If you have tried, or have talked to some others who have baked a cheesecake, you'll hear all those "nightmares of baking a cheesecake stories" --- the cracked top monster and the soggy crust devil! :P So, you might wonder "what's so challenging about this challenge??" Well, in this challenge,with the basic recipe in hand, we are "unleashed" to use our creativity to the max in terms of flavorings, the crust, and the decoration! (you should check out some other Daring Bakers HERE ~ there are some REALLY interesting flavors that I wished I could just reach into the screen and take it out of the pictures! ;P )

Also, this is not any cheesecake. If you have baked a cheese cake before, you'll be surprised by how "liquidy" the batter is! It is very creamy, unlike the New York style cheesecake that I often feel like it's too dense, dry and heavy ~ just one bite and I've have enough. Plus, with this recipe, you don't have to prebake the crust - one step eliminated!! ;)

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 Filling:
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!

In this months challenge, one of the topic the members discussed most was the water bath issue. In almost every cheesecake recipe you find, you'll be told to wrap the the bottom of the pan with layers of foil up to the sides, then place the cheesecake into the water bath. In my experience, EVERY TIME I follow THAT instruction, my crust comes out soggy, no matter what! Then I read some where, a anonymous reviewer for a mascarpone cheesecake recipe mentioned the idea of placing the water bath on the LOWER rack of the oven, so I tried it. It worked! :) -- no cracking mosters or soggy devil!!! My cheesecake came out beautifully! However, in the discussion, this is not the original intentional way of baking a cheesecake. It seems like the hot waterbath is to gently bake the cheesecake and to bake it in the low temperature. So, I will try this method once again in the future to see if I was just lucky! ;P Another way is to do as Jenny & Abbey have suggested under Pan Note.


Anyway, I didn't stray away too much from the original recipe. Only a few substitutions.

• I liked the taste and feel of mascarpone cheesecake, they are lighter. So, I substitute one part of the cream cheese for on part of mascarpone, which, in the future, I would try with 2 parts.

• I also added lemon zests.
• Omitted the lemon juice and vanilla - replaced with Chambord - note: NOT ENOUGH Chambord flavor!!!
  
• Cut down on the sugar to about 3/4 cup.
• Replace 1 cup of the gramham crackers with finely ground toasted almonds.
• Cut the butter for the crust to 6 Tablespoons.

Besides, I am also a person who likes sauce with majority of my food, dessert included. I think this habit comes from the time when I was growing up, as a typical Malaysian-Chinese family, my mom would mix all the dishes into my bowl/plate of rice, with gravy/sauce or soup. Come to think of it now, it doesn't look appealing at all, and it is exactly what I do for Lucas too! :P I did not do this with Yesmin back when she was younger, and now, I am always told by her to NOT put her dishes on top of her rice! ~ while Lucas could careless! Anyway, back to cheesecake... so, since I love sauce, I made a chocolate sauce and a raspberry sauce to go with my cheesecake.

with raspberry and chocolate sauce

Chocolate Sauce (Chef Raymond Ost of Sandrine's, MA, published in Chocolatier magazine)

8 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped
1 Cup heavy cream
1/4 Cup whole milk

Place chopped chocolate into medium bowl. Combine cream and milk in a saucepan, and bring to a boil. Immediately pour the hot cream/milk mixture onto the chopped chocolate, gently stir till smooth and blended.

Raspberry Sauce

1 bag of frozen raspberry
sugar to taste

Place frozen raspberry into a saucepan, bring it to a gentle boil. Add sugar to taste. Pass raspberry sauce through a fine sieve and discard the seeds. Chill it in the fridge before serving.

Thanks Jenny from JennyBakes for this fun challenge, and thanks to Jenny's friend Abbey for this recipe! :)