Wolf's Den

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

Mmm, Cheesecake....

I love cheesecake. So when I finally joined the Daring Bakers and was eligible for the April Challenge, imagine my delight to find that the challenge recipe was cheesecake. I haven't made cheesecake in quite sometime. This would be fun!





Of course, first I had to come up with a flavor for the cheesecake, or as it turned out, cheesecakeS. Yes, I never do things the easy way. I made not one, not two, but THREE cheesecakes(8", 9" and a 10"). Well, we all know I'm insane, so honestly, would you really expect any less?

Now, everyone does a white chocolate and green tea pairing. It's a rare recipe that does a dark chocolate and green tea pairing. At least in my experience it is.}:P I had always wanted to do a green tea cheesecake and thought this would be absolutely perfect for that.

So that's what I did. Yuppers, and then some. Hee. See, I couldn't do a plain green tea cheesecake. Mark would never taste test it for me. And the only way he'd taste test a dark chocolate- green tea cheesecake is if I promised to do a plain dark chocolate cheesecake as well. So you see, that's why I had to do at least 2 cheesecakes. How'd I end up with three? Well, read on and you'll find out...

Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake:

crust:
2 cups / 180 g graham cracker crumbs (I used half honey graham and half chocolate for the 2 of the cheesecakes)
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 (I used Creme de Cacao for the Dark Chocolate batter and Jameson's Irish Whiskey for the Green Tea batter)

I also used 1/2 cup of Hershey's Special Dark cocoa for the Dark Chocolate batter and if I remember correctly, SpecialTea's Matcha powder for the Green Tea batter, approx. 2 teaspoons .


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.

Obviously I went halfway up the sides of the pans. Only on the 8" did I do just the bottom. With the 9" and 10" cheesecakes, I mixed 1 cup of honey graham cracker crumbs and 1 cup of chocolate graham cracker crumbs. The 8" had just honey graham cracker crumbs.



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. It helps to start with softened cream cheese. This way, you don't get lumps and won't run the risk of over beating the cream cheese mixture, especially as you add your eggs. This would be a bad thing to do, I hear. Over beating your eggs, I mean. Not that I've ever done that, mind you, nope, not me. *looks innocent*



Have I mentioned that I love my new camera yet? No? Well, there you go then. I love my new camera. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Definitely scrap between eggs, otherwise you get unsightly yellow smears on the sides of the bowl, and that just won't do. Nope, not at all.

After I incorporated all the eggs, I then added the cocoa powder. As it was mixing in, I added the rest of the ingredients...




Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy. We'll pretend I have shots of the heavy cream being added as well as the vanilla. Yup, that's what we'll do. I did not drink any of the liqueur while making the cheesecakes, I swear. Besides, Mark and Charlie were drinking enough for the three of us, trust me.



When it says smooth and creamy, it means smooth and creamy. Look at that, isn't that yummy looking? And if you're insane like me...



...then after you pour the batter into the pan, you'll make another batch of dark chocolate batter! Why a whole other batch? Because I'm lazy and didn't feel like splitting a plain batch to mix half with the cocoa and half with the Matcha powder. That's why.

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.

Now, I cheated. I put my glass 13x9 baking dish on the rack UNDER the middle rack, and filled it with boiling water from the tea kettle. We'll pretend that I did not try to set my hand on fire by touching the top of the oven Glove to the heating element on the top of the oven. Nope, we'll just ignore that mishap. My poor Oven Glove. Now I need my MiL to buy me a new one.}:(

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!

I used Wilton Springform pans. As I said, I put the water on the rack below my pans, so I didn't get a soggy crust. Yay me!

Now, while the 9" Dark Chocolate Cheesecake is baking, I made more Dark Chocolate batter, as I said above, put it in a separate bowl and then went on to make the Green Tea batter...



I repeated all steps, right up to the point I added the cocoa powder, whereupon, I added Matcha powder instead.



Oh look! An adding the heavy cream photo! Hee. I did say I loved my new camera, yes?



This time, instead of the Creme De Cacao, I used Jameson's Irish Whiskey. I had a brief thought of using Midori melon Liqueur, but quickly rethought that. Yuck. Chocolate and Melon? Umm, I don't think so, not in cheesecake.



Isn't that a pretty pale green? If you want it brighter/darker, you could of course add green food coloring. I didn't, obviously. Why? I dunno, just didn't feel like it, I guess. Maybe next time.







In the 10" pan, I obviously spooned quite a bit of the chocolate batter, then the green tea batter, then a bit more of the chocolate batter.Just over half of the chocolate batter went into this pan, and half of the green tea batter as well.



Then I took a butter knife, and pulled it, carefully!, through the batters, marbleing it. I say carefully because there's a tendency to hit the crust on the sides, and well, that wouldn't be good, really. Cause then you'd have crumbs in your batter and it just wouldn't look good, you know? I won't say how many times I knicked the sides of the crust. And you can't make me.

I then took the 8" pan, with the plain honey graham cracker crumb crust, poured the rest of the green tea batter in the bottom, and topped it with the rest of the dark chocolate batter. Then, I tapped both pans to remove any bubble and level the layers.

The 10" pan was then baked for 1hr 25 minutes, about 30 minutes longer than the 9" and 8". All three were let sit in a turned off oven for the requisite hour of cool down time. Then let cool completely on the counter before refrigerating overnight.



This is the ONLY photo of the 9" Dark Chocolate Cheesecake you get. Enjoy it. It was lucky I wasn't at home, otherwise, I might have thrown it across the room, followed by the knife. Ok, not the knife, I won't do that to my beautiful Wusthof knives. *pets knives*



The 8in baked up beautifully. The 10in I baked 30 minutes longer than the time listed as it was so much bigger. The 9in, which is generally a standard cheesecake size from what I understand, I followed the directions exact on times and the center did not bake all the way through.}:/

All 3 were perfect in looks, no cracks, nothing. This was a first for me. WooHoo! Go me! Go me! Go me!

With the 9in, I went to cut it and it coated the knife, no matter how I tried to keep the knife warm, rinsed off between cuts, nothing worked. Then I couldn't get the crust to release from the pan.}:( I was so aggravated at it, that if we'd have been at home instead of the InLaws', I'd have thrown the knife down and left the kitchen in tears of frustration. This was even after 24+ hours in the fridge, after completely cooling to room temp.

The 9in, I will not show cut photos, as I refused to take any of that Failcake. To me, it was a bit much on the chocolate, although everyone else loved it.



The 8in, however, cut beautifully. Had a few issues with releasing of the crust from the pan, but other than that, I managed to get a gorgeous piece for photographing. And it tasted divine. The fresh Mint from my Aerogarden looked quite pretty on the slices too.}:P And did you know, semi frozen Cool Whip makes really nice scoops with an ice cream scoop? Yessirree, all in the name of plating, mind you.}:P



The 10in, I took out of the freezer, let set on the table for about an hour, then set about cutting it. First I sharpened my knife, ran it under hot water and proceeded to cut that baby up, rinsing and rewarming between cuts. It also had a slight releasing issue, but I managed to get a gorgeous slice from it too.

I vastly preferred the Dark Chocolate-Green Tea ones better. The Green Tea balanced out the richness of the Dark Chocolate without overwhelming it. I was slightly miffed that the bottom of the 10" didn't marble very well.}:( Oh well, this is why you remake a recipe and try different things, yes? Besides, it gives me an excuse to make more cheesecakes in the near future!

Overall, this was a great experience for a first Daring Bakers Monthly Challenge! I look forward to many more.}:P


Thank you, Jennybakes, for a great recipe!