Say Cheese for Cheesecake!!

It's time again for another scrumptious Daring Bakers Challenge.

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

The first time I made cheesecake was for the Daring Bakers Challenge – Cheesecake Pops. This time all we had to do was make a basic Cheesecake. We were allowed for flavour modifications within the basic recipe. I chose to make a Mango Cheesecake and instead of topping the cheesecake with a Mango puree, I added it to the cheesecake batter itself. That made the whole cheesecake mango-ey and it had a wonderful colour.

Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake:

(I made Mango 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:
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

1 Cup Mango puree (I used canned, unsweetened)

¼ tsp Cardamom powder

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. I left out the alcohol, and added the mango puree and cardamom powder.

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: I made only a third of the recipe, and used 6 ramekins.

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.

The cheesecakes turned out perfect, but while removing them from the ramekins, they cracked slightly. I am not a big cheesecake fan, but this one blew me off my feet. Thanks Jenny for the wonderful Cheesecake challenge.

Don’t forget to visit my fellow Daring Bakers to see their cheesecakes.