Creamy Lemon Cheesecake
Friday night, I cooked up an anniversary dinner for Zach. We’ve been together for a year now, so I wanted to go all out for him. Knowing that his favorite dessert is cheesecake and knowing that I seem to always mess up my cheesecake, I nervously decided to go for it.
Now, making a cheesecake ain’t cheap. When you consider all the cream cheese in it, it amounts to a little over a pound of rich and creamy cheese. Not to mention all the time you must invest into it. I made this on Thursday night for dinner on Friday. This particular recipe called for 8 3/4 oz. of marscapone, which is about $4.00 for only 8 oz. Naturally, I got a bit anxious thinking about all the ways I could fuck up the cheesecake. Cracks, and dryness, and falling, oh my!
So what did I do? I spent the entire day beforehand reading up on creating the perfect cheesecake. There were lots of interesting tips and hints that I’d never heard before and after reading all day, I felt like I had a good handle on what method I was gonna take. There are so many conflicting views on the proper ways to make cheesecake. There are those that believe a water bath should be employed so that the cheesecake bakes at an even temperature throughout, while others think that baking a cheesecake at a lower temperature slowly will make a perfect piece of art. I decided that I would go with the low and slow method, which I’m learning a lot lately
Once I finally had my ideas about what should be done to create a thing of beauty and wonder, I got to work.
I threw some graham crackers, butter, and sugar into the food processor and gave it a few pulses until the mixture stuck together at the touch.
Pulse graham crackers, butter, and sugar in the food processor.
Once I create the crust mixture, I push it all into an even layer in a 9″ springform pan and bake it on 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. I recommend watching it closely though, since all ovens have different temperature settings and this crust is prone to burning easily.
Once the crust is done baking, let it cool completely on the counter. It’s very important to let it cool. If you don’t, the heat will help destroy the consistency of the soon to be added cheesecake center. When making a cheesecake, it’s crucial to follow every step and not skip out on the seemingly unimportant things like cooling time. Every little step to the recipe and each second put into the process makes it worth it in the end. I promise you.
Next, I put 4 blocks of cream cheese, along with an 8 oz. container of m cheese into a large glass mixing bowl and beat it on medium speed until it was light and fluffy. Then I creamed in one cup of sugar, lemon zest (to taste), and some vanilla seeds scraped fresh from the bean.
Mixing in the vanilla bean
Once the mixture was 100% creamy with no chance of lumps, I added the two eggs. Now, this is the part that’s really important. First, the eggs need to be at room temperature. Give them about 3 hours out on the counter before you even consider mixing them. Mixing in cold eggs is what causes cracks in the cake. Since the cream cheese is such a delicate ingredient, temperature is of the utmost importance.
Mix the eggs into the mix until they’re just mixed in. Overbeating the eggs will also have some not so desirable consequences. When you’re spending this much time and money on something, you want it to turn out perfectly. Or maybe that’s the just the super anal side of my personality speaking.
With the crust cooled and the cheesecake mixture ready, it’s time to pour the cheesecake into the crust and put that bitch in the oven! Be sure to have the oven preheated at 350 degrees to begin the baking process. When I baked my cake, I started out baking it at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, I employed the low and slow method that I talked about earlier. I turned down the temperature to 200 degrees and put the timer on for one hour. After the hour was up, I decided that the cake could use about 20 more minutes.
When the cake was finally finished baking, I turned the oven off and let the cake sit in overnight to cool down. Since it was already 1 a.m. by the time it finished baking, I figured leaving it in the closed oven for 5 hours while I slept couldn’t be that bad for it. When I rose bright and early for work on Friday this is what I found:
No cracks.
It was absolutely stunning looking. All day Friday at work, I was itching to sample my creation but I was more excited for Zach to try it than anything. Since he’s a real chef, his opinion means so much to me. And since cheesecake is his favorite dessert the pressure, I felt, was really on. And finally, it was Friday night and dinner was over.
Before cutting into the cheesecake, I took a little bit of lemon juice and sugar and coated some fresh raspberries with it. This created a nice, sweet tartness to contrast with the creamy richness of the cake. It was heavenly. I’ve never made something that had so many layers of flavor and richness.
A creamy slice
Lemon juice and sugar coated raspberries finish it off.
I’ll definitely be going on a cheesecake kick from here on out. Expect to see mad flavors and colors in the near future.
Currently making my morning pretty:
Fleet Foxes
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