How to add zest to your life

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


That's right its Daring Bakers time again!!! This month was cheesecake. Oh how I lurve cheesecake. My only issue is that it is too rich for me to consume it in the quantities that make my taste buds sing. We were allowed to flavour it however we wanted provided it was still cheesecake. You'll find the recipe below as well as my adaptations. This months target audience were Choristers. We spent Easter Sunday watching movies, eating a fantastic roast veal lunch (direct from the farmers market) and devouring this gooey lime cheesecake with a chocolate crust. It took 2 days to eat and was well worth the urge to hurl (yes, I ate that much of it and no, I did not hurl. the 4kgs I put on that weekend can attest to it.)
The only thing I would do differently would be to alter the cooking time. Mine was still runny in the middle. I think if I raise the temp to 200C and keep the time the same it should fair better.
My kitchen now owns a new scan pan 32cm (read gigantic and just fits into my oven) pot for waterbath and a new 9 inch springform tin to match. It fills a 9inch perfectly too.

Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake:

crust:
2 cups / 180 g graham cracker crumbs (digestive biscuits work just as well)
1 stick / 4 oz butter, melted
2 tbsp. / 24 g sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 cup cocoa (add in with crumbs)

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

Replace last three wth the following

zest of 3 limes

juice of 2

2Tbsp lemoncello

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.