Thursday 25 March 2010

CHEESECAKE!
who doesn't love cheesecake? it's seriously awesome. that being said i have never actually made a cheesecake before. shocking i know but i come from a long line of cheesecake making masters. why make one when i can eat my mom's. well my mom isn't around any more. don't worry, she's not dead. she's living on a boat anchored off some far flung island. if i want yummy cheesecake it's up to me to make it. i found a kid's cookbook a few weeks ago. inside was a pretty straightforward cheesecake recipe. today i decided to try it out. of course i made some modifications. following directions, exactly is just not my style. i'll put down the directions from the book and then what i did, that way you can have 2 cheesecake recipes for 1 entry.
cheesecake
need a 8inch springform pan(but not really, other suggestions at the end)
  • 175g(6oz) digestive biscuits, that's the english version of a gram cracker
  • 85g(3oz) butter
  • 3 eggs
  • 340g(12oz) cream cheese: at room temp
  • 85g(3oz) sugar
  •  150ml(1/4pint) double cream (heavy cream)
  •  juice of 1 lemon
  •  1 tablespoon cornflour
oven temp 150degreeC(300degreeF)
crunch up the biscuits to fine crumbs. food processor? shove in a bag and beat with a rolling pin? whatever does the job
melt the butter in a sauce pan over low heat. when melted add the biscuit crumbs, stir together. pour into the bottom of your cooking pan and press firmly down.
bake the base for 20min

separate the eggs into 2 different bowls. in a medium sized bowl i put the eggwhite. in my largest bowl i put the yokes.
beat the egg whites to stiff peak stage. i used my electric handmixer.
in the large bowl with the yokes add the cream cheese. beat the two together. beat in the sugar, cream, lemon juice and corn flour. mix really well.
add the egg whites to the cheese mix. i did a small scoop  of whites to loosen up the cheese mix. then i added half of the remaining egg whites, stirred just enough to they were mixed in and then finally added the last half of the whites, again stirring just enough that everything was evenly mixed.
pour the mix onto the biscuit base and bake in your oven  for an hour. a knife inserted in should come out clean. turn off the oven and let the cake cool in the oven.(this supposedly stops it from cracking.)
ok that's the book recipe.
what i did:
instead of using cream i used fromage frais
fromage frais has like no fat, so that reduced the calorie count of my treat instantly. instead of lemon i used 1 teaspoon of vanilla flavor.
when i baked the cake i put a small dish of water on the bottom shelf. this helps keep things nice and moist. i didn't let the cake cool in the oven, cracks don't bother me. i made it to be tasty, not pretty.
ok, so you don't have a spring form pan. no big deal. i used one of those loose bottom pans. what do you do if don't have either of those? oh no, no cheesecake treats for you. or how about you double the amount of butter and biscuit crumbs and then press them out into a 9X13inch baking sheet. make the same amount of cheesecake mixture and pour over the crust. the cooking time should be shorter. when done cut into bars.

1 comment:

The Apparel Shed said...

Just put that in my recipe book.