Cheesecake!

Purtty, ain't it?

Who doesn't love cheesecake?

Every now and then,

I get a hankerin' fer cheesecake.

And I just grab stuff off the shelves in the fridge
and make one.

Really, as long as you have cream cheese and eggs,

you can make cheesecake.

Here's a hint for making cheesecakes:

Use 1 egg (or thereabouts) for each stick of cream cheese

and each cup of whatever else dairy you put in.

And that dairy can be sour cream, ricotta cheese,

cottage cheese, or plain yogurt.

Or all of the above.

Making cheesecake is a good excuse

to get rid of stuff that's lingering in your fridge.

You know, before it gets "flavor spots" on it.

Here's how I put this particular cheesecake together.

And believe me, there's no "recipe."

It's all random.

But I'm really glad I happened to write down 

what I threw in,

because this one was quite good.

Rosie's Cheesecake 

Heat oven to 325°.

Use a 1 9-inch spring form pan

For the crust:

2 packages graham crackers
12 ginger snaps
1/4 cup brown sugar
6 TB unsalted butter, melted
Process all.
Press onto bottom and sides of 9" springform pan.

I place plastic wrap over the crumbs

and use a mini rolling pin to evenly spread the crust.

For the cheesecake:

2 1/2 packages cream cheese  (20 oz.), softened

3/4 cup cottage cheese

1/3 cup plain yogurt

1/2 cup sour cream

juice of 1 lemon

4 eggs 

1 cup sugar

2 TB cornstarch

2 TB flour

1 TB vanilla

In a processor,  process the cream cheese until smooth.

With the machine going,

add in the rest of the ingredients, one at a time,

the eggs, one at a time.

Pour cheesecake mixture into prepared spring form pan.

Take heavy-duty aluminum foil

and wrap around the pan.

Place pan in a larger roasting pan

and fill 1/3 way up with water.

This is officially a bain Marie.

A bain Marie allows the custard mixture

to heat gently, gradually, and evenly.

Bake at 325° for one hour.

Remove from oven and let cool.

It's fine on its own,

but if you like to go that extra step,

make some caramel sauce.

For the caramel sauce:

1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup cream
1 TB unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla
In a small sauce pan, 

heat brown sugar and cream until dissolved and boiling. 

 Stir in butter and reduce to simmer. 

 Cook for about 5 minutes.  

Stir in vanilla. 

 Pour over cheesecake.

I added pecans just because they're sooooo gooooood.

 Now, if you'd like to embellish a bit more...

  ...may I recommend Candied Pecans and a Ganache Glaze?

Candied Pecans

1/4 cup sugar

1 TB water

1 cup pecans

Combine sugar and and water in small saucepan.  Heat over low, shaking pan, until sugar dissolves.  Bring just to a boil.  Stir in nuts to coat and remove from heat.

Spread nuts evenly in a single layer on a baking sheet. I sprinkled a little pink sea salt over them, but you could use kosher salt.  Bake at 300° for 20-25 minutes, shaking halfway through.  Let cool.

Ganache Glaze

1/2 cup cream

1 TB butter

1 TB strong coffee

10-oz. package Nestlé dark chocolate morsels

pinch salt 

Rosie Note:  Nevereverever, use the Food Lion brand of chocolate chips, thinking they're the same as Nestlé.  They're NOT!  Use Nestlé or Ghiradelli.

Heat the cream, butter, and coffee until almost simmering.  Low heat.

Add in the chocolate morsels and stir until melted.

Stir in the pinch of salt.

Remove from heat and let cool slightly before drizzling onto cheesecake.

Sprinkle candied pecans over the glaze.

Enjoy!

Happy Birthday To Youngest Hawthorne! Here's Your Cake.

Now, I'm going to let you have my cheesecake recipe which everybody loves.

Here are the fixin's for my crust: 1 1/4 cups crushed gingersnaps 1 1/4 cups crushed graham crackers 1/4 cup brown sugar 1 stick butter, melted

Mix all together.

And press into a buttered 9-inch spring form pan, bottom and sides. Chill in freezer while preparing filling.

Here are the ingredients for the cheesecake: 4 8-oz packages cream cheese, softened 4 large eggs, beaten 1 cup sugar 1 tsp vanilla 1 TB cornstarch 1 cup sour cream

Beat softened cream cheese, slowly adding sugar, until mixture is smooth and light.

Beat in eggs, vanilla, and cornstarch. Stir in sour cream.

Then, I decided to add in the juice of 2 lemons.

Pour into the prepared pan.

Bake in a preheated 450 degree oven for 10 minutes, then reduce temperature to 200 degrees and bake for 45 more minutes. Turn off oven and allow to cool with door ajar for 3 hours. Remove sides of pan and embellish a bit.

First I melted some Ghirardelli Semi Sweet Chocolate chips and painted about 2 dozen leaves. Set on wax paper and refrigerate to harden.

We had some cherries, so I put Mr. Hawthorne to task pitting the cherries.

Added some sugar.

And heated for about 20 minutes or so until it cooked down a bit.

Chill cherry mixture, then pour on top of cheesecake.

Pretty cheesecake.

Next, I'm going to make some spun sugar to decorate the cake with. 1/3 cup water 1 cup sugar

Mix sugar and water in saucepan.

Cook over medium heat. Do not stir. Swirl.

Swirl until mixture is clear.

Keep cooking and swirling until mixture turns a nice caramel color.

Set for a few seconds in a bowl of ice water to stop cooking. Then dip fork into caramel and start drizzling.

Keep on drizzling.

Now, we're starting to get somewhere.

Ooh. Oooh. Pretty. As the caramel cools, you can actually pull it off with your fingers and twist however you want to.

Finally, peel the chocolate off the leaves and arrange around cake.

Happy Birthday to Youngest Hawthorne!

Blow out the candles.

Cheesecake and homemade ice cream. Doesn't get much better than this.

Cake carcass.