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Junior's Cheesecake Cookbook: 50 to-Die-for Recipes for New York-Style Cheesecake
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La Belle Cuisine
Forbidden Pleasures
Cheesecake
Zanne Early Stewart
Gourmet April 1996
"Cheesecake connoisseurs are choosy, discriminating between the ricotta and
the cream cheese varieties. For me the winner has always been clear: cream
cheese, hands down. The paradigm, of course, was Sara Lee's, the smooth,
dense, tangy-sweet cake in a disposable aluminum pan that rarely ever
received the amenity of proper plating. It was the first food I knew whose
illicit nature was accentuated
by the fact that I ate it standing up, as if
the need to make a quick getaway were imminent. Ritualistically, my
girlfriends and I would gather round and shave off sliver after sliver of
its deceptively innocent-looking richness, knowing that
calories consumed in
a coven don't count. And they didn't - then.
Later came an even richer, creamier cheesecake, from a coffeehouse in Santa
Fe called Three Cities of Spain, which closed in the mid-seventies. The
owners,
Robert Garrison and David Munn, showed foreign films and served
wonderful
food. The European exoticism of Fellini or Bergman on the screen
was buffered
by that familiar dessert, of which I sometimes had two servings
in a single sitting.
Before moving from Santa Fe to Manhattan, I got the recipe for Three Cities'
cheesecake and made it often, to much acclaim. But somehow I lost it and
nearly gave up hope of finding it again. In a genre I had sampled and
enjoyed thoroughly, that cheesecake had become the one by which I judged all
others. Its absence made me doubt my memory, and I began wondering whether
the cake was no more than a luscious creation of my dreams. And then, during
last year's spring cleaning ritual,
I recovered my buried treasure - the
recipe for that long-lost forbidden pleasure.
Of course I made it
immediately, and one taste confirmed my fondest recollections.
I am pleased to share the recipe for your enjoyment, whether you eat the
cheesecake in wanton wedges or surreptitiously, sliver by sliver."
Three Cities of Spain Cheesecake
For crust:
11 roughly 5-by-2 1/2-inch graham crackers, ground
fine
in a food processor (about 1 1/2 cups)
1/3 cup (5 1/3 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
1/3 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
For filling:
24 ounces cream cheese, softened
4 large eggs, beaten lightly
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup sugar
For topping:
16 ounces sour cream
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Make crust:
In a bowl stir together crumbs, butter, sugar and salt. Sprinkle half of
the crumb mixture onto bottom of a buttered 9 1/2-inch springform
pan near
rim, pressing evenly about 1 1/4 inches up side. Sprinkle remaining crumb
mixture onto bottom and press evenly over bottom, joining edge.
Make filling:
In a bowl with an electric mixer beat cream cheese until light and fluffy
and add eggs a little at a time, beating on low speed until just combined.
Beat in vanilla and sugar, beating on low speed until just com-bined. Pour
filling into crust and bake in middle of oven 45 minutes.Trans-
fer cake in
pan to a rack and let stand 5 minutes. (Cake will not be set in center but
will set as it cools.) Leave oven on.
Make topping:
In a bowl stir together sour cream, sugar and vanilla. Drop spoonfuls of
topping around edge of cake and spread gently over center, smoothing evenly.
Bake cake 10 minutes more. Transfer cake in pan to a
rack and cool
completely. Chill cake, covered, overnight. Remove side of
pan and transfer
cake to a plate. Let cheesecake stand at room temperature
30 minutes and
serve with fresh strawberries.
Perfect Cheesecake Tips
(gathered over the years, sources not
noted)
♦ Have all ingredients at room temperature. If you're in a
hurry, warm
the cream cheese for 10 minutes at 200 degrees F [these days you
could
just
slip it into
the microwave, unwrapped, for a minute or
so].
Slip the eggs
into a bowl of
warm water for 5 to10 minutes.
♦
Oiling the springform pan keeps cake from sticking to sides, which
can cause
the cake to crack as it cools.
♦
Scrape the bowl and beaters several times while beating the
cream cheese.
♦
Once the eggs have been incorporated, don't beat or stir vigorously,
as
this
will add too much air.
♦
Cheesecakes rise very little, so pans may be filled to the rim.
♦
Don't open the oven door during the first 30 minutes of baking time.
♦
Make cheesecakes at least one day in advance in order to allow the
flavor
to ripen. Cheesecake may be refrigerated up to 1 week, or
wrapped tightly
and frozen up to one month.
♦
Slice cheesecake with a long, thin knife dipped in hot water.
Perfect Cheesecake, Page 1
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