Cheesecake YUM

I've been baking up a storm. In the last 5 days i've made chocolate cherry cupcakes with dark ganache frosting, chocolate malteser cupcakes with horlicks frosting, nigella's chocolate cheesecake, and new york cheesecake (both 8 inch and indivudual portions).

The first three were alright.

TS liked the choccherry (with a bit of whipped cream i would have called it a blackforest cupcake), not too sweet and very moist. It didn't keep well though and was dry by the second day. Recipe came from a nigella-inspired chocolate orange cake i found on the internet. The frosting was just dark chocolate (I used Lindt 55% because ran out of Valrhona) and whipping cream.

The malteser one was a letdown. The cake was kind of hard, and the frosting tooth-achingly sweet. Only L liked it and he has a VERY sweet tooth.

Chocolate cheesecake was hit and miss (I just got nigella's FEAST which explains the choice of recipes). People who like cheesecake thought it was good (I got one 7/10 rating and my sis said it was great, but then she's my sis) and people who expected chocolate truffle cake (though i don't know why since i said it was CHEESECAKE) almost spat it out.

But yesterday's cheesecake. Now i'm proud of that. I love New York Style Cheesecake, dense and with a good bite, not slimy and melty (is there such a word?). I prefer it with a hint of lemon instead of overwhelming vanilla, a bit of the sour cream taste, and I like a lot of crust (not too buttery please). I've made a lot of cheesecakes, but yesterday's (if i do say so myself) was the BEST. It was all the above and more. I compared several different recipes (Donna Hay, Chantal's from AllRecipes.com, Nigella and Kraft) and came up with the following compromise (a little less sugar here, and a little bit of lemon zest there). I also resized it to make one 8 inch cake PLUS 24 cupcakes (the individual portions are so cute). I figured for all that effort I might as well make more, and also try out the cupcake idea.

Before the recipe follows, here are some tips

1. WAIT until cream cheese is room temperature. Do not be tempted to start earlier unless you have a heavy duty stand mixer and are prepared to scrape down the bowl A LOT. You will otherwise just end up with lumpy batter and a sore arm.

2. Use a water bath for the 8 inch cake. It really stops it from cracking, and the custard (cheesecake is not actually a cake) turns out SO smooth. Nigella recommends wrapping the pan in plastic wrap. I didn't dare. So i used a sheet of foil to cover the base of the springform pan BEFORE clipping the side on, then two more layers of foil around the whole pan, plus careful handling to make sure foil didn't tear (unless you want water in the cake base). Only pour in custard after foiling is complete (I imagine would be quite messy otherwise). Place the foil wrapped and cake-filled pan in a roasting tin, put that in the oven THEN pour in hot water from a kettle halfway up the side. Because i'm so paranoid, after the baking time was up i poured the water out of the pan before putting the cake back in the oven to cool down. (see below). For the cupcakes i just put a pan of water on the shelf below. Have no idea if this made any difference to the outcome.

3. Let the cake cool down in the oven. Completely. Meaning do your baking WAY ahead of time. I baked at 11pm, which meant the cake was done at midnight. I turned the oven off, then left the cake in until 7am (it was still a bit warm) when it went into the fridge for another 4 hours. It was really really beautiful, no cracks, brown top. Didn't bother with the cupcakes, somehow they didn't crack despite me just taking them out and putting them on a wire rack immediately after baking (had to make space in the oven for the cake). But think they didn't taste as good having missed out on this step.

4. In this case, the crinkled paper cases look much cuter than the stand-alone cups i usually use (see previous cupcake post). Fill to the top, custard doesn't rise much.

5. Get a food processor and a stand mixer. I would NOT attempt this otherwise. But go ahead if you're brave...

6. Sieve the mixture as you pour it into the pan. Yes this is troublesome but the end result is SO SMOOTH.

I have no photos. Because I was lazy, and the cakes looked so fantastic I had to get them out for people to eat. Nevermind, the recipe is so good I'm already planning when I can make it again. Bought some really cute orange and yellow cups just for that time.

Ok, so for one 8 inch cake AND 24 individual portions (If you just want the cake, make 2/3 of this)

INGREDIENTS
4 cups digestive biscuits
1/4 cup butter, soft

6 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese (I used Kraft Philly, 3 X full fat, 3 X reduced fat, just to make myself feel better)
2 cups (fine granulated) white sugar
1 1/8 cup milk
6 eggs
1 1/2 cups sour cream (I used light, next time may use full fat just to see if it's richer)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
3/8 cup all-purpose flour (sifted)

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C (my oven reads 150C on the dial when the internal temp by thermometer is 180C, so please check yours). Line an 8 inch springform pan with foil as detailed above. Put out cupcake papers.
Process biscuits in food processor until all crumbs. Take out half and divide into cupcake papers (about 1 tablespoon each, shake to distribute evenly). Whizz (process) butter into the other half, pour into springform pan and pat down with the base of a drinking glass. Chuck into the freezer.
In a stand mixer beat cream cheese until smooth, add sugar and beat again. Blend in milk a little at a time, and then add the eggs one at a time, mixing just enough to incorporate. Mix in sour cream, lemon zest and vanilla, then add flour until smooth. Sieve then pour filling into prepared cupcake papers and springform pan (I only poured the custard into the cake pan just before it went into the oven ie. after cupcakes were done ?to prevent a soggy biscuit base).
Bake in preheated oven (25 min for cupcakes, 1 hour for 8 inch).
Follow the cooling instructions as above.

Ok I hope that was follow-able for those brave souls who decide to trust my instructions (or who even read my blog). Let me know how it goes.