| Cheesecake | |
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| prep time: 00:15 cook time:00:50 + 3:00-24:00 to chill serves: 8 - 12 cost: $3.60 vegetarian |
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| If you've never made cheesecake, you're in for a treat. Cheesecake, widely thought to be hard to make, is in fact trivially easy. Its reputation probably comes from the fact that it has to be cooled for many hours after it cooks, so that planning is required. The cheesecake reputation is almost biblical in scope. When Joanna was an undergraduate, before she was famous as someone who bakes a lot, she and a friend got very depressed and decided that the only solution was to use all their remaining cash to buy a whole cheesecake. They ate it all that night, and forgot all their problems with the onset of the intense, thick, heavy pain. Celebrate your entry into the cheesecake priesthood by listening to the King Missile song "Cheesecake Truck" while you stir it together. In the song, our hero takes a job driving a cheesecake truck, then keeps stopping and eating whole cheesecakes. And no stomach pain, suggesting that the story the song tells may not be entirely true. |
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| crust: 1 1/2 c graham cracker crumbs 6 tablespoons butter filling: 3 packages cream cheese (softened) 1 1/2 c sugar 4 eggs 1 T vanilla |
Melt butter. Mix into graham cracker crumbs. Adjust mix to get good consistency (pressable but not too wet). Press into bottom of 8" springform pan. Cream cream cheese in mixer (or by hand, but it's quite a job) until smooth. Add sugar, then eggs and vanilla. Pour into pan. Bake in 350 oven for 45 - 50 minutes (reduce heat to 300 if top browns). Cool in oven with door open, then on rack for 1 hour. Chill in fridge 3 - 24 hours.
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| Variations: You can cook it at any lower temperature, such as 250. It will then take much longer to cook, but the top will come out looking closer to perfect. |
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| sour cream vanilla sugar |
Sour cream topping Mix together 1 c sour cream, 1 t vanilla and 1-2 t sugar. Spoon over top of cheesecake before chilling. |
| chocolate chips | Chocolate swirl Cheesecake Melt 1 - 2 cups chocolate chips. Swirl chocolate into filling after filling is poured into pan. |
| raspberries lime zest lime juice sugar |
Raspberry lime cheesecake Mix 1/2 cup chopped fresh or frozen raspberries, zest of 1 lime, and 2 tablespoons lime juice into filling. Make raspberry sauce by combining 1/2 c water and 1/4 c sugar, bring to a boil and simmer until reduced by 1/2. Let cool, then mix in blender with 1 c raspberries. Mix in 1 c whole raspberries. Spoon over cheesecake immediately before serving. |
| semi-sweet chocolate frozen black cherries |
Mix 4 ounces shaved semi-sweet chocolate (use a knife to shave pieces off chocolate squares) and 1/2 cup chopped frozen black cherries. Decorate top with (drained) cherries and more shaved chocolate after cake is baked but before chilling in fridge. |