New York Style Cheesecake

This new years eve, I decided to make something a little fancy, and with the ball dropping in NYC what better to make than a New York style Cheesecake. Fortunately for me, I am in love with cheesecake. The graham cracker crust and richness of the cream cheese filling really do it for me, whatever "it" is. Unfortunately for me, I am not that good at making cheesecake. I can handle the crust and the filling, but I never know how long to bake it, when it's done, or what it's supposed to look like when its finished. This really shouldn't be that difficult, but I guess I was not gifted in the cheesecake area. Until new years eve, I had never made a "perfect" cheesecake. Luckily for me I came across this amazing recipe. I was hesitant at first when I read the directions for how to bake the cheesecake, but then I decided to brace my fear of baking an unsuccessful cheesecake and just do it. When baking the cheesecake, the oven is turned all the way to 550...550! I have never gotten to turn my oven up to 550 degrees...it was quite a thrilling experience. Don't doubt the cooking directions like I did at first, but just go with it. The end result was absolutely cheesecake bliss. Everyone loved this special New Yeas Eve cheesecake, even the floor loved it...yes, the floor. Let me Explain.

First, you need know a few things. When baking a cheesecake, you bake it in a springform pan, and when letting the cheesecake cool, you keep the cheesecake on the metal pan in which it was baked. The metal pan is the same size as the cheesecake, so I put the cheesecake along with the metal pan on a serving plate so I could carry it easily. Big mistake. 


The cheesecake had been cooling in the fridge for awhile and my brothers finally came to me and asked if we could cut into it. I was not hesitant to oblige. So I pulled the cheesecake from the fridge, with my brothers staring at it with lustful eyes, and proceeded to turn around and place it on the counter. Apparently, I placed the cheesecake on the counter a little too carelessly because when I set the the plate down the cheesecake slid right off the plate, fell off the side of the counter and hit the floor with a resounding "splat". I was in shock and of course my brothers all said "Well, what did you do that for!!"...like I actually meant to drop the best cheesecake I had ever made on the floor. I told you I wasn't blessed with the cheesecake gene. My sister must have got that one. 


I couldn't bring myself to take pictuire of the detroyed cheesecake, so you will just have to use your imagination. 

New York Style Cheesecake
From: Smitten Kitchen
Ingredients:
Crust-
- 8 oz. graham crackers, finley ground
- 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt

Filling-
- 5 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
- 1 3/4 cups sugar
- 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest (optional)
- 1 teaspoon finely grated orange zest (optional)
- 5 large eggs
- 2 large egg yolks
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

- Can of cherry pie filling for topping
Directions

For crust:

1. Stir together crust ingredients and press onto bottom and up the sides of a buttered 9 1/2-inch springform pan. You can fill it right away but I like to pop my into the freezer so it quickly sets while I prepare the filling.

For filling:
1. Preheat oven to 550 degrees.
2. Beat together cream cheese, sugar, flour and zest with an electric mixer until smooth. Add vanilla, then eggs and yolks, one at a time, beating on low speed until each ingredient is incorporated. Scrape bowl down between additions; I cannot stress this enough as if you do not, you’ll end up with unmixed stripes of cream cheese. 

3. Put springform pan with crust in a shallow baking pan (to catch drips). Pour filling into crust (springform pan will be completely full)

4. bake in baking pan in the middle of the oven for 12 minutes or until puffed. Please watch your cake because some ovens will top-brown very quickly and if yours does too fast, turn the oven down as soon as you catch it. 
5. Reduce the temperature to 200 degrees and continue baking until cake is mostly firm (center will still be slightly wobbly when pan is gently shaken), about one hour more.

*To keep the top and crust from browning as much as mine did, put tin foil over the cake while baking.

5. Run a knife around the top edge of the cake to loosen it and cool the cake completely in springform on a rack, then chill it, loosely covered, at least 6 hours.
6. Top with cherries and enjoy! Don't drop it on the floor like yours truly did.

-Sarah-