Week 18, July 25, 2011: Cheesecake and bread

For the love of God, someone shake some baking sense into me.

I said that last week's cheesecake recipe was "ehh". So instead of tweaking it, I went out and found a new recipe.

Allow me to vetch and explain to you my utter lack of insight on doing what I did this week.

I googled "cheesecake recipes" and one of the first few was this one:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/chantals-new-york-cheesecake/detail.aspx

It had all five star reviews and I read a few of them to see about modifications.  Here's what kills me: people will give it a five star review and then detail what they did, which was completely change the effing recipe!  I get so irritated with that, but I took a deep breath, typed into a word doc some of the more sensible modifications and tried to ignore the comments that said "if you screw this one up, it's your fault, not the recipe's".

You all know that normally I blame myself, but this time, it's all on the recipe.

Here's the recipe, then I'll explain what I'm going to do next time:

Cheesecake

A variation on Chantal’s New York Cheesecake

Crust

1 ½ c graham cracker crumbs

¼ c sugar

¼ c melted butter

½ tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp nutmeg

Filling (BE SURE ALL INGREDIENTS ARE ROOM TEMP!)

4 8oz packages of cream cheese

1 ½ c white sugar

¾ c milk (or creamy booze

4 eggs

1 c sour cream

1 Tbs vanilla extract

¼ c all-purpose flour (if too cakey/ dry, decrease to 2 Tbs)- I did 2 Tbs

Preheat oven to 325 degrees

Grease a nine inch spring form pan

Wrap the bottom in foil 3X

Heat water for water bath

In a medium bowl, mix graham cracker crumbs, sugar, spices and butter.  Press onto bottom of springform pan.

In a large bowl, mix cream cheese with sugar until smooth. Blend in milk and then mix in the eggs one at a time, mixing just enough to incorporate. Mix in sour cream, vanilla and flour until smooth. Pour filling into prepared crust.

Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour. Turn the oven off, and let cake cool in oven with the door closed for 5-6 hours. Chill in refrigerator until serving.

Ok- after 1 hour of cooking, it looked absolutely raw.  Like if I didn't know the farmer, I'd be afraid of salmonella raw.  Like slimy raw.  I was skeeved and baked it until it was cooked- like another 45 minutes. Left it in the oven only for an hour or so--the point of leaving it in the oven is so it doesn't crack, but it was a 90 degree day and leaving anything out in that weather creeps me.  So, into the fridge.  I cut into it this morning to try (approx. 15 hours in the fridge). It was eggy and the texture was off.  Not a fan.

The crust however was ridiculously amazing. The lady who posted the mod about the nutmeg was right on.

What did I learn? Don't try and reinvent the wheel. Modify what's got the texture but not the taste so that it's got the taste- so, for next week, Toffee Crunch Caramel Cheesecake reloaded.

I won't even get into the bread.  I was doing paperwork this afternoon and neglected to set the timer- the neighbor said it was perfectly crusty. I gave her the loaf and told her to feed the birds when she got sick of it.

Good news, there's always next week.