Monday, October 8, 2012

The Queen of all Cheesecakes

     Believe me, this recipe transcends all others, in aspects understandable to mere trying-hard bakers and chef wannabees, like me.   Even for a long-time baker like me, making a cheesecake used to be with a thought that "it's only for the pros."  I have tried a few recipes from different sorts of websites, magazines and yes even the back labels of cream cheese packs.   From no-bake to baked.   But to no avail, all didn't make it to my standard mostly to my kids.   The results were crazy, some turned out to be runny with less body, and others would be hard and not looking like the cheesecake we see in restaurants and magazines.
     But my search didn't end with those failed attempt to make a perfect one, even the simplest one.
Till finally, landing at Dessert Comes First website of Lori Baltazar, I was able to assess that this might be the recipe I was looking for.   She cited it as Simply Sinful Cheesecake.  Care to know why?  Will share in a bit, but let me keep the ardor in the air for a while as I share the recipe.
WAIT!  Let me remind myself to buy a spring-form pan next time!
Simply Sinful Cheesecake (adapted from DCF)

Ingredients:
2 cups crushed graham crackers
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 butter or margarine, melted
2 (8 oz) package cream cheese, softened
1 can (300 g.) condensed milk
3 eggs (medium)
juice of 2 calamansi

To make:
1.  Pre-heat the oven to 300 *F
2.  In a large bowl, combine butter, sugar and graham cracker crumbs. Press into bottom of pan and put in the oven for 10 minutes.
3.   With a mixer, beat the cream cheese, then gradually beat in the condensed milk until smooth.
4.    Add the eggs and calamansi juice. Mix well.
5.    Pour into a 9-inch pan and bake for 50 to 55 minutes or until the sides are cooked yet the middle still jiggles.   Cool for an hour and put in the fridge over night or best, 24 hours.

This was how it will look like after coming out from the oven,
my daughter decorated it with bitter-sweet chocolate chips
     This recipe is a guaranteed fool-proof!  What came out of my fridge after this was a decadent, smooth and rich taste of the cheese, milk and egg- without too much of the sweet and milky taste.   I guess putting the calamansi juice made the difference (attacking the "umay"-factor).
     We (inspired by my kids for the World Teachers' Day celebration) made this the night of October 4.  With these activity, I also had a batch of Strawberry Muffin made, which we gave to their teachers, as a sign of our appreciation for their hard-work and love to my kids.  Will share the recipe of the muffins on my upcoming post.
         Hope you could also try this and please let me know how it was.

1 comment:

  1. You know, you are right! This was easy to do and extremely addicting! Sarap talaga, you can eat as much without getting tired of the sweetness. (Umay baga)

    ReplyDelete

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