The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.  I’m not sure what makes the cheesecake infamous, but it was a good base recipe for elaboration.  I decided to replicate a really great dessert I’ve had several times at Cafe Rouge: goat cheese cheesecake.

The goat cheese is subtle, but detectable enough to make it interesting. I used a 2:1 ratio of cream cheese to goat cheese, which worked out well, and the red wine poached rhubarb gave a nice acidity to counter the creaminess of the cheesecake.

I do have one admission to make–I knew I wanted to make mini cheesecakes (a huge cheesecake for two people, one of whom is ostensibly on a diet, is not the best idea), and so when I saw the cute mini graham cracker crusts at the store, I couldn’t resist. Hopefully no one will hold that against me (and I’ve included the crust recipe below anyway)

Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake:

This is the base recipe for the challenge. I cut it in half for my six mini-cheesecakes, using 5 oz of goat cheese and 8 oz of cream cheese for my variation.

crust:
2 cups / 180 g graham cracker crumbs
1 stick / 4 oz butter, melted
2 tbsp. / 24 g sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

cheesecake:
3 sticks of cream cheese, 8 oz each (total of 24 oz) room temperature
1 cup / 210 g sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup / 8 oz heavy cream
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean)
1 tbsp liqueur, optional, but choose what will work well with your cheesecake

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (Gas Mark 4 = 180C = Moderate heat). Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too – baker’s choice. Set crust aside.

3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.

4. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

5. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done – this can be hard to judge, but you’re looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don’t want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won’t crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve.

Recipe for red wine poached rhubarb (This recipe was good, but next time I would cook the rhubarb less–it ended up pretty mushy. Also, I removed the rhubarb after 10 minutes and reduced the syrup to ~1/2 cup before combining them again and refrigerating.)

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