April Cheesecake

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.


This was a work in progress from the beginning. I have made many, many cheesecakes; however, my standard recipe is very dense with three pounds of cream cheese plus ricotta and sour cream. This recipe is a much lighter cheesecake, with a more liquid batter: only 24 ounces of cream cheese and a cup of cream, plus the usual eggs, sugar, and flavorings.

My original plan was to layer bittersweet chocolate, caramel and raspberry sauces between layers of cheesecake. It soon became apparent that the sauces were much too heavy to rest on top of the cheesecake and would just sink to the bottom. I abandoned that plan and decided to try marbling the flavors into the cheesecake to have a nice swirly inside. No dice. The sauces just worked their way down, partially blending with the cheesecake and partially on the bottom, resting on the crust. The crust was a blend of butter, chocolate wafers and some milk chocolate toffee bits.

The cheesecake turned out well. No cracks, no waterlogged crust (although there was some small amount of condensation between the heavy duty foil and the springform pan). The flavor was also good. The chocolate, caramel and raspberry blended together nicely.

I decorated the cheesecake with some of each of the sauces and some fresh raspberries.

I would still like to try to layer the flavors but I think I will have to use my old standby recipe rather than this more delicate version.

Next up: Daring Cooks ricotta gnocchi - look for a post in mid-May.