The Best Ever Cheesecake and How to Create Variations

Cheesecake. It's kind of intimidating and because of this intimidation, I've never tried to make one. It's my husband's favorite dessert for heaven's sake! I had to Betty Crocker up and get in the kitchen. Nothing that I make comes straight from someone else's recipe. I find something that looks good and use that recipe as the basic design but put my own twists on it. I found this recipe for Japanese Cheesecake on Pinterest. It looked pretty good so I gave it a whirl. I don't think I did it quite right because it wasn't as light and fluffy as it says it should be. So, I started changing it...

My mom-in-law asked me to bring dessert to a family lunch so I decided to go for it. I made a cheesecake. Not the Japanese pound cake looking one, but in a real-life springform pan. I didn't want to take pictures along the way until I knew that it would turn out. Boy howdy, did it. Between 6ish people that were eating it, the entire cake was demolished except for one piece.

We're celebrating mine and my husband's birthdays tonight at his parent's house so for his birthday dessert, I'm making him a cheesecake... now that I can finally do it with confidence! He asked for a chocolate peanut butter cheesecake. Well, here's what I did...

Basic Cheesecake

• 2 1/2 pkg cream cheese, soft
• 2/3 C. butter, soft
• 6 eggs - separated into whites and yolks
• 1/4 C. sugar
• 2 Tbsp cornstarch
• 1/2 C. sugar
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 9" Springform pan (I got this one from Amazon, it's silicon so it leaves and very clean break on the sides as well as no leakage) 

Make the crust that you want for your cheesecake and make sure it's cooled in the 9" springform pan before starting the filling.

Preheat your oven to 350 and put a water filled pan on the bottom rack.

In a double boiler (I just use a pot with a glass Pyrex bowl on top to make cleanup easier), melt butter and cream cheese together and whip it with a hand mixer. Remove from heat and let cool for a couple minutes.

In another bowl, combine 6 egg yolks, 1/4 C. sugar, cornstarch and vanilla. Mix into the cream cheese mixture.

I separate my eggs with this nifty little contraction that came with my Pyrex set. It makes my life SOOO much easier.

In an upright mixer (I LOOOOOVE my KitchenAid mixer!!!), add a small amount of the 1/2 C. of sugar to the egg whites and whip on medium for a couple of minutes. Add the remaining sugar and whip it until a meringue forms. This takes my mixer about 5 minutes to do on medium high speed - It should fill about half of the bowl.

Add 1/4 of the meringue to the cream cheese mixture and combine it gently. Add the remaining meringue to the cream cheese and fold it in. 

     This is where you can make your variations...

Chocolate Swirled Cheesecake: 

Take 1/4 of the cheesecake mixture and blend it with 4oz melted chocoalte. Pour the 3/4 cheesecake mixture into prepared crust in a springform pan. Drop the chocolate mixture on the top and swirel through the entire cake with a knife.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheesecake:

Separate the cheesecake mixture into thirds. Leave one bowl plain, add 6 oz. melted chocolate to one bowl and 1/2 C. of softened peanut butter to the 3rd bowl. Pour the chocolate cheesecake mixture onto a prepared crust in a springform pan - smooth the top. Next, carefully pour the peanut butter mixture over the chocolate layer - smooth the top. Last, carefully pour the plain cheesecake mixture over the top of the peanut butter layer - smooth the top.

I'm still working on different variations so I'll try to update this with more variations as I get the chance to try them. White chocolate raspberry is next on the list!)

Once the cheesecake is poured into the springform pan over the crust, place it in the oven on the middle rack. Bake the cheesecake for 20 minutes in the 350 degree oven. 

After 20 minutes, lower the oven temperature to 320 and bake for another 30 minutes. DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN BECAUSE THIS WILL CHANGE THE HEAT TOO DRASTICALLY TO GET EVEN COOKING.

After 30 minutes at 320 degrees, turn the oven off and leave the cheesecake in for another hour. 

Carefully take the cheesecake out of the oven and let cook on a wire rack - be careful because if you jostle it or place it down too hard, you could deflate it which would be a sad, sad moment. 

Cover it with plastic wrap and refrigerate it until you're ready to serve. Do not remove it from the springform pan until it's completely chilled and ready for serving. 

Cheesecake Crusts

I've never been a fan of cheesecake crust. Personally, it's a waste of calories. Why fill yourself with graham cracker when you could eat more cheesecake filling??? However, some people looooove the crust so I have a few simple recipes that will make a thin bottom crust without creeping up the sides too much.

Basic Graham Cracker Crust

1 C. graham cracker crumbs (you can use plain, cinnamon or chocolate to get the base that you want to compliment your filling)

1/3 C. melted butter

2 Tbsp. sugar.

Mix the ingredients and press firmly into the bottom of a 9" Springform Pan.

Put pan in freezer until you're ready to fill it. 

Brownie Crust

The brownie crust is a richer base if you don't want to use graham cracker. I'm a fan of this. I want to try a blondie crust with my soon to try white chocolate raspberry cheesecake, but we'll have to wait and see on that one. 

• 4 T. melted butter.
• 1/4 C. cocoa powder (unsweetened)
• 1 egg
• 1/3 C. sugar
• 1/4 C. unbleached flour

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. 
2. Melt butter and mix in the cocoa.
3. Beat in egg and gradually add the sugar. 
4. Gently mix in the flour - don't over mix or it will be tough.
5. Pour batter into a prepared 9" springform pan - I just use a little butter and a sprinkle of cocoa powder to keep it from sticking.
6. Bake for 15 minutes - until a toothpick comes out of the center, clean.

Let this crust cool completely before filling with cheesecake batter.

Easy Banana Breakfast Cookies

I'm running out of ideas for breakfasts and quick snacks for the kids. I get tired of the same old stuff everyday and I'm sure they get tired of it too. Cereal bars, animal crackers, yogurt, fruit, blah blah blah... I had some leftover bananas and some quick cookie oats that I decided to toss together to see what would happen. I'd seen a couple recipes before that used these things together but for the life of me, I couldn't find them... yes, even on Pinterest. Ah well, I figured the worst thing that would happen is I ruin 2 bananas and a cup of oats. What's the harm?

The "batter" held up pretty well after mashing and mixing so I added a handful of dried cranberries for some tang and scooped it out onto a parchment lined baking sheet. What can I say? I'm lazy and always use parchment. It keeps the bottoms of things from burning as easily and avoids scrubbing and heavy clean up. I tossed some semi sweet chocolate chips on top of the "cookies" and threw them in the oven. 350 degrees is always my go-to temp if I don't know what I should bake something at. They took about 13ish minutes to firm up.

Let me just say, they came out of the oven and about 3 minutes later, I'd eaten 5 of them. They're good. My 4 year old is a big fan too - he asked if we could make them every day.

I think next time, I may add a dash of cinnamon and maybe a pinch of sea salt just to help bring out the flavors since they were a tad bland... but really, that didn't slow me down.

No oil, no flour, no eggs. Boom. Tasty treat.

Easy Banana Breakfast Cookies

2 Bananas, mashed
1 cup quick oats
Mix-ins: chocolate chips, dried fruit, nuts

Mix mashed bananas and oats. Stir in mix-ins (I mixed in my cranberries but put the chocolate chips on top after they were panned). Spoon onto a lined cookie sheet a smush flat to be about 1/2 inch thick. Put chocolate chips on top. Bake at 350 for 13-14 minutes. Makes about a dozen cookies.