Adventures in Cheesecake, pt. 2

Cheesecake Attempt #2 -- May 8, 2011

Yep, I did try making cheesecake again.  This time I didn't follow the filling recipe exactly.  I did some research into substituting plain nonfat yogurt for sour cream.  Apparently, you need to make cheese out of the yogurt first (i.e., drain the whey out of the yogurt), so I got out my yogurt cheese maker and put 3 cups of yogurt in it (the cheesecake recipe calls for 24 oz (3 cups) of sour cream, and that made too much filling).  Yes, I have a yogurt cheese maker.  A yogurt cheese maker is a fine mesh strainer that allows the whey (the liquid that appears when you let yogurt sit in the fridge for awhile) to separate from the curds (milk solids) in the yogurt.  [So, all of y'all thinking that Little Miss Muffet was eating cottage cheese, she might have been eating yogurt instead.]  Anyway, you let the yogurt drain at least 2 hours to thicken it (refrigerated and sealed up).  I had put the yogurt in the maker a couple of days before (the longer the yogurt's in the strainer, the thicker it gets; however, it maxes out after about 24 hours).  The result was about 1 cup of yogurt cheese.

I followed the recipe for all the other filling ingredients, except I substituted the 1 cup of yogurt cheese for the 3 cups of sour cream.  I also didn't try to put all of the filling I made into the 9 inch by 3 inch springform pan.  I had to throw away about 2 cups of filling.  Here's the result:

I had the YAVs from the Tool Shed over to taste test it.  They enjoyed it.  It wasn't the best cheesecake I'd ever tasted, but I was proud that it didn't turn out to be the disaster that the first attempt was.  I've decided that the recipe was meant for a larger springform pan than 9x3.

Adventures in Cheesecake, pt. 1

On the 23rd of April in the year 2011, I attempted my first cheesecake.  It was my worst dessert failure of all time.  Two things about the "finished" product:  undercooked & on fire.  Not promising.

My mother never liked cheesecake, so unlike many of the other desserts in my repertoire, I was never exposed to the creation process while growing up.  Of course, I wasn't exposed to carrot cakes either, but that turned out well.  So, using the success of the carrot cake recipe I base my current recipe on, I turned to the all-new ultimate Southern Living Cookbook (copyright 2006), and followed the recipe for "Deluxe Cheesecake" in there.  Well, I didn't follow it exactly, but that wasn't the problem.

Why didn't I follow the recipe exactly?  I've always had trouble with making regular graham cracker crusts using crushed store-bought graham crackers, butter, and sugar.  I can't make them stick to the sides of the pan.  So, I had found a graham cracker recipe (more about that in another post) that I modified to my liking and tried to make a graham cracker crust out of it (plus extra butter & sugar to the original cracker recipe to make it more "crusty").  Well, it's easier to get that dough to stick to the sides of the pan, but it's still difficult to do.

The filling, I followed the recipe exactly.  Thirty-two ounces of cream cheese & 24 ounces of sour cream go into the mixer bowl, & I think to myself, "That certainly is a lot of filling and I haven't gotten the 7 eggs in yet.  Hmm."  I used the 9-inch springform pan with 3 inch sides like the recipe says, and the filling is almost overflowing out of the pan.  I couldn't scrape the bowl out because of all the filling: not a good sign.

The picture of the cheesecake in the cookbook shows that the finished cheesecake is approximately 2.5 inches taller than the crust.  Also, the recipe doesn't say how far up the sides of the pan the crust needs to go.  So, I think that the finished cake will rise around 2 inches out of the pan, since the crust is all the way to the top of the edges of the pan.  So, it goes into the oven.

I start to notice smoke coming from the oven after a while.  I had forgotten to set the timer and now the overflowing cheesecake batter had caught fire on the elements of my oven.  Thinking that it was done, I turn off the oven and wait the 4 hours with it in the off oven that it says to in the cookbook.  After finishing the waiting game, I took the cheesecake out.  I poured (yes, POURED) it into the trash.

Cleaning the oven was no fun (every window in the house was open, every ceiling fan set on high, and the exhaust fans sucking air out as hard as they could).  I felt like my eyes burning for a couple of days every time I walked into my house.

Was I scared to try again?  Well, yes, yes I was, but I was ready for the challenge.

How did the next attempt go?  Stay tuned, and the next installment will let you know more.