Three Cheese Cake
8 Jan 2008
Three Cheese Cake
Apapted from Alastair Hendy's Cooking For Friends (p 166)
Serves 6-8
This cheesecake can be made as 1 large cake, or as lots of mini cakes. I tried both, but slightly preferred the single large cake which preserves more of the moist cheesecakey texture.
Pastry Base
5 T sugar
1/2 c unsalted butter
1 egg yolk
1 t orange or lemon zest
1 1/4 cup flour, sifted
Cheesecake Filling
2/3 cup neufchatel
2/3 cup quark, drained
1/3 cup fresh goat cheese
4 eggs, separated
1 t orange or lemon zest
2/3 cup sugar
1 T flour
Butter a spring form pan and line it with a circle of parchment or waxed paper cut to fit just the bottom. It's a bit easier to cut it a bit larger and then set it in place and use a knife to trim off any excess.
Prepare the crust by mixing together the sugar, butter, egg yolk and zest in a bowl until it is a bit creamy. You can do this is a stand mixer, or by hand. Next add the flour and work until you get a smooth dough, dusting with a bit more flour if it seems too sticky. Roll it into a ball, flatten slightly and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 20 minutes. Preheat your oven to 300F.
Roll out the dough (you have to pre-bake it) to 1/8 inch. Get it close to the size of the bottom of your tin, and then trim it in place. You just want it on the bottom... it shouldn't come up the sides. Bake for 20 minutes until it is about 1/2 cooked. Remove the crust from the oven and let it cool on a wire rack. Reduce the oven temp to 275F.
Mix the cheese, egg yolk and lemon zest in a bowl until smooth and creamy. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until they are stiff, then slowly add the sugar and the flour to the egg whites. Fold half of the egg whites into the cheese mixture to lighten it some. Then, fold the cheese mixture into the egg white mixture. Spoon over the crust until the pan is about 3/4 full. You need a little bit of room, because the cake will puff up during baking. Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for about 1 hour, or until it is firm. Allow to cool. It will sink during this time... that's what the fruit topping is for.
Serve topped with fresh berries, orange slices, etc... anything that is not too heavy as you don't want the cake to compress even more.
(In case you were wondering, I am an Amazon affiliate, and purchases from links in this post to Amazon may earn me a nickel or two... so thanks!).
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8 Jan 2008
Cheesecake intimidates me. The last time I made a cheesecake it turned out fine. Good, even... but the really tasty part was the freshly peeled mandarin orange haphazardly strewn about the top and the golden graham cookie crust. The cake itself was somewhat unmemorable and certainly not something I've been jonesing to try again. Particularly given the finicky nature of baking in a water bath and fiddling around with foil to try to make sure that the springform cake pan wouldn't leak (which it did anyway). And frankly, cheesecake isn't something that I would normally even order if someone else were going through all that pain... not if there were pies, cakes or bread puddings on the menu. But, post holiday I had a drawer full of fresh cheeses that needed to be eaten and cheesecake just seemed to make sense. Then, I stumbled onto the blueberry cheesecake recipe in Alastair Hendy's Cooking for Friends, and my whole notion of cheesecake changed. This cake requires no water bath. It's insanely light, not to mention can be made very low in calories, almost more of a sweet cheese souffle. Oh yeah, and it's one of the freshest tasting cheesecakes I've ever eaten. Despite making the cake just last week, and being quite tired of desserts after a bit too much holiday indulgence, this is a cake I am craving.
Three Cheese Cake
Apapted from Alastair Hendy's Cooking For Friends (p 166)
Serves 6-8
This cheesecake can be made as 1 large cake, or as lots of mini cakes. I tried both, but slightly preferred the single large cake which preserves more of the moist cheesecakey texture.
Pastry Base
5 T sugar
1/2 c unsalted butter
1 egg yolk
1 t orange or lemon zest
1 1/4 cup flour, sifted
Cheesecake Filling
2/3 cup neufchatel
2/3 cup quark, drained
1/3 cup fresh goat cheese
4 eggs, separated
1 t orange or lemon zest
2/3 cup sugar
1 T flour
Butter a spring form pan and line it with a circle of parchment or waxed paper cut to fit just the bottom. It's a bit easier to cut it a bit larger and then set it in place and use a knife to trim off any excess.
Prepare the crust by mixing together the sugar, butter, egg yolk and zest in a bowl until it is a bit creamy. You can do this is a stand mixer, or by hand. Next add the flour and work until you get a smooth dough, dusting with a bit more flour if it seems too sticky. Roll it into a ball, flatten slightly and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 20 minutes. Preheat your oven to 300F.
Roll out the dough (you have to pre-bake it) to 1/8 inch. Get it close to the size of the bottom of your tin, and then trim it in place. You just want it on the bottom... it shouldn't come up the sides. Bake for 20 minutes until it is about 1/2 cooked. Remove the crust from the oven and let it cool on a wire rack. Reduce the oven temp to 275F.
Mix the cheese, egg yolk and lemon zest in a bowl until smooth and creamy. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until they are stiff, then slowly add the sugar and the flour to the egg whites. Fold half of the egg whites into the cheese mixture to lighten it some. Then, fold the cheese mixture into the egg white mixture. Spoon over the crust until the pan is about 3/4 full. You need a little bit of room, because the cake will puff up during baking. Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for about 1 hour, or until it is firm. Allow to cool. It will sink during this time... that's what the fruit topping is for.
Serve topped with fresh berries, orange slices, etc... anything that is not too heavy as you don't want the cake to compress even more.
Technorati Tags: Dessert, Food, recipe
(In case you were wondering, I am an Amazon affiliate, and purchases from links in this post to Amazon may earn me a nickel or two... so thanks!).
blog comments powered by Disqus
Lara Ferroni is a former tech geek turned food geek who spends her days exploring the food culture of the Pacific Northwest. As a food writer and photographer, you might spy her learning to make kim chee in the back rooms of a local church, foraging for wild berries, or snapping away in the some of the Seattle and Portland's finest kitchens. You can find her work in publications such as Epicurious.com, Gourmet.com, Edible Communities (Seattle, San Francisco), Seattle Magazine, Seattle Metropolitan as well as numerous cookbooks, including Doughnuts: Simple and Delicious Recipes to Make at Home.
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