Daring Bakers, April 2009 - Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake

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

Funny, last year in April we made a cheesecake also :) Abby's recipe is more to my taste though. I omitted lemon juice and added some of my homemade egg liqueur. For the topping, I used a jar of walnuts in honey that I got from dear Pino last weekend, when I went to Koprivnica on Coolinarika official meet up. I had a great time and met my girls in person :)

My star ingredient - Walnuts in honey by Pino,
also known as Sex Salad in Serbia ;)

Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake
(recipe scaled to fit my 18 cm diameter spring form pan)

For the crust: 100 g whole grain cookies of your choice (I used Bambi Wellness with dried figs), 70 g melted butter, 1 Tbsp brown sugar

Grind cookies in a blender. Mix together the crust ingredients and press onto the bottom of a 18 cm diameter spring form pan. Set crust aside.

For the cheesecake: 500 g cream cheese at room temperature, 140 g sugar, 2 large eggs, 160 ml heavy cream, innards of 1 vanilla bean, 2 Tbsp egg liqueur

Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl and cream together until smooth with a mixer. 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 and liqueur and blend until smooth and creamy.

Pour batter over the crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface.

My notes: As I new water would definitely seep through my spring form pan I placed it on a oven rack wire, filled deep oven pan with boiling water and placed it just bellow to act as a water bath.

Bake for about an hour in a preheated oven on 180°C, 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. 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. I suggest leaving it in the fridge overnight.