Cheesecake is SO easy to make! We are talking run-of-the-mill New York Style Cheesecake. It is possibly my favorite dessert.
Laying the Foundation
The crust is just Graham Cracker crumbs and butter. The Graham Cracker crumb box said 1 1/4 cups of crumbs to 1/4 cup of butter. I don’t know about y’all but Paula Deen says you can never use too much butter n’ oil, so I put in 1/2 cup. (Seriously though, a 1/4 cup is not enough.) Mix up the crumbs and butter and then press the mixture into the bottom of a greased 9″ spring form pan.
Leaning Tower of Cheese
Looking at this pile of cheese in the bowl and then throwing a cup of sugar over it almost deterred me from eating cheesecake…NOT. I made the mistake of not properly creaming the cream cheese with the sugar so I had some cheesy chunks happening in the final product. Just put this bowl of cream cheese in the microwave for a couple minutes and then stir in the sugar to avoid chunky bits.
My very first cheesecake!
Ta-daa! As you can see, other than the chunky cheese bits it turned out perfectly. After creaming the sugar and cream cheese you just add one egg for each stick of cream cheese (4 in this case), a cup of sour cream, a teaspoon of vanilla and 1/4 cup of all purpose flour. Then you put that mixture on top of your graham cracker and throw it in the oven at 350. This is where the recipe I used got a little tricky. You cook the cheesecake for 1 hour, and then you turn off the oven, without opening it, and leave the cheesecake in there with the door closed for 5-6 hours to prevent cracking. After that you chill it in the refrigerator before eating it.
My cheesecake definitely cracked. But guess what? No one cares! It tasted delicious! I didn’t really follow the directions properly. First of all, after one hour I turned off the oven…but I had to open it to look at the cheesecake! It’s the very first cheesecake I’ve made, who knows what it could look like! At that point it was not cracked. It looked perfect. After that I was going to let it sit for 5-6 hours in the oven with the door closed but I ended up going to a party and forgot all about making a cheesecake. The next morning I woke abruptly and sat up in bed: cheesecake! I marched over to the oven and checked out the cheesecake. I was surprised it was still there. That cheesecake would have been the perfect post-drinking snack!
I made these little numbers below last week for a special dinner. The recipe is a little different but just as easy. Aren’t they swell?
kelseydo 