ITJB - Week 12:100% Cream Cheese Cheesecake (2/18/12 - 2/25/12)
I have been wanting to post the beautiful pictures of this cheesecake, that my sisters and I baked for this challenge. I have not seen the usual weekly post set-up for that, so I am boldly stepping out and hoping not to offend anyone.
We 3 sisters, in Texas and Washington states made this cheesecake a bit early, as baking last week worked better for us on the 17th... In each case we questioned the amount of salt required in the recipe, tried for clarification, and decided that in order to accurately test the recipes as printed in the book, we should put the salt into the cheesecake. This was an expensive lesson learned. The salt should have been left out completely.
After discussion with Stan Ginsberg, he agrees that it should be left out and will update the errata for the book. Having said all that, let me say this: Without the salt this is an awesomely wonderful, smooth and delicious cheesecake!
This is my sister Helen's cheesecake... beautiful.
Below is my sister Barb's cheesecake... also beatiful
Mine is also beautiful, I believe. This was my first attempt ever in my life at making cheesecake. I was very impressed with how easy the recipe was and how easy it was to put together. It had a smooth and wonderful texture.
After discovering the SALT ERROR... Barb, wrote:
Since I baked early for the challenge, guess it is okay to bake early for the challenge twice. As noted above the recipe with so much salt was pretty awful. Thought they would be elated but even the cats were suspicious. The redo was great and even if you add up the cost of replacement ingredients, I don't think you would find this quality available to buy readymade for twice the price.
The second bake I followed the recipe except for leaving out the salt, added 1 Tablespoonful of all purpose flour and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. It turned out very nice, smooth and silky and tasted very good. Since my favorite taster was looking forward to a dessert of cheesecake last night, I didn't take time to let all the ingredients come to room temperature and that was noticable in that it was not quite as smooth prior to baking and had a few bubbles on top.
Made the berry sauce with ClearJel and would definitely recommend using it for any fruit filling.
I think one of the great things about these "challenges" is that we get to make new recipes and we get to work out the errors so that other's don't have to make the same ones. We are totally enjoying the baking each week and look forward to finishing this semester and moving to the next one. Happy Baking,
Diane
Lovely pictures, and very yummy looking cheesecakes. I will bake this later. Well done !
Nici, thanks for the comments... we are truly enjoying all we are learning from great folks such as yourself.
HB,
Diane
I clearly was asleep at the wheel this weekend --- maybe the long holiday weekend did it to me, or my lack of love for cheesecake in general (sadly, true). Thank you so much for starting the thread. I'll be on top of it come this weekend. I hope.
In penance for forgetting to post, I'll end my comment with an amusing story from one of my acquaintances.
When in asked in a job interview if she had any weaknesses, she said that she blurted the first thing that came to mind. "Oh, yeah. Cheesecake, baby."
She did not get the job.
Happy baking!
We will look forward to your post... I believe that we are all in agreement that we will make cinnamon rolls with our dough, unless you say we should do something different... we are baking on Saturday afternoon, the 25th so if you want us to use the dough in another manner, please give us some notice ;-)... Thanks.
Diane
for sweet egg dough is double-knot rolls, which make incredible sandwiches. The cinnamon buns are also doable, of course, but I prefer the coffee cake dough for those.
Just sayin ...
Stan
Sounds like we 3 sisters are making double knot rolls, per Stan's suggestion. Happy Baking.
but can I jump in on this? I have been wanting to make the double knot rolls - have been avoiding the sweet stuff. -Varda
Nope. Just flour, yeast, water, sometimes a little fat and sugar. We 3 sisters have made a commitment amongst ourselves to stick to the recipes and save the creative variations for another bake but I'm sure everyone would be interested in differences too. So jump right in, the water's fine (90-100 F so the yeast is safe of course :-)
Have to admit the intricate look for double knot rolls got a "yea, right, I can do that" not in a million tries, when I first looked at the beautiful pictures in that thread. However, the instructions from Norm in 2008 about how to shape them makes them super easy and if these turn out that well, I will have a houseful of happy tasters.