New York Style Cheesecake with Strawberry Sauce

With Sal's birthday just around the corner, I asked him a few weeks ago what he would like for his birthday cake this year. His response was "strawberry cheesecake". Immediately, I researched different recipes for the best cheesecakes I could find. Unfortunately, I was coming up a bit short in terms of what I was looking for. So I emailed my mother, asking for any recipes she knew of or that she could recommend. Without much time passing, she sent me the recipe for the famous cheesecake recipe from Lindy's in NY. I figured this MUST be good. I mean, it's Lindy's! So, here I am, a few weeks later, making this cheesecake.

This particular recipe uses a shortbread-style crust. To make the crust, you'll need the following:

1 cup sifted flour

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp. grated lemon peel (zest)

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1 egg yolk

1/4 cup butter, softened

First, preheat the oven to 400 degrees and grease the bottom of a 9" spring form pan with the sides removed. Combine the flour, sugar, lemon zest and vanilla. Then make a well in the center and, with a fork, blend in the yolk and butter. Mix until you have a loose dough that isn't sticking to the bowl. Form a ball out of half of the dough and place it on the bottom of the pan. Place wax paper on top of it and roll it to the edges of the pan. I... don't have a rolling pin yet, so I just used a glass. Worked just fine. ANYWAY... remove the wax paper and bake this part of the dough, 6-8 minutes, then let it cool. This par bake makes is so when you put the filling in, it won't leave the bottom all soggy. Now grease the sides of the pan. Now from here, the recipe calls for dividing the rest of the dough into 3 parts and making perfect strips to line the sides of the pan, but I found that a little challenging, so what I did was I made smaller balls of the dough, and placed them between two pieces of wax paper and rolled them out into strips... do them one at a time. Once they're rolled out, cut the edges off to make nice edges for the crust then place them around the sides of the pan. Use all the dough, to completely cover the sides and any holes where you can see the pan. When lining the sides, know that the dough will overlap, that's supposed to happen. Then preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Time to make the filling.

For the filling you'll need the following:

5 packages (8 oz. each) cream cheese, softened

1 3/4 cups sugar

3 tbsp. flour

2 tsp. grated lemon peel (zest)

1 1/2 tsp. grated orange peel (zest)

1/4 tsp. vanilla

5 eggs plus 2 yolks

1/4 cup heavy cream

In a large bowl, blend cheese, sugar, flour, zests, and vanilla. Beat in the eggs and yolks until smooth, occasionally scraping the bowl with a spatula, then beat in the cream. Pour into the pan and bake for 10 minutes then reduce the heat to 250 degrees. Bake for 1 hour longer then cool for 2 hours.

For the strawberry Sauce, you'll need the following ingredients:

3 cups ripe strawberries

3/4 cups sugar

1/3 cup water

Pinch of salt

1 1/2 tbsp. cornstarch

2 tsp. unsalted butter

1 tsp. fresh lemon juice

If the strawberries are small, reserve 1 cup of the best-looking ones. If they're large, slice enough to make 1 cup and set them aside. In a medium saucepan, crush the remaining strawberries with a potato masher or a fork. Add the sugar, water, salt and cornstarch and stir constantly over a medium heat until it comes to a boil, then reduce to a low heat and continue stirring for 2 more minutes. Remove from heat and add the butter, lemon juice and reserved strawberries, let it cool to room temperature, then refrigerate until chilled.

This is what my finished cheesecake looked like

Happy birthday, baby!!

Chocolate Ganache

Alright! Last night was the night for ganache and pulling it all together

Ingredients:

6 oz. bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, finely chopped

2 Tbs. unsalted butter

1/2 cup heavy cream

I can't even begin to explain how incredibly simple it is to make ganache. Well... yes, yes I can. First of all, if you're making this ganache to top off the flourless chocolate torte then let me first say you're going to want to actually double the recipe. You're not going to need all of it, but you'll definitely need more than just that single batch. So be prepared to make a double batch and have some left over. As if that's a problem, having extra ganache in your fridge... mmmm...

OKAY! First you want to get your chocolate and butter into a large bowl. Just let it hang out there for now. Then put your cream in a small pan and get it to the point where it's JUST starting to boil. Once that's happening, pour it into the bowl with the chocolate and butter. Go to town on it with the whisk (or double fork like I mentioned during the torte recipe). Get it all mixed together to where there are no chunks of anything and it's nice and dark and creamy. There! You made ganache! Simple, huh?

Once it's all mixed together, let it cool until it's spreadable then pour it all on top of your torte (which should have been in the fridge since the night before). The whole thing, even the stuff that's not going to stay on it. Once it's all on, spread it evenly across the top, let it drip down the sides and spread it along all sides. It doesn't have to be perfect. The great thing about this particular treat is that even when there's pools of ganache along the sides, it looks (and tastes) awesome. Once you pour the ganache onto the torte it will already start hardening. That's what you want to happen. Put it in the fridge to cool and allow the ganache to harden further. Once hardened into a sort of shell, it's ready to plate!

Beware! This torte/ganache combo is VERY rich. VERY decadent. You really only want to serve relatively small portions.

Please note that the plate in the second picture is about 1/3 the size of the picture of the full torte. Speaking of 1/3, when you're done, you're going to have a treat that's layered at about 1/3 ganache and 2/3 torte. As such:

Well, there you go! Flourless chocolate torte with chocolate ganache topping. Rich, sweet, decadent, delicious. Have milk handy and enjoy!

Flourless Chocolate Torte with Chocolate Ganache

Last night, I got to make my first experimental treat. Now, when I decided to start this blog I figured I would start out small - simple cakes, cookies, pies, etc. - eventually working my way up to laminated doughs like croissants, danishes, filo-based treats and ultimately to a well-rounded idea of the way things just kinda work in the science of baking. Well, kiddies, that's not what happened. Mikey happens to be starting a very strict diet soon, so I wanted to make him something to help him really enjoy his last few days as a free man. In my opinion, he's lost his mind, going on a diet knowing that I'm doing this blog. But, I digress.

For as long as I can remember, my mom has made me the same cake every year. Not because it's just what she's used to, but because I ask for it every damn year. Flourless Chocolate Torte with Chocolate Ganache. Typically, when my mom makes it, she either mixes raspberries into the ganache or tops it off with them. Mikey, however, is not a big fan of raspberries, so I'm making it without them.

Okay, so this particular recipe is from Williams-Sonoma. Let me just say one thing about getting recipes from that site - they expect that you have some sorta super kitchen with all sorts of equipment... like a double boiler... and an electronic mixer... and I'm guessing if I keep using their site for ideas, I'll also eventually need a food processor. Okay, okay... so I know those aren't really high-tech devices, but I happen to be working with a kitchen that's stocked with cooking supplies... NOT baking supplies. I'm going to change that, Mikey. Give me time.

Here's the ingredients:

• 15 oz. bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 18 Tbs. (2 1⁄4 sticks) unsalted butter,
  cut into small pieces
• 7 egg yolks
• 9 Tbs. granulated sugar
• 1 1⁄2 Tbs. dark rum or brewed espresso (optional)
• 1 1⁄2 tsp. vanilla extract
• Pinch of salt
• 5 egg whites, at room temperature

First, I preheated the oven to 300˚.

The first step was to melt 15 oz. bittersweet chocolate and 18 tbsp. unsalted butter in the top pan of a double-boiler. We don't have one of those (yet) so I found the biggest pot we had and poured a few cups of water in it and set it to boil. Once boiling, I used a smaller pot and just held it over the boiling water with the chocolate and butter inside and melted them, then mixed them together until they were completely blended.

Once that was done, I set it aside and - in a large bowl - I mixed 7 egg yolks, 6 tbsp. granulated sugar, 1 1/2 tbsp. brewed espresso (you can also use dark rum, but the espresso really brings out the chocolate flavor better), 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract (you can also use imitation vanilla), and a pinch of salt. These ingredients alone don't take up much room in the bowl, but you need the large bowl for what comes after this. Okay, so I basically whisked these ingredients together with two forks. Two forks at once = home-made whisk. Once all ingredients are fully blended, I SLOWLY mixed in the chocolate mixture that was set aside. Doing it slowly allows for everything to get an even blend.

Once that was all combined, I took 5 egg yolks and 3 tbsp. sugar and whisked them (again, two forks) until they were peaking. Basically... it's a bitch if you're doing it by hand. It takes a LONG LONG time and your hand will hate you when you're done. I need an electronic mixer... STAT! Again, I digress. Once it was peaking, I slowly folded half of them into the chocolate mixture. Once they were very well blended together, I folded the other half into the mixture.

Only thing left to do after that was just throw it in the greased pan and bake! The recipe says to let it bake for 40 min. or until moist but not liquid. I checked it after 25 min. then gave it another 20. After about 45 min. total, it was ready to be taken out to cool. After cooling for about an hour or so, I cut the sides of the cake away from the pan, put a large plate over the whole thing, then flipped it. With a little tapping and some patience, the cake slid out of the pan and onto the plate in perfect condition. Once on the plate, I set it in the fridge to cool overnight.

Today, when I get home I will be making the chocolate ganache to put on top and we will be (hopefully) enjoying something resembling what my mother makes for me every year for my birthday. Once everything's put together, I will upload a picture of the finished torte and explain how I made the ganache.

In the mean time, if you're interested, you can find the recipe for the torte at www.williams-sonoma.com/recipe/flourless-chocolate-torte.html

Entry, the first

In less than three days my boyfriend Sal, and I will be moving to Las Vegas to live with our good friends Mikey and Chad. Mikey and I kinda decided to do a Julie & Julia-type deal. He'll post about all the food he makes for a year or so, and as soon as I have the funds, I'll be posting about the baked goodies I'll be churning out. A little background though... Mikey has a history in culinary school whereas I will be diving into patisserie without any prior experience other than having worked for Ralphs Grocery in the bakery department, where most of the products come in pre-made or half-made. This is going to be a tour of my self-teachings to hopefully become better at baking and ultimately start a business. Fingers crossed.