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!!
