Daring Bakers and a have-it-your-way cheesecake!!

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

Since I've never made cheesecake before, I was super excited to tackle this challenge. I immediately began thinking of flavor combinations. That's right, Jenny said we could do any flavor or crust, as long as we followed the base recipe. Yea!

I finally decided on a mint Oreo crust with the plain cheesecake, dotted with Andes mint pieces and topped with melted Andes mints and mint Oreos. Go ahead and start drooling, you have my permission :)

Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake

crust:

2 cups/180 crushed mint Oreos

1 stick/4 oz. butter, melted

2 tbsp./24 g sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

cheesecake:

3 sticks cream cheese, 8 oz. each, room temperature

1 cup/210 g sugar

3 large eggs

1 cup/8 oz. heavy cream

1 tbsp. lemon juice (I left this out because of all the mint flavors)

1 tbsp. vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean)

1 tbsp. liquer, optional, but choose what will work well with your cheesecake (I left this out as well, but maybe next time I would add mint Bailey's)

1-2 cups Andes mint pieces

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (Gas Mark 4 = 180c = Moderate heat). Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker's choice. ( I put the Andes mint pieces on top of the crust and poured the batter over it.) Set crust aside.

3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. 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, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.

4. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

5. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, 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 finishing cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won't crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. 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.

Pan note: The creator of this recipe used to use a springform pan, but no matter how well she wrapped the thing in tin foil, water would always seep in and make the crust soggy. Now she uses one of those 1-use foil "casserole" shaped pans from the grocery store. They're 8 or 9 inches wide and really deep, and best of all, water-tight. When it comes time to serve, just cut the foil away.

Prep notes: While the actual making of this cheesecake is a minimal time commitment, it does need to bake for an hour, cool in the oven for an hour, and chill overnight before it is served. Please plan accordingly!

Stay tuned for my next baking adventure!

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