My friend Stephanie (who is a co-founder of this amazing non-profit in Portland, Oregon) has been telling me for ages about her awesome cheesecake recipe. She emailed it to me months ago and I never made it, mostly because I had lost half of my spring form pan.

So, this weekend, during Steph’s visit to Chicago, we got down to business by buying a new pan and making her cheesecake. I have not been much of a cheesecake fan in the past which was always a confusing mystery because I LOVE cheese danishes, cream cheese fillings and less sweet desserts. This past weekend, the mystery was solved. Rarely had I eaten really wonderful cheesecake. Restaurant and bakery offerings are usually too cold, too hard and too old. Sinking my teeth into this fresh, light delicacy was a whole different story.

Not having tried any other cheesecake recipes, I can only guess at what makes this one so special. I suspect it is the long whipping time, which makes for a light, fluffy cheesecake and the sour cream topping that is baked on at the end. Steph’s Scrumptious Cheesecake will be a regular fixture in my baking repertoire… as long as I can keep track of this new spring form pan.

Steph’s Scrumptious Cheesecake
Ingredients:
24 oz cream cheese
4 eggs
1 3/4 c sugar
1 t vanilla
2 c graham cracker crumbs
1 stick butter, melted
1 T brown sugar
1 pint sour cream

For the topping, beat together the remaining 3/4 cup sugar and the
sour cream for no less than 10 minutes. (Don’t scrimp here on the time
you spend with the topping either; it gets fluffier the longer you
beat.) Pour over cooled cake and bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Cool cake completely before slicing and serving.

Note: I used a 9 inch pan and had to adjust cooking times. It definitely needed a good 10+ minutes more. You can tell that the cheese layer is done as the top will be lightly browned. It will continue to cook as it sits in the open oven. The topping should be set when it is done. It will also continue to firm up a bit while cooling.

Find a list of baking tips here.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 17th, 2007 at 9:24 pm and is filed under Desserts & Sweets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.