Cheesecake

So I figured I'd give you guys a "how to" thing. It's not a video, but I took a bunch of pictures.

The topic is: How to make a cheesecake

gather all ingredients and equipment. (Not Pictured: Mixing bowl, spoon, vanilla extract). If you don't have a stand mixer, a hand mixer is fine. If you don't have any kind of mixer, go buy one. Otherwise, making a cheesecake will be a gigantic pain in your ass. Also, make sure your baking sheet has fairly tall lips on all of its edges.

measure out 1 cup of graham cracker crumbs. If you prefer a thicker crust, use 1 1/2 cups

Melt 4-6 Tablespoons of butter, depending on your decision with the graham cracker crumbs.

This is what your butter should look like when it's melted. If browned, don't use it. If there's any unmelted butter, make sure it's melted before you continue

pour your butter onto your graham cracker crumbs and mix. If you don't want to get your hands covered in butter and crumbs, you can use a spoon. However, I highly recommend mixing by hand... Makes people able to taste the love... or whatever the hell it is on your hands.

If you can form a ball that does not fall apart with your crumbs, you've added enough butter. If it doesn't stay together, add another tablespoon of melted butter

spread the crumbs evenly on the bottom of your spring-form pan. I usually put a tight tin-foil wrap over the base of the pan to make it easier to remove the cheesecake when it's done. I didn't do it this time though. Put it on your cookie sheet and bake at 350 F (176.7 C) for 5 minutes. While you're waiting, move to the next step. (NOTE: I used an 8 inch spring-form pan. A larger size means a thinner crust and thinner cheesecake. Make sure you test the recipe and alter it to suit your needs... Either that, or buy an 8 inch spring-form and follow my directions perfectly)

Place 1 pound of softened cream cheese and one cup of sugar in the bowl of your stand mixer; put it into a clean mixing bowl if you have a hand mixer. If you have neither, go to Walmart and buy one. Seriously, hand mixers aren't that expensive. Why are you still reading this recipe when I told you at the beginning to make sure you have some sort of mechanical mixer? It doesn't even have to be electric!

Cream together the cream cheese and sugar. If it looks like the above picture, your cream cheese wasn't as soft as it should have been.

This is how you want the sugar/cream cheese mix to look.

By this point, your crumbs should be nice and golden. Pull them out of the oven and set the pan somewhere to cool.

Add 1 Tablespoon of vanilla and 1/4 cup of heavy cream to the cream cheese and mix until it's nice and creamy

Add two eggs to the mix. Make sure you do it one at a time, and make sure you completely incorporate the first egg before adding the second. Why? Because I fucking said so. That's why.

If it looks like this, keep mixing.

Once it looks like this, add your second egg and mix until it looks like the picture below.

Make sure you scrape your bowl. If you don't, your batter will end up chunky and disgusting.

If you mix and scrape and mix again, you should have this. A nice, smooth, creamy batter.

Dump the batter on top of your now cool crumbs and spread it evenly.

Make sure you get as much of the batter as possible out of your bowl. This has two benefits. First, your cheesecake is gonna have a good amount of batter. Second, you won't be wasting any money.

These next steps are optional, but I've included them so you can know how to do it.

Using a double boiler (Or two pots like I did) melt about 1/4 cup of butterscotch chips with about 1/8 cup of heavy cream.

Pour the melted butterscotch on top of your cheesecake thusly.

Do the same with some melted chocolate.

While the chocolate and butterscotch are still hot, take a toothpick and draw lines from the center out (This was my first time using this method, so it got a little funky)

Fill the bottom of your baking sheet with about 1/4in (~1/2cm) of water (This is why you need to make sure you have tall lips on the sides of your pan)

Bake at 200 F (93.3 C) for 2 hours.

 

 If you don't have a topping that gets baked onto the cheesecake, you can tell it's done by lightly shaking it. If it doesn't jiggle, it's done. A toothpick poked into the center should also come out mostly clean. Let the whole thing cool to room temperature before proceeding to the next step

Remove the outer ring of the spring-form pan and place the cheesecake, along with the base of the pan, in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours. Once the cheesecake is completely cold, it should be safe to try to remove it from the base of the spring-form pan. This can be done by GENTLY sliding a knife between the crust and the pan base and moving the knife completely around the cake. You should then be able to use the knife to provide a small amount of leverage, which can then be used to carefully slide the cake onto a plate or serving platter.

You are now ready to cut and eat your cheesecake.

I recommend using a knife that's been dipped in very hot water to cut the cake, as you'll get cleaner cuts.

You will notice that I didn't give a recipe before going through the method... That's because I don't feel like it. Also, because I feel you guys are smart enough to be able to find the measurements and other pertinent info in the instructions...

Also note: If you don't want to use the butterscotch-chocolate mix that I used, just ignore that part and substitute anything you want. You can use pretty much anything... From canned pie filling, to homemade fruit sauce, to fresh fruit... Hell, if you wanted, you could probably put gravy over the damn thing... I don't recommend the gravy though...

This is a general method for cheesecake. Feel free to experiment with it. You could add 1/4 cup of melted chocolate to the batter to make a chocolate cheesecake if you so desired.

Well, that's all for now... Enjoy!