This is the basic cheesecake recipe I use when I make one.
3 8oz packages cream cheese (or a blend of non and full fat cheese, see text), room temperature
3 large eggs (3/4 cup egg whites)
1 cup sugar (1 cup splenda)
1/2 cup butter (1/2 cup Earth Balance), melted, cooled
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp orange extract
1 graham cracker pie crust
3-6 graham cracker tart crusts
Beat sugar into cream cheese until mix is light and fluffy.
Beat eggs into mixture, one at a time, beating between each. (egg white can be added all at once)
Add butter, vanilla, orange. Mix throughly. (If using the variant you may need to overbeat to remove lumps, but the cheesecake may crack slightly when you bake. Sorry.)
Fold into pie shell. Do not overfill. If you're using a Ready-Crust (I use the lowfat version, always) I suggest having their tart shells handy, and you can fill 4 or 5 with the leftover batter (or only 2 if you are making the reduced cal/fat variant, apparently the cream cheese doesn't fluff as much).
Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Prepare a water bath by putting a folded towel in a pan deep enough for the pie shell. Pour boiling water from e.g. a teakettle into the pan until the pie shell will be about half-submerged. Place pie shell on towel. Bake 1 hour, may need to be tweaked about 5-10 minutes longer. Chill at least 6 hours.
The tarts can be baked in the same oven without a bath for about 25-30 minutes.
5/6 non-fat cream cheese cracks badly but tastes only slightly off
2/3 non-fat cream cheese doesn't crack as badly, and tastes more like you'd expect
all neufchatel cheese tastes "cheesy"
the next try will be 1/2 non-fat and 1/2 full fat cream cheese, and I'll bet it will come out perfectly.
Posted by shadow at September 6, 2005 11:04 AM | TrackBack