TWD – A Spectacular Tall and Creamy Lemon Cheesecake with Passionfruit Sauce

** Updated with photos (such as they are) and recipe**

Thank the TWD founders for allowing us to go out of order this month!  I was able to make Dorie’s Tall and Creamy Cheesecake (pages 235-7 of Baking: From My Home to Yours), a pick by Anne of Anne Strawberry, but I did tweak it quite a bit.  The result was a cheesecake that I liked so much, I’m definitely putting it on the repeat list, and so far the only cheesecake to have made that list is my grandmother’s.

First, if you’re wondering where the pictures are, they are on my hard drive back home.  After being home for two days from my food-poisoning-Las Vegas-trip, I got on a plane again and headed up to Wisconsin to visit my auntie.  My pics are at home, and she has dial up, which makes it virtually impossible for me to hot link to blogs, etc.  ‘Nuff said.  When I get back in a week, I’ll upload my pictures, and add recipes and links that I’m unable to include right now.

Second, I made a lemon version of the cheesecake, but I added more lemon than Dorie’s recipe called for.  By that I mean that I used a lot more lemon, and I’m glad I did.  My notes, however, are also back home.  Inspiration for that came from The America’s Test Kitchen Family Baking Book.

Third, my crust was inspired by Shirley Corriher’s nut crust (found in her lovely new book, BakeWise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Baking with Over 200 Magnificent Recipes, and an America’s Test Kitchen’s animal cracker crust.  All I can tell you at this point is that I used a cup of macadamia nuts, ground, plus about 1-1/2 cups of ground animal crackers, mixed with 6 Tbsp. of melted butter.  I pressed that into a 9-1/2 inch pan, and baked it until golden brown.  I allowed it to cool, and then poured in the cheesecake mixture.

Speaking of the cheesecake mixture, I remember that in addition to lemon juice and zest, I added a couple drops of lemon oil to punch up the flavor.  I also used all low fat cream cheese and sour cream.  Instead of a full 1-1/3 cups of either sour cream or cream, I used 1/3 cup of the low fat sour cream, and then I whipped 1 cup of the cream, and gently folded that into the cheesecake mixture – another idea from Shirley Corriher.

My cheesecake pan has a lip, so it would not fit in my roasting pan.  I ended up cooking it at about 275 F to 325 F for 2.5 hours, and I constantly fiddled with the temperature, and cooked the cake until the top was a light golden color, and about a 3-inch circle in the middle “jiggled.”  I placed a pan of water in the oven to do what I could do keep it in a moist environment, but I’m going to get another pan because this should really be cooked in a water bath.  All that being said, the cheesecake turned out fabulously, and this is coming from someone who is not a big fan of cheesecake.

Finally, as if all that wasn’t enough, I topped the whole thing with a passion fruit “curd.”   I found a recipe on the Food Network site, and I took one look at it and new that it would NOT set like a curd, but might make a tasty sauce.  I was right – the sauce was fantastic on the cheesecake, absolutely fantastic.

Thanks to Ann for a great pick!  Next week:  butterscotch pudding!  Be sure to check out the TWD blogroll to see what others have been up to.  Recipe after the jump . . . .

The crust:  (I’m still looking for my notes as to what I did to make the crust, so I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the crust recipe yet!)

1-1/2 cups ground animal crackers
3/4 cup macadamia nuts, ground
3 Tbsp. sugar
pinch of salt (don’t add this if you used salted macadamia nuts)
6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
Butter a 9-inch springform pan—choose one that has sides that are 2 3/4 inches high (if the sides are lower, you will have cheesecake batter leftover)—and wrap the bottom of the pan in a double layer of aluminum foil; put the pan on a baking sheet.

Blend all the dry ingredients in a food processor until finely chopped.  Add the melted butter, then press into a 9-inch springform pan.  Bake at 350 F for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown.  Set aside to cool.

The cheesecake:

2 pounds (four 8-ounce boxes) cream cheese (low fat is ok), at room temperature
1-1/3 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs, at room temperature
finely grated zest of two lemons
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
2 to 4 drops lemon oil (not extract)
1 1/3 cups sour cream or heavy cream, or a combination of the two (I used 1/3 cup low fat sour cream, and 1 cup of cream)

Procedure

To make the crust:
1. Butter a 9-inch springform pan—choose one that has sides that are 2 3/4 inches high (if the sides are lower, you will have cheesecake batter leftover)—and wrap the bottom of the pan in a double layer of aluminum foil; put the pan on a baking sheet.

2. Stir the crumbs, sugar and salt together in a medium bowl. Pour over the melted butter and stir until all of the dry ingredients are uniformly moist. Turn the ingredients into the buttered springform pan and use your fingers to pat an even layer of crumbs along the bottom of the pan and about halfway up the sides. Put the pan in the freezer while you preheat the oven.

3. Center a rack in the oven, preheat the oven to 350°F and place the springform on a baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes. Set the crust aside to cool on a rack while you make the cheesecake.

4. Reduce the oven temperature to 300°F.

To make the cheesecake:

1. Put a kettle of water on to boil.

2. Working in a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese at medium speed until it is soft and smooth and free of lumps. With the mixer running, add the sugar and salt and continue to beat another 4 minutes or so, until the cream cheese is light. Beat in the vanilla, lemon juice, and zest. Add the eggs one by one, beating for a full minute after each addition—you want a well-aerated batter. Reduce the mixer speed to low and stir in the sour cream.

3.  In a separate bowl, whip the cream until it forms soft peaks.  Gently fold this into the cheesecake mixture. If the raw eggs don’t worry you, give the batter a taste and see if it needs more lemon.  Carefully add the lemon oil as needed, drop by drop.  Go easy – it is potent stuff, and a lack of caution will ruin your batter.

4. Put the foil-wrapped springform pan in the roaster pan. Scrape the batter into the springform pan. The batter will reach the brim of the pan. (If you have a pan with lower sides and have leftover batter, you can bake the batter in a buttered ramekin or small soufflé mold.) Put the roasting pan in the oven and pour enough boiling water into the roaster to come halfway up the sides of the springform pan.

5. Bake the cheesecake for 1 hour and 30 minutes, at which point the top will be lightly browned and may have risen just a little above the rim of the pan. Ideally, a circle of about a three-inch circumference in the middle of the cheesecake should “jiggle” when you shake the cake pan – that’s a good sign.  It means you have not over baked your cheesecake.  Turn off the oven’s heat and close the door.  Allow the cheesecake to sit there, with the oven off, for another hour.

6. After 1 hour, carefully pull the pans out of the oven, lift the springform pan out of the roaster and remove the foil. Let the cheesecake come to room temperature on a cooling rack.

7. When the cake is cool, cover the top lightly and chill the cake for at least 8 hours, preferably longer.

The passion fruit sauce

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup passion fruit juice
1 Tbsp. of heavy cream

In the top of a double boiler, whisk together the butter, sugar, eggs, and passion fruit juice until the mixture is thick and will hold a line on the back of a wooden spoon, about 12 minutes. Transfer the doubleboiler insert to a larger bowl filled with ice and cold water, and stir occasionally until cool.  Mix in the heavy cream, and refrigerate until ready to serve on top of the cheesecake.