April Daring Baker's Challenge

Well this month's challenge was Cheesecake yummo! But I've been sooo busy this month, I've left it to the last minute to make it. But here it is :)

I didn't make the full recipe, as I wanted to make cupcake sized cheesecakes, so I could have a few flavours. I made vanilla, raspberry and passionfruit - William said I don't want the ones with the yucky bits in them lol!!

Anyways my variations are in red, and slackness on my part regards the photos, I've just got photos of the passionfruit ones, and oh my they are good!!!

The details are

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

Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake:

crust:
2 cups / 180 g graham cracker crumbs 1 packet of Nice Biscuits
1 stick / 4 oz butter, melted dropped the butter back to 100g
2 tbsp. / 24 g sugar ditched the sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

cheesecake:
3 sticks of cream cheese, 8 oz each (total of 24 oz) room temperature 500 g cream cheese
1 cup / 210 g sugar 2/3 cup caster sugar
3 large eggs 2 large eggs 
1 cup / 8 oz heavy cream 2/3 cup thickened cream 
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean) I used vanilla bean
1 tbsp liqueur, optional, but choose what will work well with your cheesecake

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. I set mine at 160 C and filled 18 muffin sized cupcake tins - the other six tins I filled with water, to create a moist enviroment.

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. Set crust aside. I used a good sized couple of tablespoon and tamped it down in the paper cases with a pie crust thingy - good explanation huh lol!!

3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in 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. I left 6 plain, 6 with raspberrys and then mixed 1 whole passionfruit into the remainder.

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 finish 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. Baked them for just about 20 minutes.

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 almost an hour, cool in the oven for an hour, and chill overnight before it is served. Please plan accordingly!

It was super easy to make, and tasted delicious both before baking - says Katherine who licked ALL the spoons and after. I didn't have any problem with them cracking either, being the smaller size. The ones with the water bath in them in the upper part of the oven, didn't sink at all, whereas the ones in the bottom without the water bath, sunk a little.