Mariclaire Bakes: New Year's Resolution Cheesecake

New Year's resolutions–personally, I think it is great to have a goal going into the New Year. Resolutions can be a great way to better yourself and even the people around you. Whether it is to be kind, get organized, learn a new skill, or just do whatever makes you happy, resolutions are great ways to make you more focused during the New Year. I don’t really have a New Year's resolution, but a goal I have for myself is to get better at making cheesecake. It is a surprisingly hard dessert to bake. That's why I am pushing myself in this issue and attempting to make a cheesecake. I have attempted to make it before, but it didn’t go well. So this could go very wrong, but it will be interesting.

Please note, this is not my cheesecake recipe. I used a recipe from the New York Times. https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015672-tall-and-creamy-cheesecake

Recipe:

Graham Cracker Crust:

• 1 ¾ cups graham cracker crumbs

• 3 tablespoons sugar

• Pinch of salt

• ½ (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted

Cheese Cake:

• 2 pounds (four 8-ounce boxes) cream cheese, at room temperature

• 1 ⅓ cups sugar

• ½ teaspoon salt

• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

• 4 large eggs, at room temperature

• 1 ⅓ cups sour cream or heavy cream, or a combination of the two

Strawberry Toppings:

• 2 pints of strawberries

• ⅓ cup sugar

• Half a lemon juices

• 1 tbsp water

• 2 tsp cornstarch

Instructions:

(This is how I made the cheesecake. You can access New York Times instructions through the link above.)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and prepare a 9 or 10 inch pan by greasing the pan and putting parchment paper on the bottom of the pan to ensure that it won’t stick.

2. Break up your graham crackers until they look like sand.

3. Then mix the broken up graham crackers with the melted butter, sugar, and salt. Mix it all together.

4. Add your graham cracker mixture to your pan and pack it on to the bottom and half way up the side of the pan.

5. Refrigerate your crust for 15 minutes, and then bake for 10 minutes. Once out of the oven let the crust cool completely.

6. Next add the cream cheese to the mixer. (Make sure your cream cheese is room temperature.) Beat it until light and creamy.

7. Then the rest of the cheesecake ingredients and blend until smooth.

8. Turn the oven down to 325 degrees and put a pan of water into the bottom of the oven.

9. Add the cheesecake filling to the crust and bake for 1 ½ hours. ( I recommend taking it out before 1 1/2 because mine was a little over-baked when I baked it for 1 ½ hours. Just check it around the hour mark.)

10. While the cheesecake is baking, add cut strawberries, sugar, water, lemon juice, and cornstarch to a pot.

11. Cook the strawberry mixture on medium or low until it becomes a semi-thick liquid consistency. If your sauce is too runny, slowly add some more cornstarch.

12. When the cheesecake is done, let it cool in the oven with the door cracked open for about an hour.

13. Then put the cheesecake in the refrigerator and let it cool for at least 4 hours.

14. Once done cooling, top the cheesecake with the strawberry sauce and enjoy :).

Reviews:

Eunice Kim: “10/10 - The strawberry sauce perfectly compliments the creaminess of the cheesecake.”

Elli Farac: “7/10 - because the taste was delicious but the texture was weird”

Kelly Hong: “7.832/10 - because I actually really liked the crust–it had a good mouth feel to me. I liked it, and I liked the strawberry stuff.”

Hannah Su: “7/10 - I like the crunchiness of the crust. It goes well with the cheesecake and the strawberry sauce.”

Mariclare O’Gorman: “I think overall it was pretty successful. I like the way it all tasted. The main thing was that I overbaked the cheesecake a little so it had a weird texture. But I am proud of this cheesecake and I think I am improving.”