I never meant to that _that _girl, quite honestly. You know, the weird one that just has to make something weird when everyone else makes something normal that pleases everyone. It just happened that way. I recall my dad getting a heart shaped thankyou mug from his work and saying "This is weird, Lorraine will like it-she likes weird things". I don't know if it's it's the chicken or the egg, whether I chose to like spooky or gruesome things or whether they chose me and seeing something similarly off kilter in them as I saw in myself, I embraced it.
So when planning the Daring Bakers challenge, I was chatting with Y, whom I often chat to about baking things, and she said that she wanted to do a brie cheesecake and we discussed doing a cheeseplate cheesecake together. As it turns out, life and the fact that neither of us drive prevented us from doing the challenge together (which would have made life easier I'm sure), but I was still determined to do something like a cheeseplate cheesecake as I loved the idea.
Ricotta would have been easy, after all there are plenty of ricotta cheesecakes but I knew that I had to try a Blue Cheese Cheesecake. I figured blue would be suitably strange. I then thought camembert would make a delicious cheesecake and wanted to do a lighter, more moussey or souffle-y camembert cheesecake that wasn't sweet and therefore could be eaten just like camembert on a cheese plate although I wasn't brave enough to try that on the blue cheese cheesecake. And by the way, the camembert cheesecake, when it's just out of the oven is beautifully fluffy and gorgeous eaten with a spoon out of a ramekin and some caramelised onions although it firms up on chilling. On the plate you can also see another cake - a Cheddar cheese and pear cake that wasn't a cheesecake but more on that another day.
I did adjust the recipe so I hope that was permitted as I made two 4 inch round tins of cheesecake to fit the Cheese plate idea (two whacking great sized cheesecakes just seemed a little too much). I also replaced the cream with sour cream and added the requisite cheeses.
The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.
Cheese Plate Cheesecakes
An original recipe by Not Quite Nigella
Below are the crust quantities for both the camembert and the blue cheese cheesecakes (4 inch size). If you are only making one of them halve the crust recipe.
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100 g graham cracker crumbs
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2 oz/60g butter, melted
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1 tbsp. / 12 g sugar
Camembert cheesecake filling:
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150g/5ozs of cream cheese, room temperature
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100g/3.5 ozs camembert, at room temperature
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1 large egg
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1/2 cup sour cream
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1/2 teaspoon cracked pepper
DIRECTIONS:
Step 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.
Step 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.
Step 3 - Combine cream cheese and camembert in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add egg fully incorporating it. Make sure to scrape down the bowl. Add sour cream and pepper and blend until smooth and creamy.
Step 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.
Step 5 - Bake 40 to 50 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.
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!
Blue Cheese cheesecake filling
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150g/5ozs of cream cheese, room temperature
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100g/3.5ozs mild blue cheese (I used Danish blue which is very creamy and mild), at room temperature
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1 large egg
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1 tablespoon sour cream
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2 tablespoons good quality honey
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Blueberry sauce (heat 1 tablespoon blueberries with water and sugar and mash until smooth)
DIRECTIONS:
Step 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.
Step 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.
Step 3 - Combine cream cheese and blue cheese in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add egg fully incorporating it. Make sure to scrape down the bowl. Add sour cream and blend until smooth and creamy. Spoon over blueberry sauce and using a skewer or chopstick squiggle it around so that it looks like "blue veins".
Step 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.
Step 5 - Bake 40 to 50 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.
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!
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