The holidays are always an interesting time when it comes to cheesecake. There are so many traditional desserts, that there is often no reason to make a cheesecake. However, in our family there are a couple of people that approach me before the holiday and say "are you making a cheesecake for Thanksgiving?", "can you please make a cheesecake for Thanksgiving?", and this year was no different.
Once the decision is made, it is a matter of figuring out which flavor to make. There is always pumpkin pie, so it seems silly to double up and make a pumpkin cheesecake, though I really like my pumpkin cheesecake and don't particularly like pumpkin pie, but I don't typically make cheesecake for myself, so that isn't a big part of my decision. In my wife's family, there is always a chocolate creme pie and a banana creme pie as well, so chocolate is out. This year I decided that I would like to make a chocolate cherry chip cheesecake. There are many choices to be made; do I want a cherry flavored cheesecake? or cherries in the cheesecake? or cherries on top of the cheesecake? For the last two options, do I want fresh cherries? frozen cherries? dried cherries? do I want a glaze of some kind on top? Then it comes to the chocolate. Do I want to use chips or chunks? What brand do I want to use? and so on.
In the end I decided on a regular cheesecake on a graham cracker crust with chocolate chunks (Scharffen Berger that I happened to find on clearance at a Big Lots or something!) and bits of frozen cherries, with those same frozen cherries covered in glaze on top.
I chose frozen cherries because they are cheaper than fresh cherries, and since most of them were cooking into a glaze, the softness of them wouldn't matter, and the rest were being cut into chunks. Also, when frozen fruits thaw, they tend to produce a lot of juice, and I wanted that juice for my glaze. Finally, I just didn't want to have to pit a ton of fresh cherries!
First things first, I thawed out my frozen cherries. I set some aside in a strainer so their juices would drain away. These would be cut up and put into the cheesecake batter, and for anything that goes into the batter, you want it as dry as possible. Otherwise the juices thin out the batter or cause inconsistencies inside the batter which can lead to cracks in the final cheesecake. After draining I cut them up into quarters and wicked away as much of the remaining juice as I could get with a paper towel.
I was using my standard plain cheesecake recipe, and when the base was complete I added my chocolate chunks and my cherries. I then poured it into the crust, put it in the oven and the long wait began.
The next step was to make my glaze. I have found that fruit glazes are pretty darn easy to make. Take some fruit juice, some sugar, maybe a little arrowroot or corn starch, put it over a medium heat, cook and stir. Let it start to simmer, but never let it get to a full rolling boil. What you don't want is for the sugar to get hot enough to get into the candy stages. Rather you want the starch to do its job and thicken the syrup. In this case I ended up with a beautiful dark red syrup with large soft cherries in it that tasted amazing. I put it in a bowl and got it in the fridge to chill down and thicken up some more.
My cheesecake had baked, cooled, been put in the fridge, and chilled overnight, and it was time to put the whole thing together. I find that most recipes tell you to run a knife around the edge of your cheesecake pan to loosen it from the sides. I find that you often cut into the sides of the cake doing this and the presentation is just that much worse, so I came up with a different way. I take a large kitchen towel and soak it with boiling water, then I wrap the towel around the edge of the pan and let the heat do the work! In a couple of minutes I can usually remove the pan without fear of damaging the cheesecake!
I removed the cake from the pan and put it onto a cake plate, then poured the cherry glaze onto the top. Unfortunately I had a bit too much, and it was not quite thick enough, so it soon started pouring over the sides of the cheesecake and soaking into the crust. It was no big deal though, as it still looked great.
I did find when we cut into the cheesecake, that the center was a tad bit soft. I had under cooked it slightly. Additionally, all of the cherries and chocolate chunks in the batter ended up at the very bottom, sitting on the crust. I would prefer that my additions are suspended throughout the batter, as I feel that would produce a better cake both from a visual and a consistency/taste perspective. The problem is that my batter is too liquid when I put it in the crust, and when I slam it on the counter a few times to remove the bubbles, all of the additions sink right to the bottom. My typical recipe originally called for sugar, but lately the recipe I've been using replaces the sugar with sweetened, condensed milk. I think next time I make a cheesecake I am going to go back to the sugar method and see if I don't get a slightly denser cheesecake, and somewhat sweeter too, as I found the condensed milk doesn't add as much "sweet" to the mix as sugar does.
That's all for now. I'm pretty sure I'll be making another holiday cheesecake for Christmas, so hopefully I can get another post up soon! What do you think of Ginger with a lemon curd?
Once the decision is made, it is a matter of figuring out which flavor to make. There is always pumpkin pie, so it seems silly to double up and make a pumpkin cheesecake, though I really like my pumpkin cheesecake and don't particularly like pumpkin pie, but I don't typically make cheesecake for myself, so that isn't a big part of my decision. In my wife's family, there is always a chocolate creme pie and a banana creme pie as well, so chocolate is out. This year I decided that I would like to make a chocolate cherry chip cheesecake. There are many choices to be made; do I want a cherry flavored cheesecake? or cherries in the cheesecake? or cherries on top of the cheesecake? For the last two options, do I want fresh cherries? frozen cherries? dried cherries? do I want a glaze of some kind on top? Then it comes to the chocolate. Do I want to use chips or chunks? What brand do I want to use? and so on.
In the end I decided on a regular cheesecake on a graham cracker crust with chocolate chunks (Scharffen Berger that I happened to find on clearance at a Big Lots or something!) and bits of frozen cherries, with those same frozen cherries covered in glaze on top.
I chose frozen cherries because they are cheaper than fresh cherries, and since most of them were cooking into a glaze, the softness of them wouldn't matter, and the rest were being cut into chunks. Also, when frozen fruits thaw, they tend to produce a lot of juice, and I wanted that juice for my glaze. Finally, I just didn't want to have to pit a ton of fresh cherries!
First things first, I thawed out my frozen cherries. I set some aside in a strainer so their juices would drain away. These would be cut up and put into the cheesecake batter, and for anything that goes into the batter, you want it as dry as possible. Otherwise the juices thin out the batter or cause inconsistencies inside the batter which can lead to cracks in the final cheesecake. After draining I cut them up into quarters and wicked away as much of the remaining juice as I could get with a paper towel.
I was using my standard plain cheesecake recipe, and when the base was complete I added my chocolate chunks and my cherries. I then poured it into the crust, put it in the oven and the long wait began.
The next step was to make my glaze. I have found that fruit glazes are pretty darn easy to make. Take some fruit juice, some sugar, maybe a little arrowroot or corn starch, put it over a medium heat, cook and stir. Let it start to simmer, but never let it get to a full rolling boil. What you don't want is for the sugar to get hot enough to get into the candy stages. Rather you want the starch to do its job and thicken the syrup. In this case I ended up with a beautiful dark red syrup with large soft cherries in it that tasted amazing. I put it in a bowl and got it in the fridge to chill down and thicken up some more.
My cheesecake had baked, cooled, been put in the fridge, and chilled overnight, and it was time to put the whole thing together. I find that most recipes tell you to run a knife around the edge of your cheesecake pan to loosen it from the sides. I find that you often cut into the sides of the cake doing this and the presentation is just that much worse, so I came up with a different way. I take a large kitchen towel and soak it with boiling water, then I wrap the towel around the edge of the pan and let the heat do the work! In a couple of minutes I can usually remove the pan without fear of damaging the cheesecake!
I removed the cake from the pan and put it onto a cake plate, then poured the cherry glaze onto the top. Unfortunately I had a bit too much, and it was not quite thick enough, so it soon started pouring over the sides of the cheesecake and soaking into the crust. It was no big deal though, as it still looked great.
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| Cherry glaze perches precariously along the edge! |
That's all for now. I'm pretty sure I'll be making another holiday cheesecake for Christmas, so hopefully I can get another post up soon! What do you think of Ginger with a lemon curd?
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