The final 2008 recipe for our Tuesdays with Dorie group is the Tall & Creamy Cheesecake. I made two variations… one was a Lemon Cheesecake with a Blackberry Swirl all nestled on a gingersnap crust… and the other was a Toasted Coconut Cheesecake with a toasted coconut graham cracker crust. If you are looking for a creamy cheesecake that comes together easily, I truly must say this is a fantastic recipe. It’s certainly not a dry/crumbly/New-York-Style cheesecake… oh no.  This is thee creamiest cheesecake I’ve ever ever made! So if your tastes lean in this direction, you gotta give this recipe a whirl!  

This week’s recipe was chosen by Anne of Anne Strawberry and I’m so glad we closed out the year with this one! I might have mentioned a time or ten that I really love cheesecake :)  Sadly DH, not so much… but that’s okay, he is a chocoholic who loved the French Yule Log so I don’t really feel all that bad ;-)  Since my dad’s birthday was yesterday I wanted to make a flavor combination that he was quite fond of.  I say ‘was” because, you see, my father passed away in 2007 at a ridiculously young age… but I still miss him and think of him all the time. He loved trifle layered with ginger bread, lemon curd and blackberry puree… so I know this cheesecake is one he would’ve really enjoyed.

I was so thrilled that my cheesecake had absolutely no cracks in the top – yay Dorie!!!  That’s always something I struggle with and take great pains to avoid.  With this recipe from Dorie it required no effort.  I baked for 90 minutes, turned off the oven, propped the door open with a wooden spoon and left it in the oven for another hour.  After that I removed it and let it come to room temperature on a cooling rack…. then popped it in the chiller overnight.   Voila, no cracks!  But sadly one part of my cheesecake got a little too brown so it’s not as pretty as I would’ve liked.  Regardless… this cheesecake tastes ah-may-zing… no lie…. aaaah-mayzing…. truly amazing!  I added a heckuva lot more lemon extract than the recipe called for because I like my lemony desserts to be ulta-uber-lemony!  The gingersnap crust is a lovely contrast to the lemon and blackberry flavors. Speaking of blackberry… for the swirl I combined 1/4c blackberry jam and 2 teaspoons of water into the food processor to liquify nicely.  After the batter was all done I took 3/4th of the blackberry mixture and folded it in using a rubber spatula then poured it into the prepared pan.  After all the batter was in the pan I spooned the remaining blackberry mixture on top and then used a knife to create the swirl pattern.    I honestly could not be more pleased with this cheesecake!

When trying to decide what flavor to make, I was very intrigued with the idea of making a coconut cheesecake since this year I discovered a love of coconut.  But I was apprehensive since if I didn’t care for it, I’d have an entire cheesecake just sitting there going to waste.  I opted to make this flavor in a 4″ springform pan and I’m glad I did because while it was tasty, I wouldn’t want a whole, large-sized cheesecake of it.  But come to think of it, my hips, butt and thighs woulda been better off if I had ;-)

If you have a chance please check out the cheesecakes made by the other TwD bakers – there are some nifty variations!  If you’d like the recipe please visit the blog of our host Anne.

Have a delicious day!

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