Cheesecake for Breakfast

Yesterday was Easter. It is an amazing thing to think how voices sing praises all over the world on the morning we observe the resurrection. 2000 years later—it still matters and even swim practice gets cancelled. We had a nice morning watching the chickens and checking for asparagus. We did a quick sweep across the road to see if we could find any morel mushrooms. No dice. Off to church and then up to Adam’s folks. We got to see baby Selah for the first time! She was beautiful. Gavin has grown so much and he was content to let me hold him for a bit—I loved it. We had lunch and a nice visit with Grampa Dan. I made David’s Cheesecake. We opened our second batch of farmhouse cheddar. Again, my stomach hurts. After Easter I need the sweets and desserts to be gone as fast as possible. I can’t handle it. This morning the kids ate the cheesecake for breakfast, even the chickens had some. Here is the recipe.

Ruth Reichl’s New York Cheesecake

by Emily and David for Easter 2012

1-1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup melted butter
1-1/2 lbs. cream cheese, at room temperature
4 eggs
3 teaspoons vanilla
grated zest of one lemon
2 cups sour cream

Preheat oven to 350. Mix the graham crackers with 1/4 cup sugar and the melted butter and press into bottom and sides of a 9-inch ungreased springform pan. Chill while preparing filling. Beat the cream cheese, 1/2 cup sugar, eggs, 2 teaspoons of the vanilla and lemon zest until smooth. Pour into chilled crust and bake 50 minutes to one hour, or until the cheese is set and starting to turn golden in spots. Remove from the oven (leave oven on) and cool for about 15 minutes on a wire rack. Stir together the sour cream, remaining 1/4 cup of sugar, remaining teaspoon of vanilla and spread over cooled cake. Return to oven for 12 minutes until glossy and set. Cool completely, cover and chill at least 8 hours. Serves 8.

DAVID'S CHEESECAKE VARIATION

Omit zest of lemon and reserve the vanilla (preferably 1tsp. vanilla bean paste) for the sour cream topping. Add frozen strawberries with a bit of sugar that have been smashed and thawed to the cheesecake filling. We used approximately 1 cup and spooned it in with a slotted spoon to reduce extra liquid. We also needed to let it bake it about ten minutes longer in the first step just because of the extra liquid. I'm sure that that would vary with different ovens. I would just suggest that you monitor the situation with a careful eye after the 50 min mark.