1. A cream-cheese-based dessert that comes in many variations; the mere mention of chocolate or blueberry cheesecake can turn a mere mortal like me into a drooling Homer Simpson. It's fattening, though (or so I'm told). But it's still in an N-way tie for Nectar of the Gods.
2. Model(s), female. The main form of eye candy in advertising. (Snazzy computer graphics are a distant second.)

• Combine the crust ingredients, press most of the crumbs into the sides and
  bottom of a 9-inch spring-form pan, let chill.
• Beat eggs and sugar until it's fluffy; add whipping cream, salt, lemon and vanilla
• Sift in flour, add cheese and beat again.
• Pour in the pan, sprinkle remaining crumbs on top
• Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 minutes and let cool. Decorate with your favourite topping.

Based on Canadian Cook Book recipe - N.L. Pattinson

I find this recipe for cheesecake to be mouthwatering delicious. It is not too cheesy and its semi-healthy in comparison to a lot of other cheesecake recipes out there.

Cheesecake

• 1 graham cracker crumb crust
• 4 oz. softened cream cheese
• 3 T. sugar
• 1/2 C. fat free sour cream
• 1 t. vanilla
• 1 (8 oz.) carton lite whipped topping, thawed
• 1 can cherry pie filling

Grandma C's Chosen Cheesecake Recipe

There is cheesecake, and then there is cheesecake. For the past 4 years, I've strived to become something of a cheesecake connoisseur. I've eaten cheesecake from dozens of different dining establishments, tasted dozens of the home-baked varieties, and whipped up a few on my own.

No cheesecake, however, can hold a candle to that derived from my Grandmother's recipe. The ingredients list is rather simple, the preparation only slightly more difficult, yet the end result yields a flavor so complex and rich you can't believe your taste buds.

So, you'd like to try this out for yourself? Creation of the Chosen Cheesecake can be carried out using the follow instructions. This recipe is scaled out for a 1.6" high cheesecake in a 9x13" pan. This will give you 20 satisfyingly-sized slices, although to say it serves 20 may be deluding yourself. People will want another piece before they've finished their first, without fail. So let's be a bit more conservative and say it will feed 15 hungry cheesecake connoisseurs.

If you'd like to use this recipe with another size of cake pan, but don't feel like doing the math neccessary to scale the recipe to your pan, I've created a handy-dandy spreadsheet which allows you to not only scale the recipe to any size pan, but also tells you roughly how high it'll fill the pan. Want to know if going from a 3 scale recipe to a 4 scale recipe will still fit in your pan? It'll tell you! Just download the Excel spreadsheet off my handy-dandy webhost: http://www.mach5.ws/misc/cheesecakecalc.xls

You'll notice that at first glance, my recipe appears to be infinitely more complicated than that of others in this node. The reason is simple; when I first started cooking from recipes, I message up a lot of things due to the little assumptions that pile up when cooking from tersely worded recipes. Most of them assume a moderate level of familiarity with cooking procedures, none of which I had retained from my Home Economics class almost a decade or so ago. "Blend crust ingredients? In what order? What should I expect in the processes? GAH!" It's enough to deter would-be pastry chefs like myself. So in order to make the process infinitely more transparent than the workings of our government, I've chosen to go into a bit more detail than most recipe writers. Experienced bakers will no doubt frown on me for my verbosity, but I shall pay them no heed. Just don't let the length of this recipe deter you, it's really not as complicated as it looks.

Master Ingredient List

• 2 cups (405 ml) of graham crackers (roughly 15 graham crackers)
• 7 1/2 tbsps (112 1/2 ml) of butter
• 1 2/7 cups (292 1/2 ml) of sugar
• 24 oz (681.6 g) of cream cheese
• 3 whole eggs
• 1 tsps (5 ml) of vanilla extract
• 16 1/2 oz (468 3/5 g) of sour cream

Tools for the Job

• 9" x 13" cake pan
• 11 x 15" or larger cake pan
• Blender or Food processor or rolling pin and ziploc baggies
• Electric hand mixer - (Trust me)
• Flexible Spatula
• Paper Towel
• Assorted mixing spoons
• Assorted mixing bowls
• Assorted measuring cups

Measure your Ingredients

In order to prevent accidents made from haste or human error, it is always best to measure most of your ingredients out beforehand. Use the lists below, broken down by section, to measure out your ingredients. For this recipe, these only include sugar and vanilla extract, since everything else is part of the preparation. Nonetheless, it's a good habit to get into.

Make the Crust

There are two types of crust that are effective on this cheesecake - Cinnamon graham cracker and honey graham cracker. All one needs to do to achieve either is purchase a different variety of graham cracker. If one is in a pinch, one could use plain graham crackers and a dash of cinnamon or a few tablespoons of honey mixed in with the butter.

Crust Ingredients

• graham crackers (1 4/5 cup)
• sugar (1 1/2 tbsp)
• butter (7 1/2 tbsp)

Crust Creation

1. Take the graham crackers and put them into a blender or food processor. You want them to essentially become graham dust. Alternately, you can attempt to pulverize them with a rolling pin after sealing a few in a large ziplock bag. Both methods work well.
2. Measure out the graham cracker powder. Everything over the necessary amount you dispose of or consume at your leisure. I recommend pouring the leftovers into a tall glass of milk as a refreshing snack. You can set the graham crackers aside for now.
3. Take the butter, set it in a microwave-safe dish, and place it in the microwave. At this point, if you were unable to acquire flavored graham crackers, you may add the aformentioned honey or cinnamon to the warm melted butter. You want to melt the butter into a soup. Use a spoon to whip the remaining globules into oblivion.
4. Pour the graham cracker particles and sugar into the butter, making sure to mix thoroughly. At this point, the crust mixture should have the texture of mildly wet sand, and should be easy to work with.
5. Line the bottom of the pan with the crust mixture. Try to keep it even, but if there is extra crust, place it towards the outsides so it slopes towards the center. The easiest way to spread the crust around is with a large spoon.
6. Place inside the over for 15 minutes on 375 degrees to blind bake the crust. Remove and set aside.

Make the Filling

The first thing you'll notice about the filling recipe is that it doesn't call for lemon, flour, salt, or any sort of other ingredients besides the basics. This is because the texture of this cheesecake is designed to be light and fluffy, totally contrasting with the splendid cheesecakiness. It is a purist's cheesecake, so no other flavoring will be dominant. This recipe can be modified into a "X Cheesecake," where X is some fruit or other flavor, but that's on your head. What follows is just bare bones, top-notch cheesecakecraftery.

Filling Ingredients

• cream cheese (24 oz)
• sugar (1 cup)
• eggs (3 whole)
• vanilla extract (1/2 tsp)

Filling Formation

1. Use a knife to cut the cream cheese up into segments. If you have access to a microwave, you may put the cream cheese in there, on high for approximately 45 to 60 seconds in order to soften it.
2. Place about 8 oz worth of the cream cheese into a mixing bowl, and blend with the hand mixer until velvety. Add in another 8 oz,, blend further. Continue until all the cream cheese has been mixed as well as physically possible.
3. Break an egg, and mix it into the cream cheese. Once smooth, add another egg, and so on until all of the eggs have been expended.
4. Mix in the vanilla extract.
5. Mix in the sugar.
6. Pour the mixture into the pan, atop your semi-baked crust. Use the flexible spatula to ensure every last drop of the delicious cheesecake essence makes it into the pan.
7. Use the spatula to shape the filling and ensure it is spread evenly throughout the pan.
8. Use some paper towel to clear up any splotches of cheesecake on the pan. Any stray bits of mix that aren't in the large mass filling the pan will cook quickly, burn, and stink up the house.
9. Cover the 9" x 13" pan and place inside a larger cake pan. Insert into the oven, and pour water into the large pan until the smaller pan is halfway submerged. Cheesecake is very delicate, thanks to the eggs, and if heated up too quickly, will not cook properly. So we've created a sort of bain marie here to slowly heat the cheesecake up and ensure even distribution of heat throughout.
10. Turn over to 375 degrees Fahrenheit and begin baking for 70 minutes. For every 33% (1 egg) you scale the recipe, add 15 minutes of baking time. The filling only takes 10 minutes to make, and since the cheesecake needs 10 minutes to cool before applying the topping, it is probably adviseable to just clean some of the dishes while the it's in the oven. Once the 70 minutes is up, remove it and let it cool.

Make the Topping

This is not an option. You must make the topping, as not doing so goes against the very nature of this cheesecake. It's also, no pun intended, easy as cake to make.

Topping Ingredients

• sour cream (16 1/2 oz)
• sugar (3 tbsp)
• vanilla extract (1/2 tsp)

Edifice Erection

1. Spoon the sour cream into a mixing bowl.
2. Begin mixing, while pouring in the vanilla.
3. Continue mixing, slowly pouring in the sugar. Mix until blended perfectly.
4. By now, the crust and filling should be out of the oven, and cooled for at least 10 minutes. Pour the topping onto the rest of the cake. The topping should have the consistency of thick pancake batter, and the cheesecake, though a bit more solid, will not be totally formed yet. Because of this, you shouldn't quickly pour the topping into the center of the cheesecake, because it will likely collapse, and create quite an aesthetically repulsive creation. Instead, slowly pour the topping near one of the edges, then move circularly around the cheesecake, spiraling towards the center. After the first time you do this, you should have used up less than half the filling in the bowl. Proceed to fill in the gaps little dollops at a time, until the topping bowl is devoid of topping and merely a bowl.
5. Smooth it evenly with the spatula.
6. Put the entire thing back into the oven, without covering it. Bake for 7 minutes at 500 degrees Fahrenheit.
7. Remove from oven and let cool for 30 minutes. It's best to find somewhere cool and dry, and for the love of all that is cheesecake, don't put it near a clove of garlic or an ashtray. Cheesecake acts likea sponge and soaks up particles in the air, and the last thing you want is a cheesecake that tastes like a chain-smoking Italian. After it's cooled a bit, cover and store in fridge.
8. Let chill for at least 6 hours, overnight if possible.

Final Words

Cheesecake is best served within a day or two after creation. Never freeze cheesecake unless necessary, as it saps it of much of its flavor.

Cheesecake can be excellent by its lonesome, but it is best served with a fine vin de glacière. Combining the two is the most effective method in bringing about the elusive flavorgasm.

Please consume cheesecake responsibly. Always remember, 'A Minute on the Tongue, Forever on your Bum.' Or in my case, on my bum, thighs, and stomach.

I've taken the time to calculate the nutrional content of this cheesecake. It's an approximation at best, it may be somewhat lower or higher depending on if I used a ratio of lowfat cream cheese and lowfat sour cream. Regardless, we're talking about a dish that's basically fat encapsulating sugar. It doesn't get any better than this, but that comes with a price. These numbers are based off a 5-egg recipe, which is 66% thicker than the quantities listed above. Scale appropriately for size.

Serving Size            1 slice (1/20 of the cheesecake)
Calories                509
   Fat Calories         335
Total Fat               34.5 g
   Saturated Fat        22.0 g
   Trans Fat            0.0 g
Cholesterol             177.5 mg
Sodium                  362.6 mg
Total Carbohydrate      36.0 g
   Dietary Fiber        0.5 g
   Sugars               28.3 g
Protein                 7.9 g
	
Vitamin A               23%
Vitamin C               0%
Calcium                 7%
Iron                    5%

Any comments on this recipe should be sent to me at your leisure. I'd love to know how it turned out, who you impressed with it, or how you seduced your significant other with it.

Idiot-proof Cheesecake

I am not a skilled baker, but I have yet to mess up this recipe and dispite its simplicity it makes a wonderfully light cheesecake. The ingredients are straightforward, the method is simple and the baking time is forgiving.

Enjoy.

Ingredients

Instructions

Pre-heat oven to 450F (230C).

Depending on how well stocked your kitchen is the preparation can be effortless or may require a little elbow grease. If you are fortunate enough to have an electric mixer then you're set, if, like me, you are a poor student who hasn't found an electric mixer fits into your budget, than a good spoon will work.

Which ever method you're using, I've found that cutting the cream cheese into cubes and microwaving for a little to soften it up helps immensely. The electric mixer is more forgiving, but your arm may not be.

Once you have your cream cheese at a suitable softness combine it with the sugar until the two are well blended. Add the eggs one at a time mixing well after each. Blend in the vanilla and continue mixing until the concoction is smooth.

Now you're finished the major part, so just pour the mixture over the crust and pop it in the oven, which should be preheated to 450F by now. Let it bake for 10 minutes and then turn the oven down to 250F (125C). The time for this second part will vary depending on your oven. I've had it cook in an additional 15 minutes (in my new old oven) or in an additional 25-30 in a regular oven. So although it should probably take 25-30 minutes at 250F I would keep an eye on it. As soon as the top starts browning a little it's pretty safe to take out.

The hardest part of making cheesecake, I find, is waiting for it to cool. On average for it to cool all the way through takes a few hours in the refrigerator, but nothing horrible will happen to you or the cake if you sneak a piece early.

Topping Instructions

Depending on your preference you can put whatever you want on your cheesecake. If you like cherries, some cherry pie filling will work, personally I'm a sucker for raspberries, or you can skip the topping altogether. It you have some fresh or frozen fruit or berries that you want to use as a topping just put them on the stove (in a pot) with some sugar (to taste) and let it boil a little. If it's a little too dry add some water, or even better, some juice to help it along. Once it cools you should have a nice fruity topping for your cheesecake.

Time Required/Servings

Cheesecake is a result of culinary evolution steeped in history, custom, folklore and ceremony. With it beginnings in earliest agricultural practice, embellished upon by local resources, and enhanced by technological advancement. In a nutshell, cheesecake is the perfect embodiment of the enthusiastic human pursuit for first-class food. Today's cheesecake recipes are very rich and generally made from cream cheese or cottage cheese, eggs, butter and sugar.

Cheesecake through the ages.

Before there was cheesecake, there was cheese which actually dates back about 9000BC, to the earliest domestication of milk producing animals. Archaeologists have recognized that cheese was familiar to the Sumerians of 4000BC, whose cuneiform tablets include mentions of cheese. The Egyptian and Chaldean artifacts as well as the Old Testament talk about cheese, honey and almonds and wine, and relate these foods with adventures. "Little cheese" was a special term of endearment among the Greeks because they were so fond of cheese that they rewarded their children with it. Anthropologists have found cheese molds dating back to 2000 BC. The Olympic athletes trained on a diet that was mostly cheese and history first records cheesecake, as being served during the first Olympic Games held in 776 B.C. Other researchers list the isle of Samos as being famous for cheesecakes, for which Athenaeus left this recipe, "Take some cheese and pound it, put in a brazen sieve and strain it, then add honey and flour made from spring wheat and heat the whole together into one mass."
It was customary to serve cheesecakes as wedding cakes from this era and at Argos it was traditional for the bride to" bring little cakes that were roasted, covered with honey, and served to the bridegroom's friends."

"Every market in Greece sold cheeses to those who could not make their own, and by the fourth century BC the popular fresh white Greek cheeses were being flavored with herbs and spices and baked into all manner of cakes and pies...The Roman Empire used cheese a great deal in cooking....Cato mentions a sauce based on salt which was used to preserve cheese and gives the recipe for a celebration wedding cake, in which the main ingredient was cheese, spiced and flavoured with grape must, fat, aniseed and bay leaves; this was also baked on top of bay leaves which impaired their agreeable aroma to the concoction....Apicus, the foremost Roman gastronome, included a very elaborate dish among his recipes, served cold, in which the cheese was blended with honey, peppermint, watermelon, vinegar and many other ingredients."
--Cheese: A Guide to the World of Cheese and Cheesemaking, Battistotti, Botazzi et al. (pages 12-14).

Cheesecake packs a sensual wallop different from anything in the natural world because it is a prepared confection for the express purpose of pressing our pleasure buttons. From Greece the Romans spread cheesecake across Europe. Hundreds of years later cheesecake recipes were brought over to America by immigrants. American dairymen, who were trying to recreate the French cheese, Neufchatel, invented cream cheese in 1872. In 1912 James L. Kraft invented pasteurized cheese, which led to the development of Philadelphia cream cheese, one of the more popular cheese used for making cheesecake today.

Curds were still incorporated in certain cooked dishes which had survived from medieval times. The spiced cheese tarts of that period were continued in tarts of curds which were still known a cheesecakes in the seventeenth century...Fresh curds formed the basis of the filling, supported by eggs, spices and sometimes currants. By the middle of the century, some cheesecake recipes contained neither cheese nor curds, but instead a rich custardy mixture of eggs, butter, flour and unrenneted cream, duly sweetened and spiced...

A further development a few decades later was the lemon cheesecake. Its filling consisted of pounded lemon peel, egg yolks, sugar and butter...Orange cheesecakes were made in similar fashion, from the skins of Seville oranges which were first boiled in two or three waters to take off their bitterness."
--Food and Drink in Britain, C. Anne Wilson (Academy Chicago: Chicago) 1991 (pages 172-173).

The earliest genuine recipe for a cheesecake was published in the 14th century book titled Forme of Cury and it wasn't until the 17th century that rich sweet custard pies, essentially `cheeseless' cheesecakes began to show up in English cookbooks. A popular favorite from the deep south called Chess pie is descended from these. New York Cheesecake is an Eastern-European-style cake made from cream and pot cheeses. The first adaptations of the cake were most likely very heavy. In her memoir of growing up in the Bronx, author Kate Simon recounts the "cementlike cheesecakes" that her mother made each week. Actors and actresses patronized Lindy's. Eventually Lindy's cheesecake became synonymous with the New York of the early 40s. Its fabled theater-district restaurant with all of the Guys & Dolls razzle-dazzle that surrounded the cheesecake, ultimately the famous recipe for Lindy's smooth cake appeared frequently in cookbooks.

Say cheese!

Even though real cheesecakes date back to antiquity, in 1835 for entertainment schoolgirls would perform deep curtseys. They called it making cheeses. By wheeling rapidly until their petticoats blew out in a circle," then dropping down so they came to rest inflated and resembling a wheel of cheese." Probably the most controversial and notorious cheesecake is September Morn. "Painted by Paul Chabas in 1912, the scene reveals a pretty young woman bathing in a lake at sunrise. The modest innocence of the nude bather is both charming and appealing however; it ran into trouble with the iniquitous Anthony Comstock the following year when it was published in the United States. The entire hullabaloo over the picture eventually led to it becoming a tremendously popular print for calendars. One historian tells that it's, "... generally believed that the owner of the gallery in whose window Comstock saw September Morn was the person who anonymously tipped Comstock off to the presence of the picture and that he did so specifically as a publicity stunt, one that was in end extremely successful."

The term "cheesecake" used as slang was first recorded 1934 in the sense of ''photography or photographs (as in advertisements or publicity) featuring the natural curves of shapely female legs, thighs, or trunk, usually scantily clothed. "Pulp magazine would frequently publish with photographs of attractive young women on the covers. For the times these displays are relatively chaste by contemporary values and typically restricted to "leg shots" featuring women in swimsuits or relatively short skirts. Similar scenes became widespread on calendars and playing cards of the times, and the genre became known as "cheesecake." One etymologist explains:

" (They) first arose in the depths of the 1930s Depression. Having enough food to eat was a daily worry for millions of Americans, and cheesecake, or any other fancy dessert, would have seemed an unattainable luxury to many. So it's not surprising that the young women on the covers of those risqué magazines, similarly unattainable to the average male reader, would have become known as "cheesecake."

When the US joined World War II cheesecakes adorned aircrafts as Nose Art and the beautiful Betty Grable became not only the pin up poster girl but a timeless hallmark of the era. Alberto Vargas and his Vargas Girls added more class to the femmes of American cheesecake of the 60's and by the 70's Cosmopolitan magazine had Burt Reynolds in minimal attire posed for a centerfold. The picture was immediately dubbed beefcake. The Bettie Page revival of the 80's and 90's brought about a revitalization of the cheesecake genre with comic art and artists taking the soft focus and romantic style of the early artists and illustrators to a sharper look, moving through realism and beyond.

Sources:

Cheesecake & New York cheesecake:
http://www.gti.net/mocolib1/kid/foodcakes.html#cheesecake

O'Neil, Molly. New York Cook Book, (Workman Publishing: New York) 1992 (p. 436-7).

Online Etymology:
http://www.etymonline.com/c4etym.htm

The Word Detective:
http://www.word-detective.com/current.html

From the makers of Toasted Peanut Butter and Jelly Breakfast and Micro-Scrambled Eggs comes...

Deceptively Simple Cheesecake!

Create!

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees farenheit*. Mix the graham cracker crumbs with the melted butter or margarine to create a nice sticky, semi-crumbly mixture. Press this mixture into the bottom and up the sides (approximately two inches) of a nine-inch springform pan, creating the crust. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the softened cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla with an electric mixer on the lowest setting. Add in the eggs one at a time, and mix until well blended. Pour the result into the graham cracker crust, and place on middle rack in oven. Bake for 65 minutes, or until the middle is almost set and the crust pulls away from the sides of the pan. Remove from oven, and allow to cool. Before removing the sides of the pan, run a knife between the pan and the crust. Cover** and refridgerate cheesecake at least four hours or overnight; the time it is allowed to set will increase the deliciousness factor.

* If using a dark springform pan, set oven to 300 degrees.

**Please, for the love of all things yummy, cover the damn cheesecake! An uncovered cheesecake in the fridge is the same thing as a sponge, and it will no longer taste like cheesecake.

Enjoy!

Here is a recipe I adapted after working at the Wine Cask, a fine-dining kitchen.

Bailey's Irish Creme Cheesecake

This cheesecake recipe is based off of the Wine Cask Chevre Cheesecake. Personally, I had never made cheesecake - or any dessert of any kind - before I started working at the Wine Cask this summer.

I tested out this particular recipe when I brought it to work one day, and apparently the director of our department said it was the best cheesecake he ever had, even better than some he had in New York.

Bailey's Irish Creme Cheesecake

Crust

Graham cracker crumbs (enough to cover the bottom of a springform cake pan)
Handful of raw pistachios meats, chopped
4 oz. unsalted butter

Cheesecake filling

1 1/2 pounds of cream cheese
1 pound of a soft goat cheese, like a chevre
3/4 cup of sugar
1 cup of orange blossom honey (or substitute with clover honey)
3 eggs
1 egg yolk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 oz. Bailey's Irish Creme liquor

Preheat oven to 325 F

Making the crust

1. Melt the butter in low heat, making sure it does not brown
2. Mix chopped pistachios with graham cracker crumbs
3. Add melted butter, enough to moisten crumbs
4. Spread onto springform pan bottom, put in oven to solidify crust

Making the cheesecake filling

1. Add cream cheese to mixer, turn mixer on high and beat the living shit out of the cream cheese. Don't forget to scrape down the sides to ensure a thorough ass beating.
2. Add in goat cheese and beat the fuck out of the two cheeses.
3. Throw in sugar, turn mixer on high. This is called creaming, the sugar forms micro tears into the cheese making it into a creamy consistency.
4. Pour in the honey after creaming. 5. Add in eggs one at a time, mixing on a low-medium speed, just enough for the egg to mix in with the filling
6. Add the vanilla extract, mixing just enough to incorporate the liquid. Then add the liquor. Since these two ingredients are predominately alcohol, they should be added last and beat in very lightly.

Putting it all together

1. Take crust out of oven, make sure the crust is level, pour in the filling.
2. Place the cheesecake in a water bath. You might want to wrap the bottom and sides in foil to make sure water does not seep through the springform pan.
3. Heat in oven, until brown on top. Approximately 25-30 minutes.

Garnish and presentation

Garnish with mint spring, and a teaspoon of pistachios on the side. Honeycomb is a nice optional garnish.

Enjoy!