Light and Airy Cheesecake

Cheesecake – a divine cake – how many times have I reminisced over, thought about, and made cheesecake - at least 5 documented here on this blog.  I love cheesecake and I am always willing to try a new version of cheesecake for different flavor profiles to textures.  This time I wanted a light and airy cheesecake that was tall, creamy and so light that it defied its principal ingredient, cream cheese.  This cheesecake not only met my requirements but exceeded them.  It is light and airy but maintains the classic flavor of cheesecake.

If light and creamy doesn't inspire, you may be interested in my other versions of cheesecake:

   Marble Cheesecake

   Manhattan Cheesecake   

   Pumpkin Cheesecake  

   Cheesecake Bars

Light and Creamy Cream Cheese Cheesecake

16 servings,

Crust

1 3/4 cups graham cracker crumbs

3 tablespoons sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

½ stick (4 tablespoons) butter, melted

Butter a 9-inch spring form pan and wrap the bottom of the pan in a double layer of aluminum foil.

Stir the crumbs, sugar and salt together in a medium bowl (I crush in the food processor).

Pour over the melted butter and stir until all of the dry ingredients are uniformly moist. Empty the ingredients into the buttered spring form pan and pat an even layer of crumbs along the bottom of the pan using a flat bottomed measuring cup going about halfway up the sides.

Put the pan in the freezer while you preheat the oven.

Center a rack in the oven, preheat the oven to 350°F and place the spring form on a baking sheet.

Bake for 10 minutes.

Set the crust aside to cool on a rack while you make the cheesecake.

Reduce the oven temperature to 325°F.

Cheesecake

2 pounds (four 8-ounce boxes) cream cheese, at room temperature

1 1/3 cups sugar

½ teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

4 large eggs, at room temperature

1 1/3 cups heavy cream

Put a kettle of water on to boil.

Working in a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese at medium speed until it is soft and creamy about 4 minutes.

With the mixer running, add the sugar and salt and continue to beat another 4 minutes or so, until the cream cheese is light.

Beat in the vanilla.

Add the eggs one by one, beating for a full minute after each addition to aerate batter. Reduce the mixer speed to low and stir in the heavy cream.

Put the foil-wrapped spring form pan in a roaster pan.

Give the batter a few stirs with a rubber spatula, just to make sure that nothing has been left unmixed at the bottom of the bowl, and scrape the batter into the spring form pan. The batter will reach the brim of the pan.

Put the roasting pan in the oven and pour enough boiling water into the roaster to come halfway up the sides of the spring form pan.

Bake the cheesecake for 1 hour and 30 minutes, at which point the top will be browned (and perhaps cracked) and may have risen just a little above the rim of the pan. Turn off the oven's heat and prop the oven door open with a wooden spoon.

Let the cheesecake stand in the water bath for another hour.

Remove pan from oven without upsetting water too much.

Remove foil carefully.

Place cheesecake on wire rack until at room temperature.

Cover the top loosely with foil or plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 5 hours.

Adapted from Dorie Greenspan,

Strawberry Shortcake

    In springtime, one of my favorite desserts is strawberry shortcake.  I love the freshness of strawberries in season, their acidic juicy sweetness combined with biscuit style shortcakes, strawberry sauce and fresh whipped cream.  The shortcake maintains its form as a cake without dissolving with the additional liquid of strawberry sauce, macerated strawberries and the whipped cream. The combination of textures is wonderful – crumbly lightly sweetened cake, sweet and acidic strawberries and the soft mellow pillow of whipped cream. 

    As a teenager I can remember my Mom hulling and slicing strawberries and placing them in big yellow Pyrex bowl.  She would mix in sugar and let them sit and after they gave off all their juice, Mom would then smash them with a potato masher with gusto.  The shortcake was served on Sara Lee pound with fresh whipped cream.  I never heard of making strawberry shortcake with biscuits until I was married and watching Jeff Smith’s cooking show on PBS.  I serve strawberry shortcake often and the addition of the Strawberry Sauce adds an extra intensity of flavor but it isn’t necessary.

Strawberry Shortcake

Shortcakes

Makes 20 two inch biscuits

2 cups flour

¼ cup sugar

4 teaspoons baking powder

¾ teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons cold butter cut into ½ inch squares or pieces

¾ cup milk

Preheat oven to 450 F

Grease a cast iron pan or a baking sheet.

In a large bowl add flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt, mix with wire whisk or the butter cutting in tool.

Add butter pieces and cut in with a pastry blender or two knives until the butter resembles cornmeal.

Add milk and mix until comes together in a shaggy mixture, careful not over mix.

On a floured surface, scrape out dough and knead a few times then flatten out into a rectangle and fold edges in like a letter. Do this twice (this adds flakiness to your biscuit shortcakes).

Flatten again to about 1 to 1 ½ high and cut with a small round biscuit cutter.

Place biscuits in pan close together and bake for 12 minutes or until done.

Strawberry Maceration

2 quarts fresh strawberries

1/8 to ¼ cup of sugar depending on your strawberries’ sweetness.

Wash and hull strawberries.

Quarter strawberries then cut each quarter again.

Squeeze of lemon about a teaspoon

Place in bowl and mix in sugar to begin the maceration (release of juices).

Let sit at room temperature for about 1 hour or until you have your desired juiciness.  This can be done overnight with a loss of firmness of the strawberries.  I prefer mine to have some firmness. 

Strawberry Sauce

2 cups of frozen strawberries or fresh (I only use my strawberries that I put up in the summer and freeze in 2 cup portions).

Sugar to taste

Squeeze of fresh lemon

Whiz the sauce around in a food processor until smooth.

Fresh Whipped Cream

1 ½ cups heavy cream

1 to 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar

½ teaspoon of vanilla if desired

Put bowl and whisk in freezer 1 hour before whipping.

Add ingredients to ice cold bowl and whip to firm peaks or as desired.

Strawberry Shortcake Assembly

Open faced or stacked

Cut shortcake in half

Spoon sauce on bottom halves,

Pile on strawberries and juice,

Spoon on whipped cream,

If serving stacked, add the top at this point

Add small amount of whipped cream

Add a few more strawberries

Serve with a side of sauce.

Another alternative is to pool sauce on bottom of plate