Monday 31 August 2015

GBBO 2015: Week 4 Desserts - New York Baked Cheesecake

In addition to my banana cheesecake I wanted to make a baked cheesecake as well to properly test my cheesecake skills. A popular recipe that I found was for a New York style baked cheesecake, and it also looked relatively simple as I didn't want to try something too adventurous and have it fail - I'm a perfectionist. I used this recipe for my bake.

The first part of the bake is to make the base.


Ingredients:

140g plain flour
50g butter
50g golden caster sugar
1 egg yolk
1tsp baking powder

To make the base, combine the flour, butter, sugar and baking powder in a mixing bowl. 


I tried mixing them with a spoon but found it was easier to do it with my hands due to the butter. Once these are combined, add in the egg yolk. 


Then tip the mixture into the cake tin and push it down so that it covers the entire base. I ended up with quite an uneven base as the mixture was difficult to work with. Which is evidenced by the sheer amount of fingerprints you can see in the photo.


This then went in the fan oven at 130 degrees celcius for about 25 minutes. 

While the cheesecake base is cooling, the mixture for the cake part can be made.


Ingredients:

900 cream cheese
190 golden caster sugar
4 eggs
1tbsp vanilla bean paste


This part is rather straightforward; simply put the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla into a bowl and mix. 


Then, mix in the eggs one at a time. 


With the mixture combined, it is ready to be poured over the base and baked. This recipe asked for the bottom of the cake tin to be wrapped in tin foil and then placed in a deep baking tray so that water can surround the tin - like a very large and very heavy bain marie. I think this is so the inside doesn't overheat or something like that. 



The recipe said to bake in the oven for 40 minutes, however it did not state a change of temperature from when I baked the base, so I left it the same. However this was not hot enough and it took so long to cook. I turned up the oven to about 160 degrees and that started to work. So I really don't know how long it was left in the oven as it took longer than was probably correct. The recipe said that when cooked the top should still have a wobble to it, which was quite hard to judge. 







The cheesecake was cooked by the time I took it out the oven luckily as the wait was actually horrible as I was staring at it in the oven for well over an hour. It didn't have a very strong taste to it, just a mild vanilla taste. I don't think that I would make this particular cheesecake again as I prefer things to have a bit more flavour and this just took so long to bake I don't want to see it again to be honest.


2 comments:

  1. Mmm, love cheesecake! It looks yummy!
    Angela x
    Only Crumbs Remain

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  2. Your cheesecake looks delicious Danielle, perhaps after a while you'll want to make another & you can try your favourite flavours x

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