1 Cheesecake Recipe, 3 Cheesecakes! My Daring Bakers Challenge...

The April 2009 Daring Baker Challenge is hosted, this month, by Jenny (Jenny Bakes). She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

I had a ton of ideas for this post, but for some reason, had the 29th in my head. So, when I Deeba posted about her Mulberry Cheesecake, I knew I had to get a-typin'! So, here I go...straight forward, no frills...

Our task? ?The real challenge this month [was] to take [the] basic recipe and play with it. Make it unique.? Woohoo! Cheesecake! And, I worked the recipe?.times 3. My only ?Holy Sh**? moment was when I realized I didn?t take a picture of one of the cheesecakes before bringing it to work. Ahhh! I hate then I do that!


Anyway?I took Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake and made it into a banana split, added a Nutella swirl, and ?fruited? it with pomegranate. Originally, I knew I thought I would work the banana split angle and be done. I made a banana split cheesecake for the restaurant last summer, but went about the recipe a little differently this time. I didn't refer to the recipe I used, which included sour cream. And, instead of making a banana cheesecake and adding the fixings on top, like this picture that Tami took for me,

I incorporated the fruit into the cheesecake. I also changed the graham crust by using brown sugar instead of granulated sugar.


With the Nutella swirl, I took the Abbey recipe, with the brown sugar graham crust, layered and swirled. Crust, a layer of Nutella, cheesecake batter, dollops of Nutella that I swirled with a knife, and topped the final cooked cake with a chocolate icing in the same (single) swirl pattern that I used for the Filbert Gateau.

For the pomegranate, I substituted a portion of the heavy cream with pomegranate juice, added pomegranate arils to the batter, and topped the cooked cake with a pomegranate mirror. The graham crust included (non-recalled) pistachios, as well.

Pomegranate Cheesecake
based on Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake
crust:
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 cup pistachios, finely chopped
1 stick butter, melted
2 tbsp. brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
cheesecake:
3 sticks of cream cheese, 8 oz each (total of 24 oz) room temperature
¾ cup sugar
3 large eggs
¼ cup heavy cream
¾ cup pomegranate juice
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean)
1 cup pomegranate arils, divided in ½

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker's choice. Set crust aside.

Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, pomegranate juice, vanilla, and lemon juice, and blend until smooth and creamy. Stir in pomegranate arils.

Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done - this can be hard to judge, but you're looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don't want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won't crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, add mirror and return to the refrigerator. When the mirror begins to solidify, sprinkle the pomegranate arils on top of the mirror and return to the refrigerator to complete the mirror coming together.

*I used a ?rounded? rectangular spring form.

Pomegranate Mirror
1 ½ cups pomegranate juice
1 tsp lemon juice
1 TBSP water
1 TBSP unflavored gelatin

Place all the liquids, except the pomegranate juice in a small bowl. Sprinkle gelatin over this mixture; set aside until spongy and soft. Measure 1 ½ cups pomegranate juice into a small saucepan and bring to a simmer; pour over gelatin mixture and stir to dissolve gelatin. Place bowl over bowl of ice water and stir occasionally until the mixture is syrupy and just beings to thicken(do not let jell); remove from ice water. When mixture is syrupy, pour a 1/16-inch layer over the top of cake. Refrigerate until set.

Banana Split Cheesecake
based on Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake:
crust:
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 stick butter, melted
2 tbsp. brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

cheesecake:
3 sticks of cream cheese, 8 oz each (total of 24 oz) room temperature
¾ cup sugar
3 large eggs, separated
1 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean)
4 bananas, mushed
1 cup sliced strawberries
1 cup fresh pineapple chunks

1 ½ cups fudge sauce
whipped cream
maraschino cherries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker's choice. Set crust aside.

Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth.

In a separate bowl, beat egg whites to still peaks.

Gently fold into the cheese mixture, being careful not to deflate the whites too much.

When incorporated, very gently fold in the fruit.

Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done - this can be hard to judge, but you're looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don't want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won't crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill.

Once fully chilled, fudge sauce and return to the refrigerator. When ready to serve, slice, plate, and add whipped cream and cherries.