Cheesecake
Both Brian and Erin (pardon the familiarity toward people I don’t know) have great cheesecake videos.
I went with Brian’s because I’ve never made a cheesecake that is so deep/tall. Much to my surprise, it turned out great – although I haven’t tasted it, yet.
Lessons learned:
Blueberries (and/or raspberries) do not boil down well. The walk-to grocery store had no frozen cherries. I bought a blueberry, raspberry, blackberry combo instead. The boil-down-to-syrup step turned it into generic “fruit jam” flavor and it’s a bit mushy.
More butter in the graham cracker crust. The sides were barely holding together. After baking, it was a sturdy as Erin said it should be. After a bit of spatula work to get the bottom loose, I just lifted it off and it held together, just fine. I was very nervous, though. It would also have made a better edge around the top.
A better springform pan/dish. This one has a bumpy bottom, which makes getting a spatula under it difficult. It’s also an “inside the ring” bottom with a bump/ridge around the bottom, which (probably; I haven’t seen it sliced) does odd things to the crust in the corner. If I ever use one again (this is the first time I’ve used this one and I bought it five years ago), I want one like Erin recommends (bottom extends beyond the ring and it’s flat).
I moved it to the away-from-the-hotspot corner of the oven. It cracked a bit (just surface, not all the way through) where it was closet to the other oven wall. A turn halfway through baking probably would have prevented that. Or putting it in a different place. This just needs some “learn the oven” time to fix. On the bright side, the top was evenly slightly golden, so I did avoid the hotspot.
The Laird had best remember to bring back a slice for me!
Update: He remembered! The cheesecake, itself, is great. The goat cheese adds a nice “not cream cheese” flavor so it tastes like more than just a block of cream cheese in a crust. The crust definitely could use more butter. The topping is definitely “off”. Next time, I think I’ll sacrifice some fruit to make a syrup, strain it, then add fresh (or at least, thawed, not boiled).
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