Ina Fridays — Desserts — Classic Cheesecake for the Fourth of July

The first Friday of the month, I group-blog Ina Garten recipes with a great group of writer cooks. Scroll down for more info and to click on the links for more desserts.  Come back August 1 for Ina Fridays appetizers!

I’m a glutton for making cheesecake.  One cheesecake, actually.  If your husband was as crazy about one particular cheesecake as is mine, you’d make it, too.  If you were crazy about your husband, that is.  And I am.  That’s not to say he doesn’t drive me out of my mind occasionally; he does.  Did this last Monday, in fact. (Insert huge scream and multiple #$*%7## words.)  But if God is good — and God is good, for us, anyway — I always seem to get past the odd supremely irritated moment (hour, week) and fall back in love with him.  Or at least stay in the house.

Here’s the sweet couple loving it up on vacation last year.  We never fight on vacation, though there’s the occasional morning where I say, “I’m going to pool.  I’ll see you at lunch.”  I don’t swim.  (Not anymore, anyway.)

(above:  Alyce’s Turtle Cheesecake.  Recipe HERE.)

Once in a great while, I make a different cheesecake.  For someone else. Like our son.  The hub can hardly stand it.  “What’s THAT?”  Then he’ll break down and have a bite and lower his voice to allow that it’s not that it’s bahhhhd, it’s just not HIS cheesecake.  His cheesecake is, has been, always will be  Pagliacci’s New York Cheesecake.  No toppings.  Not even a tiny fresh strawberry. Plain.  Just like it was born.  Now lest you think I’ve used a NY recipe all these years, I’ll put your mind at rest.  Pagliacci’s is a restaurant in Victoria, British Columbia.  And they make incredible cheesecake.  Read my post about it HERE.  And I’m embarrassed enough to say that the one time I went to Victoria, BC, I had time for a horse and buggy tour and never made it to Pagliacci’s.  I guess I’ll have to go back.

Ina’s Classic Cheesecake resembles Pagliacci’s NY Cheesecake.  Somewhat.  There are a few differences.

• This cheesecake contains sour cream in the cake and in a topping.  No sour cream or topping allowed at Pagliacci’s.
• This cheesecake crust gets baked before the filling is added.  No pre-baking at Pagliacci’s. (Just chilling.)
• This cheesecake uses vanilla paste.  No vanilla paste at Pagliacci’s; plain old vanilla extract works for them.
• This cheesecake is a bit sweet.  You guessed it:  Pagliacci’s is not too sweet.  In fact, it’s a tad savory.
• This cheesecake is flavored with orange and lemon zest.  Pagliacci’s relies on lemon juice, vanilla and the great cream cheese.
• This cheesecake relies on 2 pounds of cream cheese plus a generous amount of sour cream.  Pagliacci’s uses 2.5 and a 1/4 cup of heavy cream.
• This cheesecake is baked very differently than and twice as long as any I’ve made before.  (See below.)  Of course, I’ve mostly made…well, you know.

You can imagine what went on in my kitchen when an Ina recipe went up on the cabinet the day before his birthday.

I continued.  I baked.  I stuck my finger in and tasted.

He stayed in his office until it was time to go to the ballgame.  He didn’t mention the cake cooling in the cupboard.

(We have dogs.)

He did, however, later that night — in bed — say, “You know the house smelled wonderfully good all day long.”  I do love him.

And while it was difficult to imagine us eating a different cake (well, him anyway), the cake was…well, it was luscious.  A bit lighter, somewhat smoother, sweeter, more conducive to a topping–maybe–, and pretty much a cake slider.  I mean, really:   did you ever meet a cheesecake you wouldn’t eat???  With his head to one side thoughtfully, he gave me this, “It is a good cheesecake.”  I knew what he meant.  I thought so too.

Here are a few pics from the experiment:

You can figure out or picture how a cake comes together, right? So I didn’t photograph it.  But this one goes in the oven in a bain marie.  The gentle heat of the water keeps the cake from cracking. This particular cake has no flour in the filling, though the crust is made from graham crackers and so has graham flour.

After the cake is baked for the first time, it comes out–remains in the bain marie — and is topped with a mixture of sour cream, confectioner’s sugar, and vanilla:

It is then returned to the oven for five minutes.  The heat is turned off; the cake sits for an hour to gentle finish baking.  Mine stayed in nearly two because Dave forgot to take it out, despite my frantic text from lectionary study.  It was all ok.
It then cools on a rack as you saw above.  You then try to take a great photo of it.  Et voila, you either do or your don’t!

Sing a new song,

Alyce

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