April 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge – German Chocolate Cheesecake

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The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

I am very excited for this post. I have been counting down the days till I could finally post my very first Daring Bakers challenge. When I first found out about this group I was intimidated. I was scared the first challenge was going to be some complicated french dessert and I would fail miserably. Luck would have it that my first challenge would be cheesecake. Now I had never made cheesecake before but I wasn’t intimated. I was really excited because finally I had the push I needed to go in the kitchen and make that rich creamy dessert that I love so very much.

As part of the challenge we had to be creative so I was trying to come up with some super creative cheesecake. I looked at all the normal add ins, candy, fruit, liquors and chocolate. I even for a very brief second thought about gin and then that idea was completely nixed because I realized the juniper taste of gin would not really go well with cream cheese. In the end I made my version of a German Chocolate cheesecake. I am not a huge fan of pecans so I went with almonds instead. I also used a tip I received from the Daring Bakers. I already owned a spring form pan but I was paranoid water would leak in and make my crust soggy. Instead of trying to wrap the pan with foil I purchased a disposable foil casserole pan from the grocery store. I believe the pan was about 3.5 quarts and it worked fantastic. When my cheesecake was ready to get out of the pan I just took some scissors and cut down the foil and out popped a perfectly cooked cheesecake with a perfect crust.

Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake:

Crust:
1 C. slivered almonds – lightly toasted
2/3 C. graham cracker crumbs
3 T. sugar
3 T. unsalted butter, melted

Cheesecake:
3 sticks of cream cheese, 8 oz each (total of 24 oz) – room temperature
1 C. sugar
3 large eggs
1 C. heavy cream
1 T. lemon juice
1 T. vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean)

Coconut Topping:
1 can sweetened condensed milk – 14oz.
10 T. unsalted butter
1 t. vanilla extract
4 large egg yolks
2 C. shredded sweetened coconut

Chocolate Drizzle:
1/2 C. dark chocolate
3 T. heavy cream

Almonds:
1/2 C. slivered almonds – toasted

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

2. Finely grind the almonds, cracker crumbs, and sugar in food processor. Add the butter and process until most crumb from. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too – baker’s choice. Bake the crust until it is set and beginning to brown, about 12 minutes. Cool.

3. 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, vanilla, lemon juice and blend until smooth and creamy.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. To make the topping place the sweetened condensed milk, butter and vanilla in a medium saucepan and cook over medium low heat, stirring occasionally, until melted and combined. Whisk eggs yolks in a medium bowl, and, whisking constantly, add some of the hot milk mixture to the egg yolks until combined. Whisk the mixture back into the saucepan, and cook, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until the mixture thickens slightly, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in coconut. Cool completely and refrigerate in an airtight container until ready to use, up to 2 days.

7. For the chocolate drizzle just melt the chocolate with the heavy cream either in a double boiler or the microwave. The chocolate should be a bit on the thin side so you can drizzle over coconut topping.

8. After the cheesecake has completely cooled remove from pan and top with coconut topping and drizzle with chocolate. Top with toasted almonds if desired.

9. Toast and then roughly chop almonds to top the cheesecake.

Pan note: The creator of this recipe used to use a spring form pan, but no matter how well she wrapped the thing in tin foil, water would always seep in and make the crust soggy. Now she uses one of those 1-use foil “casserole” shaped pans from the grocery store. They’re 8 or 9 inches wide and really deep, and best of all, water-tight. When it comes time to serve, just cut the foil away.

Prep notes: While the actual making of this cheesecake is a minimal time commitment, it does need to bake for almost an hour, cool in the oven for an hour, and chill overnight before it is served. Please plan accordingly!

I’m linking this post to Recipe Rhapsody for BSI: Cream Cheese

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