Daring Bakers "Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake"

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

For this month's challenge we were asked to make Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake.  My whole family loves cheesecake so this challenge was not a challenge at all. At Halloween we have made pumpkin cheese cake brownies, I often make a white chocolate cheese cake with creme de cocoa and a chocolate cookie crumb crust.  Thus, my kids favorites are these little bite size cheesecakes (the size of a muffin cup) with a raspberry puree swirl.  

We were given the basic recipe to follow, however we were able to "accessorize" our cheesecake with our own creative spin.  Since my kids love the mini raspberry bites of heaven (as Eli so adoringly calls them) I decided to make the raspberry puree as my garnish.

Here is the recipe:

CRUST

•2 cups graham cracker crumbs

•1 stick of butter, melted

•2 tbsp. sugar

•1 tsp. vanilla (I substituted Framboise liqueur)

CHEESECAKE

•3 sticks of cream cheese (8oz. each), room temp.

•1 cup sugar

•3 large eggs

•1 cup heavy cream

•1 tbsp. lemon juice (I omitted this)

•1 tbsp. vanilla

•1 tbsp. liqueur (I used the Framboise)

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350*.  Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

2. 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 to cool (?).

3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-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 alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.

3b. Here is where I added the raspberry puree.  Take one cup of raspberry's and put in mini chopper. Puree.

Put mixture in a strainer set over a bowl.  Strain mixture until all but the seeds are left in the strainer. Discard seeds.  Add 2-3 tbsp. of sugar to pureed mixture and combine.  Once cheesecake is assembled, take a 1/4 tsp. of puree mixture and dot the top of the cake.  I use a long, wooden skewer to make my "swirls".  How you make your pattern, is your own creation.  Sometimes I let my kids get involved and they create their own "art".

4. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all the 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(9" springform pan).  If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

5. Bake 45-55 minutes, until it is almost done.  You don't want it to be completely firm at this stage.  Close the oven door, turn off the heat 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 the top.  Take out of oven and water bath and let cool on a wire rack.  When cool, cover and put in fridge to chill, overnight.

Enjoy with family and friends!