Homemade Cheesecake

During the strawberry class I took last month at Miller's farms, Jo Miller taught us how to make cheesecake. Yesterday, my friend David and I went to the Greek Festival here in Richmond (we went together last year too), and after it was over we came back to my place to try our skills at making this cheesecake.


We started out with the graham cracker crust. Mixed the crumbs with butter and sugar and patted them all around a buttered up spring form pan:



Here is the crust in the pan:




Separating the eggs:



Mix sugar, vanilla, and egg yolks:




Mix the above with cream cheese:



And then mix all of that with heavy cream:




Beat the egg whites:



Until they are fluffy:



Fold the egg white fluff into the cheesecake filling mixture:



Pour mixture into pan:



Baked it at 325 degrees, and for an hour. As soon as I put our cheesecake in the oven, I threw a couple handfuls of ice cubes in the bottom of the oven for the steam trick. This helps prevent the cake from collapsing or cracking so much when it's done.

After the hour of baking, turn off the oven and keep the cake in for a half an hour.

Here is our finished cheesecake straight from the oven:




And here it is on a crystal platter for serving:



Success!

Actually, we made a mistake or two.

You can see in the finished photos that the cake is browned on top. That's because the egg white fluff wasn't folded in completely, I guess. At least, that's my conclusion. Whatever the case, we put the cheesecake in the fridge over night and today when I sliced it, it was just as firm as cheesecakes are supposed to be. So, it was still a success.

We did fail at making strawberry sauce for it, but I am glad we didn't pour it all over the cake...we'll have to try making that again some other time.



And, in honor of the Greek Festival yesterday, here is a shot of the flag of Greece: