Chubby Bunny

Birthday Cheesecake with a Fortune Cookie Crust

Happy Birthday to my Dad!

This morning was spent toiling in the kitchen. In addition to having plans to bake today, baking seemd more than appropriate in this new, cooler weather that we’ve been fortunate enough to have for the last two days.

Dad looooves fortune cookies for their crunch. He loves them so much, he bought a carton of 500 individually wrapped cookies, the kind restaurants would get. Unfortunately, they’re not sealed very well, and thus they haven’t been very crispy lately. So I told him not to worry, as I’ll take care of it when I make his birthday cake on Saturday, which was today.

If I were maybe five or so, I’m sure opening enough fortune cookies to have about two cups of cookie crumbs would have been fun. But I’m not five, so it was a little tedious, but the idea of was was still fun. The process: unwrap, break apart, repeat.

The rest of the ingredients were, surprisingly, already in my kitchen. What prompted us to make cheesecake today was the fact that we had a pound and a half of cheesecake that would expire on September 17th. In retrospect, perhaps I should have halved the recipe, as we might not be able to finish this calcium-packed dessert in less than a week.

Mom the superhero asked if there was anything missing. I asked her for a carton of sour cream and we were out of vanilla.

So she got back from the supermarket and life was complete again. I did not have a recipe to follow, except the general guidelines given to me by Dannyson, who has made many cheesecakes and variations of cheesecake in his apartment at Rochester.

For the crust I needed:

• ~2 cups of cookie crumbs
• 2.5 tablespoons of butter (room temp)
• Pinch of salt
• 1/4 teaspoon sugar and cinnamon mixture (2:1 ratio)

I couldn’t get the food processor to produce fine crumbs at first, because the cookies were chewy. So I had to chuck that out and restart. This time I broiled them in a toaster oven and cool well before trying to process them, which was my initial plan before I second guessed myself.

Why did I second guess principles of science and cooking? I don’t know.

The Hamilton-Beech food processor is practically an antique by now. It’s so old…but hey, it works. And what’s more is, for the first time ever, I used it on my own. The last time it was used in my household for something I needed to do, I was in the third grade.

After making the crumbs, butter was melted and then mixed with the crumbs.

And after making the crumb mixture, it was pressed into a buttered and lined pan. (I don’t have a springform pan! It’s the first time I’ve made cheesecake since I was 9 or so.)

Then, it was the fun part. My cheesecake filling was made with:

• ~8 ounces of sour cream (eyeball it)
• 1.5 lbs of cream cheese
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla
• 3 tablespoon (~1/2 cup?) of sugar
• A pinch of salt

Note: all of these ingredients were left at room temperature for about 2 hours. Softened cream cheese is very easy to work with.

As per Dannyson, I whipped the sour cream first. This is supposed to provide some lubrication for later on and make the rest of the process easier.

Once that was whipped, I added in the cream cheese, which was soft and whipping it was easy.

Before that was completely whipped, about a third of the way, I added one egg and turned the beaters on until well blended. Then added a second egg.

After that has been well-blended, I added in some sugar, salt and splash of vanilla.

And, once again, blend until smooth. Oh, and remember to scrape the bowl once in a while for better consistency.

Lo and behold: ready to go! Pour the mixture into the crust, carefully. And then have licking the beaters (when removed from the machine!) and the spoons. I trust my grade A eggs.

Tap it, shake it and jiggle it to reduce the possibility of any air bubbles.

• Bake at 325-350°C for 45-50 minutes
• Use a hot water bath

I was panicky about what to do in terms of cooling. So I rant to Hang and asked. (A good number of my guy friends are cheesecake experts practically.) Hang said to leave it in the oven with the hot water bath. Yes! I remember Alton Brown saying this. The purpose of having a water bath is to allow the cake to heat slowly when baking and then cool slowly when baking has finished. This gradual chance in temperature ensures more even cooking, no drying out and no cracked tops.Cheating a few times to take a peak (if you’re not sure how high to set your oven,) is not a bad idea. Jiggle it a little. If it’s jiggly in the center but relatively firm along the circumference, then you can probably turn off the heat source and let it sit there.

Mom, don’t open this!
Okay!

After letting it sit in the oven for an hour to cool slowly, I took it out and let it sit on a rack to cool a little more before putting it into the refrigerator.



According to Dannyson, let it chill and set in the refridgerator for at least 4 hours. It was an easy 4 hours to wait, because dad was not home and I was giddy that I finally made cheesecake for the second time in my life (I was 9 the first time it happened, and it wasn’t very good because I was not armed with the physics and chemistry of cooking as I am now.)

Finally, after dinner, dessert was served. At first I thought about cutting with a knife and dipping the blade into hot water after each cut. How tedious! Then I thought about dental floss. Then I remembered we had a spool of fishing line and that worked perfectly.

Mom helped me get it out of the pan, which wasn’t difficult since it was on an aluminum sling, and then I cut it into 12 pieces with fishline.



Ta-da! Fortune Cookie-crusted Cheesecake!

The crust remained crumbly and the hint of salt was a good complement to the cheese filling. The texture of the cheese was very soft and silky; there were no lumps, no air bubles and it was not too sweet. It also did not take too much like either cheese, indicating there was a good ratio of cream cheese, sour cream and egg.

My dad, who is quite a cheesecake critic, really enjoyed it. Which is great, because now it means I have a good start in cheesecake making. Sweet.