defiantly domestic

goat cheese and lemon cheesecake with hazelnut crust

for our first "official" bake-together, rangsiwan chose this cheesecake from cook's illustrated. not exactly what I would have picked, I probably would have gone with some sort of entree, but as I read the recipe I got pretty excited nonetheless! part of my hesitation probably came from just trying goat milk yogurt for the first time right before she sent me this link. I love goat cheese, but not in almost-liquid form I found. cake made out of it though? now that's something I could get behind!

I actually don't know if I was more excited about the goat cheese, the lemon curd, or the hazelnut crust. it all sounded good to me! I tried to start early on saturday so it would be ready for dinner. somehow 10 or 11 wasn't early enough. there are a lot of lulls in this recipe that make it a "bake-a-day-ahead" one or just get started earlier. each step in the recipe is pretty easy in and of itself. you first throw some hazelnuts, cookies, and melted butter in the food processor for the crust. this smelled and looked so good, with its nice golden color. while that's baking you start mixing all of the cheese....1.5 pounds of it! this was definitely going to be rich. the lemon juice and zest made it fragrant and, this is just my theory, cut through the heaviness of your usual cheesecake.

the hardest part of the recipe was the lemon curd. this was the first time I made lemon curd and I was scared of ending up with scrambled eggs. mine was set pretty quickly, probably helped my the little cast iron pot I used and what most likely added to my anxiety. I didn't use a thermometer for this, instead just eyeing up the back of the spoon until I reached the right consistency. I could just make the lemon curd and be happy. this was so delicious, could I just eat it with some whip cream?

I would say that this recipe was flawless, but do you see the crust? the yummy hazelnut, animal cookie goodness....gone. water leaked into the springform pan in the water bath and washed away any flavor and texture, leaving behind a bland mushy mess. I covered the pan with tin foil like the recipe suggested, but as soon as I took it out of the waterbath I could see there was some water in the foil. the rest of the cake is fine, so we've just been eating it without the crust. I'm almost tempted to bake an empty crust and just move over the cheesecake to it. or maybe i'll make cookies and drop them in a bowl along with the cheesecake.

will I make it again? only for special occasions, since this was way too big for just two people. and I won't make it again until I figure out how not to end up with a waterlogged crust.