When I told B I was making a lemon cheesecake with goat cheese, he said you had me at lemon cheesecake and then you turned my stomach when you said goat cheese. That was definitely not the reaction I was looking for. When I told Yahaira about the recipe, we both oooooh'd it, thinking that the goat cheese tang would be the x-factor. It sounded yummy, but my only minor reservation was that the goat cheese would overpower the flavor of the cheesecake. But fortunately, it did not.
Meyer lemons, animal crackers and more = yummy creamy goodness
Crust:
The crust was a very simple process of grinding the ingredients in a food processor and then pressing the them into a springform pan. I've done this before, so it was no big deal. However I only have a mini 3-cup food processor. Usually this is no big deal because I make sure the volume of the ingredients will fit before proceeding. I had no issues in grinding the hazelnuts, but the problem started when I added the animal crackers. The processor kept grinding, however it wasn't pulling the crackers from the top down to the blades, even when I broke some of them up. So I had to keep dumping the contents of the bowl out and grinding portions of it at a time until it was ground finely enough. The scary part was that as I kept grinding, it, I was worried that the bits stuck at the bottom were getting ground too fine, especially the hazelnut mixture. The last thing I wanted to do was turn it into hazelnut butter. Something that should have only taken 2-3 minutes at most took me 10 minutes! But my frustrations with my mini-processors quickly went away as I pulled the crust out of the oven. It smelled dangerously delicious -- hazelnut, butter, suger and animal crackers, yum -- the perfect foundation for a cheesecake!
Filling:
The filling was the easiest part of the cheesecake. My favorite part was making the lemon sugar, whirl some lemon zest and sugar in the processor and you're done (no issues with the mini-processor here). Then you mix all the ingredients in the proper order and pour on top of the crust. It honestly could not be any simpler. My only recommendation is to cut up the goat cheese in to smaller pieces to ensure that it gets evenly distributed through out. You don't want any bites to have an overpowering goat cheese flavor.
Lemon Curd:
This was my second time making lemon curd. The first time was using an "easy lemon curd" recipe from a cupcake book using lemon juice and some flour. A really simple process that didn't require eggs or butter. So naturally, I was a bit nervous about my first real foray into lemon curd, but but recipe couldn't have been simpler. My main worry was that the eggs would curdle as I poured in the hot lemon juice, but there was not a curdle to be found (and if so, it would have been removed in the straining process). As I cooked the curd to the proper consistency and temperature, I found that the curd reached the proper consistency before reaching 170degrees. I decided to cook the curd until it reached the temperature suggested by recipe which took about 5 minutes, compared to the 3 minutes stated in the recipe. If you compare with the others, mine is a little more opaque, but the consistency was still good. Taste wise, it was delicious, lemony and not eggy at all.
Putting it all together:
Baking the cheesecake was a simple process. Wrap the pan in foil, pour the filling over the crust, bake in a water bath, allow to cool, spread the lemon curd on top, chill and then enjoy.
My cheesecake baked for almost 15 minutes more than the time on the recipe. At 55 minutes, the top of the cheesecake was still shiny and jiggly and only registered to 120 degrees. After another 15 minutes, the cheesecake was finally ready.
Technique Notes:
Because the recipe calls for the cheesecake to be baked in a water bath, the pan must be wrapped in foil to prevent water from seeping into the pan. Yahaira used two sheets of foil as instructed in the recipe and she had suspicions that her crust was water logged. She recommended that I use at least three sheets of foil which I did, but also ended up with a water logged crust. As I unwrapped the foil, there was water sitting in each layer which was also happened to Yahaira. To prevent this from happening, you would need a piece of foil large enough to cover the sides of the pan or else join two pieces together.
What resulted from the water logged crust is smushy, mushy crust. As I removed the cake from the bottom of the pan, you can see that the edges were severly soggy and stayed behind on the pan. The more central parts of the crust did maintain its solid crispness.
Taste Test:
Aside from myself and B, I had two friends and three coworkers taste test. The resounding verdict was absolutely delicious! The proportions of goat cheese, cream cheese and lemon were perfectly balanced. The goat cheese was so subtle that some could not even detect it. B noted that there were hints of the goat cheese on the after taste, but that you could really taste the goat cheese if you breathed out through your nose after swallowing. It was an odd way to get the hint of the flavor, but it really did work!
The texture of the cake was perfect. It was soft, yet rich and not heavy and dense like a lot of cheesecakes are. Usually I imagine cheesecakes as being this hard, dense block of cake that just weighs down your stomach like a rock. This cheesecake is definitely rich, but I didn't get that rock feeling at all. It was a perfectly rich and creamy cheesecake and a little piece definitely does go a long way. The recipe is meant to serve 12-16 people so definitely don't get greedy! Your belly will thank you for it in the future.
As far as the crust went, I expressed my concerns to B and my friends but they noted that they thought the consistency was fine. I think because the center remained intact, they didn't really notice the smushy mess at the end of the piece. I didn't let my coworkers in on my crust woes and they didn't catch on at all and actually even raved about it. But in both cases, there were no mentions of a distinct hazelnut flavor. I tasted some of it here and there, but that could be do to the quality of my mini-processosr. But it also leads me to question whether it's necessary to have the hazelnuts in the crust if it does not add anything flavor wise. But then again, since the goat cheese flavor was so subtle, you might even wonder if that was worth it as well. However, since the crust was slightly compromised, I'm will be testing this recipe out again to see how a perfect crust would compare.
Other random notes:
One thing I appreciate about recipes are the estimated times. That's my one gripe about Cooks Illustrated. They do not include an estimated cooking time. I decided to prepare this to bring to a dinner. However, I didn't properly take into account the actual time it would take before the cake would be ready. This mean, no cake in time for dinner. From start to finish including all chilling time, you need to allow at least 8-9 hours to go from kitchen to table, aproximately 1 hour to prepare the crust, filling and lemon curd, 1 hour to bake, 1 hour to cool in the water bath, 2 hours to cool outside of the bath, and at least 4 hours to chill in the refrigerator. I started at noon and the dinner was at 6pm. It's a good thing I was planning on surprising my friends with dessert. They didn't expect a thing.
One thing I would appreciate from recipes is to include an equipment list. For example, this recipe requires that you have a food processsor, a 9" round springform pan, a roasting pan, an instant read thermometer, fine mesh strainer and mixer. Fortunately for me, I had all of these tools. However, I would like to know these in advance before starting so I can make sure I have all the necessary equipment before starting. It's kind of a pain to have to skim through the recipe to see what you need. And more than once have I skimmed over a required item. I have never seen this feature on any recipe before, but think it would be a great addition and would make many cooks happy.
Verdict:
Aside from the crust issue, I'd definitely make this again. This is not an everyday dessert, so I'd reserve it for special occasions. And once the forks start moving towards those mouths, expect a lot of ooohs, aaahs and happy tummies!