Pwning Cheesecake
January 25th, 2010 
Goombah Gourmet 
Chris
I was soundly defeated this weekend by bread-making. It was a sad and pathetic attempt. However, not everything was so bad in the Goombah’s Bakery! As I’ve detailed elsewhere, I had a lot of success recently with New York style cheesecake. There were just a few little issues with it, but I knew I was close to really making an excellent one. So I did it again (to give away – jeez I can’t eat all this) and succeeded. I think I’ve made the perfect cheesecake. I now consider cheesecake pwned. I have scratched another notch into my Kitchen Aid mixer. See below for the proof.
UPDATE: Presentation, 10; Goombaliciousness, 8
Christie and I are heading to a conference on Tuesday, and we need to stop by her sister’s house (she’ll be watching our kids while we are gone). I figured I’d make her a cheesecake to show some appreciation for the nightmare of watching our spawn for all those days.
After making the last one (which was pretty damn good, I though) I had decided to make some small changes to try to improve the quality. These changes were:
1. Bake for 1 hour at 300, not at 365 (like Raina suggested, and I thought was too high)
2. Beat the hell out of the mix to assure that each egg, separately, was thoroughly incorporated before the next one was added. Because I beat the hell out of the mix, though, I ran the danger of adding air to the mix. So when I was done, I slapped the sides of the bowl for a few minutes to work the air up. I then broke the air bubbles with a fork.
3. Don’t bake the graham crust first, just let it bake with the mix.
I knew things were going right pretty quickly into the baking. As it turns out, I couldn’t have asked for better. I haven’t eaten it, but the presentation is amazing:
- Ha Ha! Perfection!
I’m giving this a 9.5 for presentation.I’m sure there’s an imperfection somewhere, I just don’t know where it is yet. So I’ll hold open the 0.5 for that.
I want to draw your attention to a few things. Like:
1. NO CRACKS. There’s not a single crack in this cake. Not one. No bumps, no lumps, no cracks. I’ve beaten the crack issue.
2. The crust is not dark. There is almost a perfect light color running the whole top of the cake. Basically I didn’t overcook this one.
3. The top is flat. When you overcook, I’ve noticed that you can get the ends up way higher than the center (the ends tend to darken considerably when this happens, too). Not this time.
4. No imperfections on the sides.
I think I’ve pwned the cheesecake. I’ve got it. From this point it’s going to be about variations — like figuring out how to get a good chocolate swirl going inside the mix.
I did have some help in the form of tips from a friend from high school. He calls himself “Pastry Chef Ed Myers” on Facebook (he really is a pastry chef). He allowed me to troubleshoot my last cheesecake and gave some advice. Ed is the man, so I’m giving his pastry site a shout out:
http://www.pastriesanyone.com/
You da man, Ed!
Other shots of the beauty:
Love it.
UPDATE: Presentation, 10; Goombaliciousness, 8
The presentation of this cake was top-notch. I couldn’t find any flaws (and I’m plenty critical). But I thought that the goombaliciousness was less than perfect. I think I didn’t cook long enough at 300 degrees. I cooked for 1 hour; I think it needs at least 15 minutes more at that temperature. Also, the crust was too thick, but that’s just a matter of doing a better job when pressing it into the spring form bottom.
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