Welcome 2022! I’ve seen a lot of complaining and griping about 2021, but honestly for me it’s been one of the best years of my life. My granola business seems to be a good fit for me in so many ways. I’ve learned so much in the past 8 months about bringing a product to market, and I’ve met so many wonderful people. It’s been an incredibly positive experience. Not that I wasn’t complaining, last fall when the Delta variant hit Oregon hard we had to wear masks outside at the markets! That was a bit much! But we got through it. So…cheesecake!

The Better Cheesecake. I named it as such because it is remarkably better than my other cheesecake recipe. I made this for the new year and we were absolutely blown away by the flavor and texture. I think it’s the added heavy cream. And the way it’s baked. The recipe below is adapted from an adapted version of a Dorie Greenspan recipe on NYTimes Cooking.

I changed a few things but not much. I used salted butter (and added more for the graham cracker crust) I think it tastes much better. Also I used a combination of sour cream and heavy cream, rather than just sour cream, and lastly I kept the pan of water separate in oven rather than placing cheesecake in pan of water. This was a tip that was in the comments section. The original recipe has you double foiling the pan and then placing it in boiling hot water while it’s baking. But it’s so much easier to just put a pan of hot water in the base of the oven. I think the hot water helps with the cracking problem. Because this time I had only one not-so-big crack on the top of the cheesecake. My other one cracked all over the place!

I still had blueberries and cherries in the freezer from last summer’s yard harvest. They held up well and tasted great. I still have more blueberries to cook with so maybe there’s a pie coming up next week.

I hope your new year is off to a good start! And you can’t go wrong with this cheesecake, it’s so good!

The Better Cheesecake

For the crust:

1 3/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
3 tablespoons sugar
Pinch of salt
1 stick (8 tablespoons) salted butter, melted

For the cheesecake:

2 pounds (four 8-ounce boxes) cream cheese, at room temperature
1 1/3 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs, at room temperature
3/4 cup sour cream
3/4 cup heavy cream

For the berry sauce:

2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries and/or cherries
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon sugar

Make the crust: Butter a 9-inch springform pan — choose one that has sides that are 2 3/4 inches high (if the sides are lower, you will have cheesecake batter left over.)

Melt the butter. Stir the crumbs, sugar and salt together in a medium bowl. Pour over the melted butter and stir until all of the dry ingredients are uniformly moist. (You can do this with your fingers.) Turn the ingredients into the springform pan and use your fingers to pat an even layer of crumbs along the bottom of the pan and about halfway up the sides. Don’t worry if the sides are not perfectly even or if the crumbs reach above or below the midway point on the sides. Put the pan in the freezer while you heat the oven.

Center a rack in the oven, and have a rack on the bottom for a pan of water. Heat the oven to 350° F and place the springform on a baking sheet. Bake the crust for 10 minutes. Set aside to cool. Reduce the oven temperature to 325° F.

To make the cheesecake: Put a kettle of water on to boil. Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with the paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the cream cheese at medium speed until it is soft and creamy, about 4 minutes. With the mixer running, add the sugar and salt and continue to beat for another 4 minutes or so, until the cream cheese is light. Beat in the vanilla. Add the eggs, one by one, beating for 1 full minute after each addition — you want a well-aerated batter. Scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl as needed. Reduce the mixer speed to low and stir in the sour cream and heavy cream.

Give the batter a few stirs with a rubber spatula, just to make sure that nothing has been left unmixed at the bottom of the bowl, and scrape the batter into the springform pan. The batter will reach the rim of the pan. (If you have a pan with lower sides and have leftover batter, you can bake the batter in a buttered ramekin or small soufflé mold.) Fill a roasting pan with hot water and place in the bottom rack of the oven.

Place the cheesecake on a sheet pan and place on the middle rack and bake the cheesecake for 1 hour 30 minutes, at which point the top will be browned (and perhaps cracked) and may have risen just a little above the rim of the pan. Turn off the oven’s heat and prop the oven door open with a wooden spoon. Allow the cheesecake to cool down for another hour.

After 1 hour remove from oven and let the cheesecake come to room temperature on a cooling rack.

When the cake is cool, cover the top lightly and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, although overnight is better. At serving time, remove the sides of the springform pan.

Make the berry sauce: In a small saucepan add the berries, water and sugar. Bring to a boil then reduce heat to a simmer, cook for about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool a bit before serving.