I've always had a problem with that (cheesecake cracking - I changed the title since then.) I haven't made one in a while and I just came into a pile of cream cheese. I want it to look cool.

base cheesecake recipe

32 oz cream cheese
4 large eggs
1 1/3 c sugar
1/4 c heavy cream
1/4 c sour cream

For a plain cheesecake, add 2 tsp vanilla and 1 tblespn lemon peel. Grate it yourself and it will be much better.

Bake at 325 for 60 minutes. I use a water bath; plenty of other people say you don't have to. I got a cheap, foil turkey pan and bent it to fit a 9" springform pan. You can get 16" foil at the supermarket to wrap the pan so it doesn't leak. I use 2 c water in the pan. I tried more than that, but it created too much steam and it made the cake soggy.

Watch your bake time as well, I usually set my timer ten minutes less than what the recipe calls for. Gently tap the center of the cake it should have a jiggle like jello. Also, don't whip your cream cheese or other ingredients too long, air is your enemy when it comes to cheesecakes. The water bath is the only way I've made cheesecakes, if you take the cakes out of the oven, leave them to cool in the water.

Thanks. The science lab opens sometime this week. Pics of Frankenstein's Cheesecake will be posted.

The cracks let the strawberry juice run into the cheesecake. Cracks arent a problem.

Americas Test Kitchen went into the science of that before and had a good episode on it.  It's a couple seasons back.  I remember the water pan and the cool down being part of it......or at least something they tried.

Water bath make sure your spring pan is wrapped in either foil or I have used those crock pot liners this keeps the cheese cake from getting water in it.

I don't bake my cheese cake in a water bath but I keep a cast 12" Iron skillet filled with water under the springform, shut off the oven when done. Leave door closed and wait until morning to open. Of course I bake mine at night but you get the idea.

<SterlingArcher> Phrasing! </SterlingArcher>


 

If using a spring-form pan, loosen the spring-steel part and pull it away from the cheesecake while it is cooling.

New York method with room temperature water bath.

It looks like my oven runs a lot hotter than I thought. I caught it after five minutes, so there are only the dark spots on the top. I used the center rack. Next time, I'll lower the rack by one notch and set the oven between 450 and 475. It didn't crack, so that was good.

It's still setting in the refrigerator, so I haven't tasted it yet.

I lowered the rack one notch and lowered the temperature to 475 for the first fifteen minutes, then used 200 for an hour. I also used a little flour to make this one a bit stiffer. The other one was a little mushy even after it sat in the fridge for two days.

put a topping on it, that will cover up any cracks.

 

Don't over cook it.

I always add a teaspoon of dissolved lemon jello.



 

Dissolved in water?

The second one didn't cook all the way. That's my fault for changing two things at once. I lowered the rack and reduced the temperature to 475 for the first 15 minutes. It was mushy.

I did this one at 325 for an hour in a water bath. It looks nice and firm. The recipe is straight out of The Joy Of Cooking.
4x 8 oz cream cheese
1 1/3 cup sugar
4 large eggs
1/4c cream
1/4c sour cream
teaspoon lemon
2 teaspoon vanilla

The crust is 1/4c powdered graham crackers shaken out over a buttered pan. It's not really a crust, more like something to keep it from sticking to the pan.

The question is in the edited title - I'm thinking of adding Bailey's Irish Cream to one, so I wonder if anyone's tried it.

I've never baked a thing in my life, but I can't think of anything that isn't made better with liquor.

I bought a stainless steel salt shaker to use to form the crust. It worked much better than my other attempts.

Try adding a tablespoon of cornstarch while you are whipping your filling. It will help to prevent cracks.

Those came out great.

Thank you.

Here's a blueberry one. It's the regular lemon/vanilla cheesecake recipe from The Joy Of Cooking, not the New York one.

I got the blueberry topping recipe from mybakingaddiction.com.

pint package of blueberries
1/2 c  water
1/2 c sugar
2 tblspn lemon juice (they say fresh, I'm lazy and used the stuff in the little plastic lemon)
1/2 tspn vanilla

Boil the above on low heat. I used a plastic spatula so I wouldn't crush the berries.

The recipe used two tablespoons of cornstarch mixed with two tablespoons of water. They were making a sauce for pancakes, so it was intended to be runny. I used three and three, mixed them in a bowl, then added them to the boiling blueberries. Simmer for five minutes, remove from heat, let it cool. After it cools in the refrigerator, it will be the consistency of jam.

The cake didn't crack. The blobs of blueberry are from the knife.



I still haven't figured out what I'm going to do with Bailey's. I'm thinking of Kahlua - a mudslide cheesecake. I knew a bartender who made a frozen mudslide that tasted exactly like a chocolate milkshake. These were awesome, until you tried to stand up.

The next one will be marbeled with 1/4 of the mixture turned into chocolate cheesecake. I'll grind and julienne cut a white chocolate Toblerone for the top.

I want to use blackberries, too, but there aren't any around here.

This one is half chocolate, half Bailey's, with a Nilla Wafer crust and a white chocolate Toblerone ground and julienne cut for the topping. It also has a little almond extract. Yes, it's very tasty.

This is spectacular.



You need to do a death by chocolate one with baileys.

OH MY GOSH.

Also... 1 sheet of gelatin dissolved in vanilla infused simple syrup will make it very creamy and keep everything from cracking through this one looks awesome.



 

Beautifully done



 

Thank you. The layers were supposed to be even, but it looks cool the way it is. I could refrigerate the layer on the bottom to keep the boundary straight, but I kinda like the way this one turned out.

I haven't had a problem with cracking since I used the water bath. I use two cups of water. I tried four cups, but the steam settled in the foil around the pan and the crust was soggy. The blueberry one didn't crack. I cut it with a plastic spatula and it made a mess.

What would you put in a death by chocolate one?

Crust is Oreo Cookies butter sugar and almond with a touch of vanilla.

Fold a high quality  tempered bittersweet into the filling. Fold in chopped twix bars

Then I top it with vanilla infused genache.  Sprinkle the top after putting the genache on it with mini chocolate chips.

It's AMAZING.



 

That sounds positively evil.

I used Scharffen Berger cocoa powder because the ingredients were: cocoa.

It's pretty good stuff for in a supermarket.

This isn't quite death by chocolate, since it has a regular cheesecake layer, but it is a pretty decadent cheesecake.



Chocolate Mousse Cheesecake.

I shook it side to side instead of rotating it to even the layers.

The next one will be Bailey's, almond extract, and ground/julienne cut white chocolate on top.

It'll be a few weeks before the cherry cheesecake with blackberry goo. The cherry extract takes two or three weeks to extract.

I do a water bath, start at 425 with boiling water in the pan. Reduce to 360 as soon as it is in the oven. Bake for up to a hour and fifteen minutes or until center is 165 degrees. I rarely have one crack. I also put my cheese in a bag and sit it in a pan with hot water until it is really soft. Minimal mixing is also a key and eggs and heavy cream in last. Going to make a key lime cheesecake this week.

Key lime sounds tasty. I've been thinking of that, too. Post pics.

This one is all Bailey's. I got tired of the layers.

4c cream cheese
4 large eggs
1/4c cream
1/4c sour cream
1 1/3c sugar
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp almond extract
3/4c Bailey's Irish Cream

It has a graham cracker crust because I didn't feel like mushing up a bunch of Nilla Wafers.

The topping is a 3.5 oz. Milka white chocolate bar over a coarse cheese grater

You have done a great job.  

Just exactly how much cream cheese did you have?  I think a pile was accurate!

Around here you can often find buy one, get one free sales on the various brands. When the cost is around a buck a block, it's not too expensive to make the cakes.

It'll be easy, they said. Anyone can do it, they said. It's simple, they said.

Yeah, yeah. I left this stuff for three weeks and I got a Mason Jar full of red stuff that smelled like Svedka and crappy cherries.

I don't know what went wrong. Fortunately, I found a store that sells cherry extract, so fuck science. I'm going to sacrifice some Jack Daniels to the junk food gods and make the cherry cheesecake with blackberry topping. I didn't like the consistency of the last batch. The remnants of some of the berries turned crunchy. These will all be mushed into something like a very thick jam.

This one is cherry/blackberry.

I used the Joy of Cooking Creamy Water Bath Cheesecake as a base (it's the one in all the other recipes).

I used 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla, 1 teaspoon of lemon peel, and 2 teaspoons of cherry extract for the cake. You can use less cherry extract if you want. The flavor is a bit strong. It's good, but some people prefer more subtle flavoring. I'll probably use 1 1/2 teaspoons of cherry extract next time. I'll have to taste it tomorrow to decide, since the cake hasn't completely set up yet.

I tried to make the blackberry topping the same as blueberry topping and that didn't work. The pulp dissolved from some of the blackberries and left the berry skin and a glob of blackberry seeds. These made it crunchy. It's not supposed to be crunchy. This time, I mushed the blackberries while I brought the sauce to a slow boil, then removed them with a slotted spoon before I thickened it.

Key Lime:



I used 7 limes for the zest. It filled a tablespoon, but not tightly. Since I have still have a bag of Key Limes, I'll make another one this Friday and use grate 11 of them. pcsutton suggested a crust made of lemon drop cookies. That sounds good for this, but now I have to find a bakery that has good ones. Sunshine(?), now Keebler, stopped making them. I don't feel like making a batch of cookies just so I can mash them into a powder.

I'll also only use the lowest speed on my blender to try and get rid of the brown spots. Patience is a pain in the ass.

Carrotcake cheesecake

4 8 oz cream cheese
4 lg egg
3/4 c gran sugar
3/4 c brown sugar
1/4 c sour cream
1/4 c heavy cream
3 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp vanilla

I didn't want the consistency of grated carrots in a cheesecake. I was going to use carrot juice and experiment to see how much of it would give a good flavor. The store wanted eight bucks for a quart of carrot juice that would rot before I used more than half a cup. I looked for recipes online to see how to change the amount for juice compared to grated carrots and I found a recipe that used baby food because the cook was lazy.



The ingredients of Gerber carrot baby food are carrots and water. I bought two 3.5 oz containers and put them in the cake.

I may have undercooked it. It's a little soft. Oops.

This is the base cheesecake (see OP) with 2/3 c cocoa powder, 1 tsp vanilla, and an extra 1/4 c heavy cream. The crust was made with a cup of crushed Teddy Graham crackers. I saved a little less than 1/4 cup of it. The top is grated white chocolate, followed by the remainder of the graham cracker crust mix (unbaked, obviously) and chocolate sprinkles.

Cornstarch. Turn the oven off, open the oven door and put a towel in the door.  Let cheesecake cool slowly.

modified base recipe

32 oz cream cheese
4 large eggs
1 c sugar
1/3 c powdered sugar
measure 1/4 c sour cream, then fill cup to 2/3 with heavy cream

2 tsp vanilla

1 heaping tsp lemon zest - about two lemons worth of peel

Bake 1 hour at 325. I use a water bath, though at that temperature, it probably isn't required.

The consistency was incredible. Perfect. Awesome. You might want to back off a little on the lemon peel if you want a more mellow flavor, but this thing was the shiznit.

I need to wipe the drool off the key board now.  Your stuff looks great and I have gained about 4 lbs  just reading/looking at this thread.

My wife makes a good cheesecake.  I will have to pass on these recipes.

Who is eating all of these?

I have totally been wondering the same thing!

 

I've thought about it and a lot of the people who've eaten them told me I should.

But, the stupid ^#%^$@ Texas home kitchen law specifically excludes cheesecake. I think one of the primary motives for the law was that it was technically illegal for you to bake a chocolate cake and sell it at your kid's school fundraiser. It seems like they wrote it primarily for that goal and then added language so you can bake cakes or bread and sell them from your home. Anything with cream cheese is not allowed. They say it needs refrigeration. I'm not sure if the Texas legislature understands that these newfangled electric iceboxes thingies are everywhere and if you're too stupid to put your cheesecake in the refrigerator, you're also too stupid to put your eggs in there before you bake your Chocolate Salmonella cake.

Me and a few friends. They loved me at the work Christmas party - they got plain, blueberry, and Bailey's.

The Bailey's one disappeared in two minutes.

Caramel cheesecake.



The first thing you need is a thin caramel sauce.

If you never made caramel before, it's pretty simple if you follow the directions. There are plenty of good recipes on the web and those pages also have detailed instructions on how to make it. You have to follow the directions if you want it to come out right, especially the part about the 4 qt. pan. You might get away with a 3 quart pan, but it foams up dramartically when you add the cream. You might end up with a sticky mess on the stove or, since it's 320 degrees and sticky, some nice burns. The mix is too thin in a 5 qt. pan. It's too easy to burn it.

This page tells you everything you need to know.

http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-soft-chewy-caramel-candies-cooking-lessons-from-the-kitchn-180832

I didn't want candy. I wanted sauce that would blend easily with the batter. Another page said to use 1/2 and 1/2 instead of heavy cream. I did that and it made a sauce somewhere between the consistency of ketchup and New England Clam Chowder.

I cooked the sugar to 320, removed from heat, added the 1/2 and 1/2 mixture, and then heated it to 220. I couldn't get it higher than that without cranking my electric heating element all the way up and I didn't want to burn it. I left it at 220 for a little while and watched it turn brown until it was a good color. Then I added the vanilla and whisked it, since that would cool it a little. Then I poured it into a Pyrex bowl and left it to cool.

It blended easily.

The caramel has more sugar than I normally use. I realized that if I used that, I didn't need any more sugar.

I made the first one with no lemon, no sugar, and 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract. I didn't want to mask the flavor. It also had a lot of cream in it, so I only omitted the heavy cream.

It was good, but it wasn't what I wanted. I could taste the sour cream and it didn't have the candyish caramel flavor I wanted.

I made another batch of caramel sauce and made the batter with 1 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract. You could use 2 tsp. I added 1/2 cup of heavy cream, no lemon, and no sour cream. I also used a little less than 1/2 tsp of almond extract. You don't really taste it and it adds a nice complexity to the flavor.

The top of it will have blotches. It's loaded with sugar, already caramelized, and sugar burns. It tasted fine, but it looked bad.

Chocolate sprinkles.

Cheat.



Yes, it's really good.

Wow those look amazing.