Sunday, May 1, 2011

The Easiest Cheesecake Ever! No Kidding.

    I want to get one thing clear at the start. I'm not a big baker of cheesecakes. I baked my very first cheesecake back in November as part of Marx Foods Iron Foodie Competition. That was a Chenna Cheesecake. I made the cheesecake myself. It was very  delicious but also very involved. So cheesecake, as much as I enjoyed it, became something that involved me making my very own cheese and taking quite a lot of time. To me it became something like mounting the Macys' Thanksgiving Day parade. Great, but a once a year event. Then I made a discovery. Sicilian Cheesecake.
   So where has Sicillian Cheesecake been all my life? Yeah, I was wondering too. One minute I was watching streaming video of Will and Kate's wedding...(yeah, I did...So?!) The next, I was trawling the Internet looking for cheesecake recipes. That's when I ran across the Sicilian Cheesecake recipe. All it needed was ricotta cheese, eggs and a lot of sugar and spices and a spring form pan. I had all of those things plus a bunch of low and non-fat ricotta cheese in the fridge (there was a sale, how could I not?!) and I needed to do something with it before its' due date came up.
   But of course Alan and I couldn't just eat this whole cheesecake ourselves. We needed an excuse. Turns out our friend Chip's wife was out of town for the weekend and his dog Tucker was recovering from tonsillitis. Boom! We had our excuse! Cheesecake party! So if you've got a few simple things in the fridge, in an hour and a half or so you can be tucking into an amazing cheesecake.


Sicillian Cheesecake




Here's what to do:
Preheat an oven to 300 degrees.
Grease and flour a 9 inch spring form pan.
In a large bowl whip together 2 lbs (Two 15 oz cartons) of low or fat-free ricotta cheese.
Mix it with an electric beater until it's nice and smooth.
MIx in 2/3 cup of sugar

When that's nice and smooth add in 1/3 cup of flour.
 Blend in 6 eggs 1 egg at a time
 2 Tsp of vanilla
 2 tsp of lemon zest
 1/4 tsp of cinnamon
 1/8 tsp of salt.
When the batter is nice and smooth pour it into the spring form pan and pop it into the oven on a middle rack.
 Tip: To prevent the cheesecake's surface from cracking, place a bowl of hot water on the rack under the cake.
  Bake it for about 1 and 1/4 hours to 1 and 1/2 hours. When the cheesecake is firm and a knife stuck into the center comes out clean, it's done.
  Put the cheesecake on a cooling rack and when it's cool, unmold  it from the spring form pan, cover it and chill it in the fridge...or you could eat it right then and there!
  That's it. It's that simple! Serve it with fresh fruit. I whipped up some fresh, local, organic strawberries with 2 Tbs of organic maple vinegar and a pinch of stevia. It cheered Chip right up! Tucker felt better too.
  I was supposed to compete in a burger cooking contest Sunday afternoon. I had big plans for making kheema and baking naan bread and making a tomato chutney, but by the end of the week's work, I was exhausted and reluctantly bowed out. I needed some rest. And as for Patsy the Siberian Husky, she was too lazy to care.

Coming up next more fun with vegetables and a vegan cake! Follow along on Twitter @kathygori

6 comments :

  1. She is so cute. I want to do/feel what she's doing/feeling! Along with this cheesecake.

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  2. The cheese cake look so fluffy and gorgeous!

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  3. @sanjeeta kk,
    it's so light,not overly sweet which is what I love. Less guilt in enjoying it.

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  4. Belinda @zomppa,
    she's always sooooo relaxed!

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  5. What a great recipe. I suck at baking. This looks right up my alley. Wow that sounded dirty.

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  6. Oh, beautiful and sounds so much easier than mine.

    And I watched it live... 4 AM

    ReplyDelete

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