The Perfect Cheesecake

I spent today making White Chocolate Candy Cane Cheesecake for a Christmas gathering tomorrow.  I can't wait to try it!  It looks and smells sooo good.  I am a big fan of cheesecake; in fact I am so much a fan that I am the proud owner of the Philadelphia Cream Cheese Cookbook!  Until recently, however, my cheesecake-making attempts had been highly frustrating.  Last Christmas, I had a little consultation with my brother-in-law (i.e. the Cheesecake King) to find out how his cheesecakes always come out perfect.  He was gracious enough to pass along the secrets he managed to drag out of a professional baker (who didn't speak very much English, so he earned these tips!)  I thought I'd pass along these bits of wisdom, since I am finally back to making my beloved dessert without fear of the grand canyon running through it.

If you want your cheesecake to look like this:

Instead of like this:

 

Here's what you do:

• Mix your cheesecake on the lowest speed possible and for the shortest time necessary.  Mixing too fast adds air and can cause it to collapse.  For most recipes, you need to add the eggs last, one at a time, and mix minimally after each one.
  
• It has been recommended to place a water bath on a rack under the cheesecake.  I'll confess I usually skip this and it turns out fine without it, but if you follow all the steps and still have problems you can do this by putting a little water in a shallow pan and placing it on a rack lower than the cheesecake during baking.  Moisture helps prevent cracking as well.
• DO NOT PEEK at your cheesecake!  Place the rack it's on low enough that you can see it without opening the oven, and once it's in there, do NOT open that door!  A burst of cold air will crack it every time.  (Believe it or not, kids running through the house can too!  You might want to tell them to step lightly during cheesecake-baking time.)
  
• Starting 5 minutes before the end of the recommended baking time, start checking your cheesecake using the "hip bump" method.  When you gently bump your oven, a 2-3" diameter section in the middle should still jiggle a bit.  It will look like it has a slightly indented center.  Don't worry, if you follow the rest of the tips, it'll look fine when you're done.  
• When the wobbly center is a couple of inches across, turn off the oven.  DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR!  Let it sit in your closed oven for an hour.  You will notice that the center raises up and loses it's wiggle during this time.  
• After an hour, open your oven door just a crack.  Leave it in the cracked oven for another hour.
• Open your door further for one final hour of gradual cooling in the oven before removing the cheesecake.
• Finally, let your cheesecake cool completely at room temperature.  Do not cover it with plastic wrap while it is still warm as water droplets will accumulate and drip on it.
• When your cheesecake is completely cool, you can refrigerate it if need be until ready to serve.  Run a knife dipped in water around the edges gently before removing the spring form pan.

Just to prove the tips work, here is a picture of my cheesecake.  (I haven't removed it from the pan or added the topping, and won't until tomorrow when I serve it.)  Hope it tastes as good as it looks!

P.S.  If you decide to make the recipe above, replace the graham cracker crumbs with Oreos for a chocolate crust.  (Much better in my opinion.)  Also, candy cane crushing is a bit trickier than it sounds.  Use the mini ones in the plastic sleeves and break them with a hammer before taking them out of the wrapper to prevent a mess in your kitchen.  A few gentle taps is all it takes to have pieces of candy cane (vs. candy cane powder.)

Book Review: Deadline (Part 2)

I finally finished reading Deadline this week.  It's unusual for me to take so long to read a new book, but I got bogged down in the middle of it for quite awhile.  Randy Alcorn likes his soapboxes, and while I agree with the stance he takes on issues, I wish he would pick a soapbox and stay with it for the whole book!

The list of controversial subjects he addresses includes abortion, sex education in public schools, liberal media bias, doctor assisted suicide, medical decisions concerning quality of life, and Down's syndrome children (among others.)  Reading this book was mentally exhausting at times.  I thoroughly enjoy a fiction book that takes a current controversial topic and uses a story to illustrate a point of view.  For example, Francine River's The Atonement Child is an excellent book that takes on the abortion argument.  What Francine Rivers has discovered (and Randy Alcorn needs to learn,) is that people listen to you better when you teach in parables (as Jesus did.)  The Atonement Child is all about abortion and the way it affects individual lives.  Different characters in the book have different life experiences all illustrating the destructive results such a choice can have.  The many angles shown in the book include abortion for medical reasons, abortion following a rape, the effects on the father, the effects on women physically as well as psychologically, long-term effects on a marriage, etc.  Many angles, yes, but one central focus: the destructiveness of abortion.  And all lived out through the fictional character's lives.

In Deadline, on the other hand, Alcorn jumped around so much that he never finished making a point on many of the topics he brought up.  And instead of illustrating his point of view through the experiences of his characters, he asserts his opinion in the conversations his characters have.  A key difference that makes the book read more like nonfiction than fiction in parts.  This is also where the reader gets bogged down.  One particular conversation filled nine pages.  Again, I agree with what he said, but I read fiction more than nonfiction for a reason- I like learning through illustrations.  

The book did address the plight of Doc (the nonbeliever)- briefly.  Alcorn's ideas about hell could start as much discussion as his ideas about heaven.  In the last chapters, the story line picked up again, and the "whodunit" aspect became exciting at the end.  In my opinion, the central story of Jake trying to find his friends' killer needed to tie together throughout the story more, and Alcorn needed to save a few controversies for another book.  I'll be interested to see his future work on this series.