New York Cheese Cake – Happy 1st Anniversary taste2taste

Hard to believe but this month marks the 1st Anniversary of the launch of this blog, taste2taste, onto the internet

Strangely enough, my London-based co-blogger, Lindsey and I are both in the same country this weekend, albeit she is as far away from New York (where I am based) as you can get. She’s hanging out in Sunny California, while I swelter here on the humid stormy northeastern seaboard

I thought that to celebrate the occasion, what could be better than a cake. As it happens, it’s also the Jewish Festival of Shavuot this weekend (which commemorates the giving of the Law to the Israelites at Mount Sinai) and its a tradition of that Holiday to consume dairy products

Ingredients

What better way to mark both occasions than to make a fantastic classic NY Cheese Cake from this half of our blog in Westchester County, NY with a British twist in the recipe. A perfect creamy soft sweet, crunchy sensuous dessert for all festivities

Ingredients

4 1/2 oz (130g) unsalted butter
12 oz (350g) British McVities Digestive Biscuits (or Graham Crackers if you cannot locate the former in the British section of your store US readers)
3 eggs (lightly beaten)
12 oz (350g) full fat cream cheese
12 oz (350g) sour cream
12 oz (350g ) of caster sugar
2 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
Mixed berries and icing (confectioners) sugar to serve

Method

Blitz the digestive biscuits in your food processor until they form largish crumbs or crush them by hand, melt the butter and mix into the crumbled biscuits
Grease a 9″ spring form tin (pan) with a little extra butter and pre-heat your oven to 375 f / 190 c
Add the buttered crumbs to the tin and squish down with your fingers and hand to level and fill the tin
Using a hand blender blitz the cream cheese until it softens then add and beat in the eggs, followed by 9 oz (250g) of the sugar and 2 tsp of the vanilla essence
Layers of the Cake laid out to assemble
Then, pour the resulting mixture on top of the crumb base in the tin and level, place in the oven for 45 minutes
Next, mix the sour cream, remaining vanilla essence and sugar together with a fork
Remove the tin from the oven once cooked (check with a cocktail stick to see, if it comes out dry its done) and let it cool for 10 minutes
Pour over the sour cream topping and level, placing it straight back in the oven at the same temperature for another 5 minutes, or so to glaze
Once that’s done, remove the cake from the oven and chill it in the fridge for a few hours until very cold (or you can even freeze it if you like to eat another day)