New York cheesecake

New York Cheesecake
Originally uploaded by donna_3011

A few of my friends say that the Deli Hall at the Queen Victoria Market is not what it used to be, which I guess is true for many of our personal mainstays that change over time. I still like it immensely, for the grey drabness hiding culinary deliciousness, its smells and the throng of foodies and tourists lingering at each step. I also like the cool marble counters and the hole in the wall feel of all the stalls, opening up with charming sash windows with shop owners peeking out through hanging salamis. These days there are a lot more take away outlets but there are still enough cheese and preserved meats to steer your tastes back.

My favourite stall is the cake shop at the entrance, just off Thierry st. Occupying the corner allotment, you cannot help get snagged by the biscuits and cakes lining the window display and this is where I first had a slice of New York cheesecake.

To me, a New York cheesecake is a cut-to-the-chase, thunder thigh inducing gobblefest. It consists of full cream everything without fruits or other fussiness taking up the slack, because there is no slack - it is relentless in its fat content and that's what makes you 'snap into a fetal position, crying out for more' (to paraphrase Woody Allen). Clogging creaminess with a slight tang is what it is.

As I read through different recipes, there seemed to be a lot of variation: prebake the base, don't prebake, use 6 eggs, use 4 eggs, tips on preventing cracking, water baths, it seemed a little more challenging than I had first assumed. However there did seem to be consensus that all ingredients need to be at room temperature and the mixture should not be aerated too much to prevent it rising and then sinking due to the lack of raising agent in the recipe.

So with tips jotted all over my chosen recipe I gave it a go the other day. After my failed warm- in-the-hands experiment with the butter for the choc chip cookie recipe, I tried to be good: I left the ingredients on the bench for 2 hours. However it was still not long enough for the kilogram of cream cheese but I proceeded anyway. My little electric beater heaved and protested through the glug of cream cheese and sugar. The mixture got all got caught up in my beaters and churned the motor painfully as cheese flecks landed on my clothes. I switched to a wooden spoon and vowed that I will let the blocks of cream cheese warm to the point of fungal blooms the next time around. Afterwards when it did become softer and easier to manage I used the beaters to incorporate the milk but then obediently switched over to wooden spoon for the rest of the ingredients to prevent overly aerating the mixture.

Then came the long wait. 1 hour of baking followed by 5 hours in the oven to cool down gradually then a couple of hours chilling in the fridge. A long haul dessert it is.

It was certainly worth the wait. The cake did not crack, it was creamy and smooth and though the hot water in the bath leaked slightly into the springform pan, a slice sent me falling all over the place, literally. Had you been a fly on the wall, I may have used you to support myself as I went through some over the top throes of oohing and ahhing. Seriously though, even if disaster strikes and fault lines forms on your cake or it sinks, we are talking about cream cheese with sugar, a concept that is delicious in any form. Grab a spoon and tuck in.

This recipe has been adapted from
Chantel's New York Cheesecake recipe.

Ingredients
16 McVities Digestive biscuits, crushed* (or Graham crackers)
40g butter, melted

900g cream cheese (full cream), softened
300g white sugar
180ml full cream milk
4 eggs
230g sour cream
15ml vanilla extract
30g plain flour

Method
1. Preheat oven 175C. Grease a 22cm springform pan and wrap base with a few layers of aluminum foil.
2. In a medium bowl, mix biscuit crumbs with the melted butter. Press firmly onto the bottom of the pan to ensure crust is compacted. Use a spoon to compact crumbs around the edge of the pan.
3. In a large bowl, mix cream cheese with sugar using an electric mixer or beater on a low setting until smooth. Blend in milk.
4. Mix in eggs, one at a time, mixing with a wooden spoon just enough to incorporate. Mix in sour cream, vanilla and flour until smooth. Pour into pan.
5. Place pan in 2 cm hot water bath and bake for 1 hr.
6. Turn off oven and let cake cool in oven with door closed for 5-6 hours. Chill in fridge until serving.

* Making biscuit crumbs - break biscuits into smaller pieces and Pulse in short bursts in a blender until biscuits resemble coarse crumbs. There will be a few larger pieces which can be crushed with a fork.

A sad footnote. I seem to be allergic to this cheesecake. I always had an aversion to dairy products but after two serves over a few days, I rashed up all over. It could have been something else as I am one of those dorks with strange food allergies but not to risk it, I have given away a wedge to my neighbour and continue to give it away, only allowing myself a few pathetic licks of the cake server when all is done.

Evil book store

Gift vouchers. I delight in receiving gift vouchers as they offer many possibilities to get free stuff I normally would not purchase. Some things suddenly seem an extravagance when faced with the prospect of paying for them myself, certain rare plants for example.
(The opposite is true when giving vouchers, I rarely give them, perhaps this is related to someone once saying that I was a considerate gift giver. Ever since that time, I may have blown their comment out of all proportions and possibly may feel that I need to live up to their long ago compliment-in-passing.)

Recently I was fortunate enough to receive a Borders gift voucher. I have always enjoyed reading and hoard books all over the house and future-read titles on bits of paper all over the house. At the time, I had already ordered a bunch of books from amazon.com, justifying the purchase with the current high exchange rate and of course telling myself that books are always a good purchase and never extravagant (unless they includes titles such as 'Hulk Hogan's Rock N Wrestling Sticker Book' or 'Knitting with Dog Hair: Better a Sweater From a Dog You Know and Love Than From a Sheep You'll Never Meet').

So I hung onto the voucher for a month, telling myself that the online purchases would keep me busy for some time. Well, half way through my first book, with four books unread, I found myself trying to weigh recipe ingredients on a tiny Slimmer's scale (disconcerting that they exist and more so that I somehow came to own one) and noting an opening to visit my local shopping center where Border sits on two levels, I crumbled. With a bit of glee and a (genuine) excuse, I headed out to buy a more accurate set of kitchen scales with my book voucher in hand.

Let me say that I rarely wander shopping centers as a way to pass time. If I need to visit them, I write a list of the things I need and get the heck outta there once I am done. Borders of course is near the car park entrance where I can always find a parking space: how convenient!

'Just a quick look, after all I do have this voucher', I told myself after buying my scales. A few minutes after entering the store, I had just $7 left on the voucher and decided to buy a kids book for D. Kids books are down the escalators and after I picked out 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' by Eric Carle I headed back up the escalators, working out that I will only be a little out of pocket.

'Do you want to get 3 for 2 on kids books?', asked the cashier. Do I? Heck yes! Down I went again and picked out another Eric Carle book about 10 rubber ducks and another book containing pictures of farm animals with faux fur inserts.

'If you call this number and provide some feedback you can get 20% off your next purchase', the cashier said as she handed me the receipt. I nodded as she asked whether I wanted to receive offers via email which includes 'savings of up to 40%'. I declined her offer thinking that if I continue getting seduced by discounted books I will be succumbing to that modern day evilness. The evilness akin to queuing 10 minutes for petrol on TA Tuesday for a $1.50 discount or having to eat endless champignon-based recipes due to a lapse in common sense one day at the supermarket: discounted or not, you pay for it in the end.

Then I thought that if I were to partake in evilness, the capitalist clutches of a book store is probably the much lesser kind. Books received in childhood and seen again in adulthood are reminders of something new and of places undiscovered, a wonderment that follows you through the years without you really knowing. Someone (a family member? A teacher?) had fostered in me a want to know and an asking of why and had made it all stick. What a great gift.

So I took back my evil book store thoughts as I left the counter with my stack. Walking out to the car park I reminded myself of the Dr Seuss and Little Golden Books I saw and I filed those titles in my mind under 'Gifts for D - probably at 40% off'.