Spooky, Scary Cheesecake, or, Soft-Crust, Super-Easy Cheesecake

Either I've become an expert cheesecake maker (unlikely) or this recipe is one of the easier cheesecakes I've made from the box so far. Either way, you should probably stop what you're doing and make this soon.

When I was a kid (and a teenager) I loved cheesecake. (Probably because I hadn't made one a month for the better part of a year, but that's neither here nor there). My dad loved to cook, so every year during my teen years, he'd make me a cheesecake for my birthday, using a recipe he claimed to have gotten from Eleanor (I now have my doubts about that). The year I turned sixteen, he ran out of graham crackers to make the crust so he decided to make it with Golden Grahams-- a honey-graham flavoured breakfast cereal available in the US (I view this as proof that I come by my improvisational cooking skills legitimately). Anyway, the blender he was using to grind the Golden Grahams wasn't sturdy enough to grind them, so he did what any normal Hurm man would do in the situation (and what no Hurm woman would ever even consider) and picked up the entire blender, base and all, and started shaking it while it was running.

Do I even need to tell you that this ended badly?

Well, I will. Because it did. The entire kitchen was covered in Golden Graham crumbs, from the pot rack that hung from the ceiling to the hood of the stove, to the stovetop itself, there were honey-graham crumbs everywhere. I don't remember who ended up cleaning up the mess (or how we got it sorted before my birthday party started), but it must have happened because one of the things I remember from that party is the fact that, as it turns out, Golden Grahams make an amazing pie crust. Nowadays I can't pop to the store for Golden Grahams anymore, and even if I could, I wouldn't use them in pie crusts as even now they remain my favourite breakfast cereal.

The night of the exploding blender was also the night that I realised why I didn't like my dad's cheesecakes, and the night I finally worked up the nerve to tell him that I didn't like them. As it turns out, my dad had always been making my birthday cheesecakes 'the Northern way.' The Northern way, to him, meant pouring a thin layer of sour cream cut with milk over the top of the cooked cheesecake, and I hated it. However, since cheesecakes are just shades of white, I never realised that the sour cream layer was the part I disliked, until that night when he was about to pour it on. 'WAIT!' I shrieked. 'Do we havvvvvvve to add that?' I questioned, in the way only a teenager can. My dad, confused about my reaction, poured the sour cream back into the container and the cheesecake was served bare (but probably topped with cherry pie filling, because we weren't a couple of heathens). And it was delicious.

Good luck reading that. 

Up until this cheesecake, this has been my only experience with sour-cream-topped cheesecakes, so I kind of suspected my dad had made the entire thing up because pouring sour cream over a cheesecake is a surefire way to cover up any cracks in the top of the cheesecake while also masking any brown spots that cooked faster than other areas. (But, if you're like me, you might not like the way it tastes.) This cheesecake recipe, however, includes a thin layer of sour cream on top, and it's delicious. Maybe because it's cut with vanilla and sugar, or maybe just because the cheesecake itself is a lot heavier on the crust than it is on the filling, but it's delicious. So don't let the sour cream layer freak you out-- it's the perfect contrast to the crispy, buttery crust and the creamy, sweet filling.

Make this cheesecake for the Halloween party you RSVPed for but still don't have a costume for, and everyone will love you for it. Bonus? You don't even need a springform pan!

The verdict:

4 spoons out of five. This is the first cheesecake I've made that had not a single crack in the top of it, so it's a great 'starter' cheesecake if you've never made one. Plus, it doesn't even require any special tools: you can easily mix it by hand and bake it in a regular pan. It's also a pretty basic cheesecake-- there's no strong cream cheese flavour and it's light and fluffy without being overly heavy or dense. 

 

the recipe:

Soft-Crust, Super-Easy Cheesecake

the directions:
crust:

Preheat oven to 170C/325F.
Stir together crumbs, butter, and sugar until well-blended.
Press into bottom and sides of a 6x9 or similar pan.
Set aside while you make the filling.

Filling:

Beat the cream cheese until smooth and fluffy.
Add one egg at a time, beating after each addition.
Add sugar and vanilla and mix until smooth.
Pour into prepared crust and bake for 30-40 minutes.
Let cool (cake may drop a little, but have no fear!).

Topping:

Preheat oven to 245C/475F (if your oven goes that high).
Beat together sour cream, sugar, and vanilla.
Spread over the cooled cake and bake for 5 minutes.

Note: The recipe says that this cheesecake freezes well, but I haven't tried it. If you do, let me know!

the ingredients:
the crust:

1 c graham crackers or Rich Tea biscuits, ground to fine crumbs
2 oz butter, melted
¼ c sugar

the filling:

12 oz cream cheese
2 eggs
½ c sugar
¾ t vanilla
 

the topping:

1 c sour cream
2 tbsp sugar
½ t vanilla

Piña Colada Cookies & Apricot-Cashew Drops

Cooking is not always glamourous. There are far too many disasters in my experience, and lately I've been on a roll with the disasters. Although sometimes entertaining, there's always something frustrating about slaving over a recipe, planning to take it to work or serve it to friends, and then having it inexplicably go awry. (Eleanor and her friends knew all about this: my great-aunt Margie once dumped an entire lasagna on kitchen floor immediately before a dinner party, then scooped it up and served it anyway because 'what they don't know won't hurt 'em.')

All that considered, I wasn't super excited about finishing the last two variations on this recipe sheet. There were 6 recipes on this page of Better Homes & Gardens from 1977, and when I made the first 2, they were good but just kind of boring.

I made the second 2 variations, and they were both complete disasters. Although they tasted great, they spread so much that they were all stuck together and ended up crumbling into bits as soon as I tried to scrape them off the cookie sheet.

So when I decided to make the final two variations, I figured it was a 50/50 chance they'd be edible. But I was hoping they'd work, because pineapple-coconut cookies? Yes, please. I avoided all of the things I thought could have gone wrong the disastrous time, and proceeded as directed, and what do you know? They came out delicious! ( It is not out of the realm of possibility that this is because I found Cookeen-- a new shortening substitute that is-- so far-- working better than Stork did for me!)

Weirdly, the piña colada cookies were a lot more boring than the apricot ones, and across the board everyone who tasted them agreed. The coconut and pineapple kind of blended into the dough and didn't really come across well, and the acid in the pineappe made the dough a bit grainier than I wanted it to be. The apricot-cashew cookies, though? Like manna from heaven! The apricots gave the dough an amazing chewiness, and the cashews added just the right amount of crunch.

Not wanting two entire batches of cookies in the house, I opted to take these into work with me. (This is no mean feat for me: Judson takes my blog creations into work all the time, but I am always really self-conscious about people eating things I made in front of me, so I kind of hate doing it. Also, the first time I brought a pie into my current job, a co-worker told me she didn't want any because 'she doesn't eat meat before noon,' and I was so thrown off I still haven't really recovered.) I kind of figured they'd get eaten, but that no one would really love them; I mean, apricot cookies? They don't sound nearly as exciting as chocolate chip, or even as classic as peanut butter. But lo and behold, my coworkers loved them, and both batches were gone by the time lunch rolled around.

Maybe now I'll be brave enough to bring my next cheesecake into my office... We'll have to see!

The verdict:

5 spoons out of five for the apricot-cashew cookies. I was disappointed I only got two of these, they were so good, and I can't wait to make them again.

3 spoons out of five for the piña colada cookies. They're still delicious and a fun and tropical take on normal cookies, but the flavours of the pineapple and coconut are a bit lost in the sweet dough, and I wanted a more coconutty flavour.

The recipe:

Pineapple-Coconut Cookies

the directions:

Preheat oven to 190C/375F.
Grease two cookie sheets.
Cream together sugars, butter, shortening, egg, and vanilla.
In a separate bowl, stir together four, salt, baking soda, and ginger.
Stir flour into creamed mixture and blend well.
Add coconut, pineapple, and walnuts and stir well.
Drop from a rounded teaspoon onto greased cookie sheet 2 inches apart.
Use a teaspoon! A larger spoon is far too big and won't let the cookies rise properly.
Bake 8-10 minutes until golden brown, then remove from the oven, let cool for 30 seconds, and move to a cooling rack.

Yields 36 cookies.

the ingredients:

½ c sugar
¼ c brown sugar, packed
¼ c butter
¼ c shortening (or Cookeen if you're in Britain)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 ¼ c flour
¾ tsp salt
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp ginger
½ c desiccated coconut (or more if using flaked coconut)
½ c drained crushed pineapple (or whiz some regular pineapple in the food processor if you live in the UK and can't find crushed)
½ c walnuts, chopped coarsely

---

THE RECIPE:

Apricot-Cashew Drops

THE DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 190C/375F.
Grease two cookie sheets.
Cream together sugars, butter, shortening, egg, and vanilla.
In a separate bowl, stir together four, salt, and baking soda.
Stir flour into creamed mixture and blend well.
Add apricots and cashews and stir well.
Drop from a rounded teaspoon onto greased cookie sheet 2 inches apart.
Use a teaspoon! A larger spoon is far too big and won't let the cookies rise properly.
Bake 8-10 minutes until golden brown, then remove from the oven, let cool for 30 seconds, and move to a cooling rack.

Yields 36 cookies.

THE INGREDIENTS:

½ c sugar
¼ c brown sugar, packed
¼ c butter
¼ c shortening (or Cookeen if you're in Britain)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 ¼ c flour
¾ tsp salt
½ tsp baking soda
½ c dried apricots, snipped into bite-sized bits
½ c cashews, chopped coarsely

El's (Ersatz) Pound Cake, or, Easiest One-Bowl Pound Cake

When I was a kid, my mom made Pound Cake all the time. All the time. It just became part of the landscape for me because it was around so often, and I've always loved it. When I was in college, my mom used to make me an entire pound cake to take back to my dorm with me anytime I came to visit, and those days when I would walk into Smith Hall with a giant tin of pound cake to share with my hallmates are some pretty amazing memories. (Plus, the car ride from Raleigh to Atlanta always smelled a lot better with a cake in the passenger seat next to me!).

I've made a lot of riffs on my mom's pound cake: adding in peaches when I lived in Georgia, adding in cocoa when I wanted something more dessert-y, glazing it with lemon or dusting it with powdered sugar just to make it prettier, but my favourite way to eat it is still just plain. I haven't made a pound cake in ages-- they're not exactly cheap cakes, and they'll totally deplete your pantry if you're not careful, after all. But I was thrilled to find this recipe for Eleanor's Pound Cake in the box to see where my mom drew her inspiration from. This is definitely not the same recipe as my mom used when I was growing up (hers was sour-cream based, while this one has milk as the star ingredient), but it's delicious all the same, and it's interesting to see where my mom gained her baking knowledge from.

Weirdly, this recipe is labelled as 'El's Pound Cake,' but it's from Eleanor's own box, so I'm not sure why she felt the need to further explain it. It's also written in what could well be the sloppy predecessor to my mom's impeccably neat, font-like handwriting, on the back of a receipt for dry cleaning, which I just love. Based on the fact that the dry cleaner was in Florida (where Eleanor didn't move until the late 1950s) and my mom may have been the one who wrote it down, I'm pretty sure this one comes from the mid-to-late 1960s. While not a decade known for their culinary delights, this cake is amazing, not least of all because there is no ingredient in it that measures a pound... so why, in fact, is it even called a pound cake?

I don't know if pound cake is particularly common over here in Scotland, so just in case you haven't heard of it/had one, it's a cake traditionally made with one pound of every maind ingredient in it (flour, sugar, milk, butter/shortening). It's a dense, moist cake that goes absolutely perfectly with a cup of coffee for brunch, but can also make a perfectly fine snack or dessert. Most importantly, this one is a one-bowl recipe, which means you really have no excuse not to make it ASAP.

Additionally, I know that technically you can make a pound cake in any pan, but I grew up with my mom making it in her trusty bundt pan, so it never even occurred to me to make it in anything else.* If you choose to do the same, then note that this doesn't rise a whole lot and will only fill a standard-size bundt pan about halfway (if you have some of those adorable smaller bundt pans, this would be the perfect time to give them a try!). Even in a standard-sized pan, it still cooks up just fine, so don't worry if your pan looks only half-full. Alternately, in lieu of a bundt, you could make this in a loaf pan and it would still be just fine.

*Incidentally, my mom and Eleanor's proclivity toward bundt pans may be another sign of Eleanor's Polish heritage shining through-- in doing my research to make sure I was using the correct terminology, I learned that bundt pans originated in Germany and Poland, where they were used for making cakes called gugelhopfs.

The verdict:

4 spoons out of five. I'm really torn on this one-- it's not as good as my mom's (unsurprisingly), but it is really, really good. And so far 100% of the people who have tasted this one have voted strongly in favour of it, so it's getting 4 spoons.

Notes:

As mentioned above, you can tweak this by throwing in a handful of fresh or frozen fruit, adding a few spoonfuls of cocoa powder, a handful of chocolate chips, or (my favourite) swap the vanilla for additional lemon juice, then add some lemon zest and lavender buds, or anything else your heart desires.

We got new mugs that I'm really excited about, because they somehow match the vintage plates i bought years ago at a 1950s thrift shop.

The recipe:

El's Pound Cake

the ingredients:

3 c flour, sifted*
1 ½ c sugar
1 c shortening
4 eggs
1 c milk
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp lemon juice

*The recipe calls for 'prepared flour,' and I didn't know how to prepare it other than to put it in a measuring cup, so I sifted it. This is probably optional.

The directions:

Preheat oven to 176C/350F.
If your pan is not non-stick, grease and flour it lightly.
Beat all ingredients for at least 5 minutes.
This will seem much longer than necessary, but the original recipe calls for 20 minutes. I compromised and beat mine for 10 because I figured today's mixers are probably infinitely stronger (and, because I use a transformer with an American mixer in my expatriate kitchen, I get nervous about leaving the mixer running for too long because it starts to sound funny).
Batter should be very smooth, light-coloured and have the texture of a can of paint.
Pour evenly into your pan, smooth the top and bake 40-45 minutes, until a wooden pick inserted all the way in comes out with just a crumb or two.