Cheesecake
Love
Inventive, Irresistible, and Super-Easy Cheesecake Desserts for Every Day
JOCELYN BRUBAKER
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Table of Contents
About the Author
Copyright Page
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To Jeremy, my best friend: I love you more than words can say.
To Cameron, Cassie, and Caedon: You are my inspiration and joy!
Introduction
WHY CHEESECAKE? WHY NOT!
My love for baking began at a young age. My first baking memory is from when I was four years old. I can remember my mom teaching me how to make a homemade piecrust from a recipe in one of my grandmother’s old cookbooks. We rolled the crust out and filled it with cherries, and then I sat in front of the oven, watching it bake. That little pie gave me the baking bug that I have not been able to shake over the years. Back when I was younger, my mom would make almost everything from scratch with the help of my gram. I learned most of what I know about cooking and baking just from being in the kitchen, watching them and helping out.
Throughout my middle school and high school years, I spent many nights in the kitchen making treats to share with my youth group friends. Plus, by taking on the role of the baker/chief dinner maker in the family, I was able to get out of chores on our family farm! I would much rather work with a whisk than have to clean out horse stalls. One year, I was even brave enough to enter one of my cakes in the local county fair. I was so excited to get third place for my first-time entry.
While I was in college, I took a few cooking and baking classes that further deepened my love of being in the kitchen. After my husband and I got married, I worked outside the home for a year until we started having children. One of our desires was that I would be able to stay home and raise our kids while they were little. I continued to experiment in the kitchen with different dinners and desserts, and our kids helped me. Talk about learning patience quickly. Baking with small children makes you realize very quickly that flour will be everywhere and eggshells in your food are inevitable. But it also makes you cherish the moments teaching your children how to bake together.
One year I took a cake-decorating class at Michael’s and started a small home-based cake-decorating business making birthday and wedding cakes for friends and family. After a few years of doing cakes, I realized that cake decorating was becoming a very tedious and stressful thing in my life. I am extremely particular when I bake, and it was taking me way too long to get the cakes decorated. Also, transporting wedding cakes in the back of your vehicle will test anyone’s patience and sanity!
In 2008, I came across this thing called “blogging” and thought it could be a fun way to share photos of family life, crafts, and recipes with our family members who lived in other states. That first year, I only shared a handful of different things we did. It hadn’t really caught on with me yet. The following year, our youngest son started school. After years of being a stay-at-home mom, I had no idea what to do with myself now that all three of our kids were in school. Since I definitely did not want to clean house or do laundry all day long, I began to search for a hobby that I could do during the day. I remembered that little blog I had started and thought it could be fun to start it back up again. After a few years of randomness, I realized that the posts that got the most comments and feedback were the fun and unique desserts I shared. I started to share a few more recipes each week, and then e-mails from people who were actually making my recipes started showing up in my inbox. Who knew my love of baking and being in the kitchen could generate so much interest?
From a Hobby to a Job
My husband had the opportunity to go into ministry full-time in 2012, and I realized blogging could potentially become a full-time job for me to help support our family. I was excited about the possibility of working at home, doing something I absolutely adored. Since then I have had the opportunity to travel to different places, work with brands, and meet people around the world who I would never have met if not for this fun job.
Over the years I have developed my own style when it comes to baking—I’m all about playful, approachable, inventive desserts that make you say “Wow!” Actually, my goal is to create recipes that make people say “Wow!” twice—first when they hear the name of the recipe (for instance, my Hot Chocolate Cheesecake Dip) and again when they realize how easy it is to make (only 15 minutes of prep before you can be dipping all the cookies and fruit in chocolate goodness). My kitchen style has definitely become a “semi-homemade with flair” approach. I always encourage others to give themselves a break and get some help from the store when they need it. Those box mixes were made for a reason, so do not feel bad about using them. I’m all for a delicious homemade cake every once in a while, but nine times out of ten, I make cake from a mix. It is easy to add a few extra things to a box mix to turn your creation into a dessert that everyone will go gaga for. To me, baking is about sharing the joy of delicious food with those we love, not about slaving in the kitchen for hours making everything from scratch.
Years of playing with my food in the kitchen has given me the confidence to make amazing semi-homemade desserts that make everyone take notice. It’s your turn now.
Inspiration at the End of the Fork
Now that our children are in school all day, one of the things my husband and I enjoy doing is going on lunch or dinner dates regularly. Finding unique places with delicious food and decadent desserts is a hobby we have enjoyed doing together since we met. Over the years, we would always get a dessert or two to share at the end of our meal. And when I say share, I really mean he would eat a bite or two of his dessert, and I would finish off my piece and then eat the rest of his. The dessert we chose most often was a big slice of creamy cheesecake.
I can remember thinking that cheesecake was one of those desserts that was just too hard to manage in your own kitchen. I mean, who wants to deal with all the steps that go into making a fancy dessert, right?
Oh, how wrong I was! One day after eating out and enjoying a slice of $8 cheesecake, we started talking about how the cost of one slice at a restaurant probably cost the same as baking an entire cheesecake in our own kitchen. My husband started experimenting with different cheesecake recipes at first. Eventually the lure of creamy cheesecake got me to start experimenting with different crusts and crazy cheesecake combos, too. I was instantly hooked. It also did not take me much time to realize that cheesecake is really not that hard to make, if you follow some easy steps.
Cheesecake All the Things
Since those first days of cheesecake experiments, I have learned to work cheesecake into any and every dessert you can think of. Brownies, fudge, cookies, pie, and pastries have all become a blank canvas for some cheesecake love. If it doesn’t have cheesecake in it, it should. How’s that for a baking motto?
Cheesecake has become one of my absolute favorite thing to bake (and one of the most popular dessert types on the blog), so when I was approached about creating an entire book about cheesecake, I wa
s instantly intrigued. How many more ways could I put cheesecake into desserts? I started making a list of flavors and combos as we worked on the book proposal. After developing all the recipes in this book, I have not even gotten through half that list yet. I definitely see way more cheesecake in my life!
Over the years, I have learned that cheesecake does not need to be hard or boring, or even traditional. It should be fun—it’s the perfect canvas for any flavor, and it can be easily adapted to be a bar, a pie, a cookie filling, a cupcake, even a parfait or a cake layer. It is my hope and desire that these recipes will inspire others to create their own unique desserts and, ultimately, to find the same excitement and creativity in the kitchen that I found so many years ago! So set out some cream cheese, and get ready to cheesecake all the things
Baking Equipment
TOOL TIME!
Over my years spent working in different kitchens, I have developed a love for baking pans and kitchen gadgets. You know, those fun little utensils and tools that are designed to make life in the kitchen a little easier. My husband and I enjoy going into local kitchen stores and eyeballing the fun gadgets they sell. Now most people do not have the storage to be able to buy all the things that you could use in your kitchen. And to be honest, a lot of these kitchen toys are not really necessary. It’s easy to get caught up in the moment when you are in the store looking at fun gadgets, but most of the time, those kitchen tools get used once and go in a drawer, never to be seen again. Don’t waste your money on tools you really do not need—save that money for more cream cheese and chocolate chips.
These are the pans and kitchen tools that I like to use regularly in our kitchen. This list of kitchen equipment will help you if you plan on baking treats more often for your family and friends.
Baking Pans
Without them, your oven would be a complete mess!
> SPRINGFORM PANS <
Do not be intimidated by the name. A springform pan is just a fancy word for a cake pan with a removable bottom. The two pieces of this pan are a flat metal bottom and a metal ring that wraps around the bottom. The metal sides buckle onto the bottom of the pan, creating a tight seal that keeps the batter from leaking out of the pan as it bakes.
Items made in springform pans are also cooled in the pan. After cooling, the ring is unlatched and the sides are lifted off, which makes it easy to remove the cake in perfect condition for serving. Most cake pans have to be flipped upside down to remove the cake from inside of them. This is not a good idea when you are making a delicate item like a cheesecake or a coffee cake with streusel. That would turn your amazing creation into a horrendous mess. With a springform pan, you simply detach the sides, keeping your cake beautiful.
To make the cheesecakes in this book, you will need a set of 8-, 9-, and 10-inch round springform pans that are 3 inches tall.
> BAKING SHEETS <
A baking sheet is just a metal tray. There are two basic types of baking sheets: those with sides (rimmed), and those without sides. Baking sheets without sides are often used for cookies, as they let the heat from the oven flow freely around the cookies, allowing them to bake evenly. I have a set of baking sheets without sides that I use for almost every cookie I make.
The color of the baking sheet can affect the outcome of your cookies, too. Dark pans absorb more heat energy, causing cookies to be overdone or darker on the bottom. I prefer light-colored pans, so my cookies do not overbake or get too dark while baking. Look for heavy-duty pans that will hold up to many years of baking.
Other types of baking sheets have sides. They are more of a general-purpose pan. You will need a 12 x 18-inch rimmed baking sheet to create a steam bath under your cheesecakes. I do not recommend using a baking sheet much larger than this because it will block the heat and airflow in the oven, causing baked goods to bake unevenly. We will talk about the practice and purpose of the steam bath later in the book. And no, this type of steam bath is not a spa treatment, despite the name!
> JELLY ROLL PAN <
A jelly roll pan is a 10 x 15-inch version of a rimmed baking sheet. The sides in a jelly roll pan are about 1 inch high, making it good for making sponge cakes and cake rolls. Jelly roll pans should be made of sturdy metal to keep the pan from warping in a hot oven and making the cake batter spill to one side. I recently tried to cook a cake roll on a thin metal pan. The heat caused the pan to warp, and I had crispy cake on one side and raw cake on the other. No one wants this kind of uneven cake roll in his or her life. Ain’t nobody got time for that!
> CAKE PANS <
Cake pans are metal pans that come in a variety of shapes and sizes and are used for baking cakes or brownies. I recommend having two each of the following sizes: 9 x 13-inch rectangular, 8-inch square, 8-inch round, and 10-inch round. Pay attention to the height of the pan called for in the recipe. Some cake pans have 1-inch sides, while others have 2- or 3-inch sides. If you try to put too much batter into a cake pan with shorter sides, it will overflow into the bottom of your oven as it bakes. This is not a mess you want to deal with, trust me!
Make sure to grease and flour your pans thoroughly before adding your batter. This will ensure that your cake or brownie comes out of the pan in one piece. I like to use nonstick baking sprays with and without flour added to them. You can also grease and flour your pans by hand if you prefer that method.
For bar cookies and brownies, I recommend lining the pan with aluminum foil before spraying it with nonstick baking spray. (Make sure you read the tips and tricks section for a fun way to line your pan with foil.) Leave a slight overhang of foil, and then when the baked good has cooled, you can lift it out of the pan easily using the foil as handles. This allows you to cut the item into nicer squares, as well as cutting down on your kitchen cleanup time. Work smarter, not harder!
> CUPCAKE PANS <
A cupcake pan (or muffin tin) is a pan with multiple cups, allowing you to make small individual-size desserts. I recommend two standard nonstick pans with 12 cups each. Most cake mixes and batters make about 24 servings, so having two pans allows you to bake all of them at once. If you have leftover batter and need to bake just a few more cupcakes, fill the empty cups with water to help the remaining cupcakes bake evenly.
> MINI-CUPCAKE PANS <
These are the same as a cupcake pan (or muffin tin), but in a smaller form. Most of these pans come with 24 cups. You definitely want two of these pans for making mini treats. Most mini dessert recipes make a lot, so you want to bake as many at a time as you can.
> PIE PLATES <
Pie plates have shallow, sloping sides with a rim to hold the crust in place. These plates are one piece, unlike springform pans, and can be made of aluminum, metal, or glass. A standard pie plate is 9 inches wide and 1¼ inches deep, although they do come in 9½ inches and 10 inches and deep-dish versions as well. A deep-dish pie plate will be 1½ to 2 inches deep, allowing for more filling to be baked. It is very important to read your recipe beforehand to see what size is recommended. Too much batter in a shallow pan is a recipe for disaster! I have a standard 9-inch pie plate and a 10-inch deep-dish pie plate that I used for all the pie recipes in this book.
> TART PANS <
A tart pan is similar to a pie plate. The tart pan has straight sides that may be fluted. These pans are generally made of metal with a removable bottom that allows you to get the dessert out without damaging the sides of the crust. It is similar to a springform pan but it does not “lock” together or form a tight seal. This works well for desserts with crusts. The crust keeps the liquid from coming out of the bottom of the pan. I do not recommend putting a liquid into an unlined tart pan. Tart pans come in a variety of sizes and shapes.
For most recipes, I recommend one 9-inch tart and one mini-tart pan with 12 cavities. The mini-tart pan looks very similar to the standard pan, but it does not have a removable bottom. You can also use a mini-tart pan for making little pies (like Mini Orange Cream Cheesecake Pies).
Kitchen Utensils &
Tools
Oh yeah! More gadgets to play with!
> SILICONE SPATULAS <
A spatula is a kitchen tool that has a handle and a silicone blade. These are used for scraping the sides of bowls, mixing ingredients, and spreading frosting. Spatulas come in many sizes and varieties. I highly recommend having a few in each size because you will use them multiple times in a recipe.
I like using larger rubber spatulas for scraping dough and batter off the sides of my mixing bowls as the ingredients are coming together. They are also good to use when you are cooking in nonstick pans, as metal can scratch or otherwise damage a nonstick surface. A smaller rubber spatula is also great for filling measuring cups with peanut butter or sour cream.
> METAL SPATULAS <
These tools usually have a metal blade and a wooden handle to insulate them from the heat. Again, these come in a variety of sizes and shapes. I recommend a larger one with an offset blade (where the blade is angled to sit lower than the handle) for removing cookies from baking sheets.
> FROSTING SPATULA <
A frosting spatula is very similar to a metal spatula. They are made of the same ingredients. The main difference is in the blade. A frosting spatula has a much smaller surface. This allows you to spread frosting evenly on a flat surface.
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