Peanut Chew Cheesecake

I am writing this from my desk on the first rainy morning where I'm calling a new city home. The last month has been wild and busy and emotional. I have repeatedly tried to wrap it all up into a few neat paragraphs, but the words just kept eluding me. For a few years my parter, Greg and I have been telling everyone that we were going to move to Philadelphia. After a year or so, it seemed to folks like maybe we were crying wolf. But we finally felt like it was the right time & mustered up the courage to leave a city that we love and venture to somewhere new. Everything was going smoothly, but then Greg got in a bike accident and broke his collar bone in a few places. He needed some surgery and got a metal plate put in his shoulder. So while it's really cool that I'm dating a bionic man, it wasn't conducive to moving. I was able to pack everything up alone and we convinced some friends and family to help us pack up the moving truck in DC. We left behind a queen size box spring since we couldn't fit ours down the stairs of our old bed room. We got it up the stairs by opening a window. But then we repaired the banister on the stairwell, and the extra two or three inches that we added made it impossible to bring it back down.
I narrowly escaped demolishing a tiny gas station in the city in my first ten minutes in our 14 foot U-haul, and then almost hit a cop car as soon as we got to our new block. But the ride in between wasn't too bad. Just small moments of nervous energy as I had to approach a toll booth or merge across 4 lanes of traffic. We got to Philly and thirteen amazing friends came to help unload the truck. You know you are moving to the right place when you already have as many friends helping you on your first day in town as you did at your going away party in the last city.


photo by Massimo Catarinella
Our first week has been pretty quiet. We are unpacking slowly, working on a few projects everyday. I'm almost done assembling the kitchen, obviously the most important room in the house to me. Even though it's large for an apartment, it's half the size of what we left. And in the last three years I have acquired a ton of bakeware. I'm hoping that an ingenious storage solution will strike me at any minute.
One of my favorite candies happens to be a Philadelphia creation, so it seemed very appropriate to share this cheesecake with everyone. If you haven't had a peanut chew before, you should see if they are available in your area or let me know and we can swap candy! It's a molasses caramel filled with roasted peanuts and then dipped in chocolate. Heaven. The factory is still in the city but I maybe already checked into it, and they don't give tours. This shows you my list of priorities. Touring the peanut chew factory > finding homes for all my displaced tea cups & saucers > hanging curtains. But eating sweets will always be at the top of that list. We moved two blocks from an ice cream shop, so things are about to get dangerous. If you have any suggestions of places to eat or visit or things you love about the city, please let me know. I am pretty well versed in Philly vegan food, but there are still so many places I haven't tried before.



Peanut Chew Cheesecake
one 9" or several mini cheesecakes, varying based on size of pans used

Peanut Graham Crust
9 ounces peanuts
3 ounces graham crackers
10 tbl shortening

Pulse the peanuts and graham crackers to crumbs in a food processor. Melt the shortening. Pour over the cookie and peanut crumbs and mix with hands until fully incorporated. Press firmly into the bottom of your springform pan(s). This is not a sweet crust. If you would prefer it to be a little sweeter, replace two ounces of peanuts for more graham crumbs. I used gluten free graham crumbs, but they should be interchangeable with regular graham crackers.

Cheesecake Filling
24 oz non-dairy cream cheese, I prefer Tofutti
2/3 cup sugar
3 tbl blackstrap molasses
2 tbl Ener-G beaten into 1/3 cup hot water
6-10 peanut chews cut into small pieces, depending on how much candy you want in each slice

Make your cheesecake filling by beating the cream cheese, sugar, molasses, and Ener-G together until smooth. Place some candy around the bottom of the crust. Pour half of the batter into your springform pan. Add rest of candy and top with remaining cheesecake batter. Smooth surface & bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes until the cheesecake appears set. Allow to cool for at least 4-6 hours before attempting to slice the cake. I find that overnight is best.

Ganache
1/3 cup dark chocolate
1/4 cup non-dairy milk of choice
1 tablespoon agave nectar

In a double broiler heat all ingredients whisking frequently until the chocolate has totally melted and the ganache is smooth. Remove from heat and allow to cool for several minutes before assembling the cheesecake.

Assembly
Once your cheesecake has cooled for several hours or overnight, top with ganache shortly before serving. I also chose to add additional peanut chew pieces around the top of the cheesecakes to give it a little more height & decoration. If it's already on the sweet side for you, additional sprinklings of peanuts would also be lovely.

Lemon Coconut Cheesecake

There might be green grass & tulips now, but I made this spring-inspired cheesecake in the dead of winter. I made it on a bitter, cold day when we had run out of oil and were waiting for the tank to be refilled. I really needed an excuse to turn the oven on & wish for warmer days. There's not much of a sunnier combination than lemon and coconut, so that is what I went with. I tweaked the recipe from my soy nog cheesecake to incorporate those flavors. And just for the record, if you have never had the pleasure of living in a house heated by oil consider yourself lucky. Our giant, old house in DC requires thousands of dollars of oil to make it through the winter. And that's not toasty warm, it's just tolerably chilly & with the windows wrapped to keep out the drafts.
Luckily worrying about heat is over, since it finally hit 70 degrees this week. I opened the windows. I broke out my shorts. I wore a skirt without tights. It was magical. I even braved the crowds to see the cherry blossoms in peak bloom for the first time. I snuck onto an empty lot a few blocks away and picked a ridiculous amount of daffodils to fill a few milk bottles. I am starting to see lilies in bouquets at the grocery store, so I know May is rapidly approaching. My favorite flowers are the lilies that bloomed in my mother's garden. They always opened up right around my birthday, my favorite time of the year. Not just because it's my birthday, but because May is the most beautiful month of the year. So here's to cheesecakes and flowers and perfect spring afternoons.


Lemon Coconut Cheesecake
makes one 10" cheesecake

Crust
9 ounces lemon cookies (I used Back to Nature's California Lemon)
4 ounces shredded or flaked coconut
1/2 cup shortening

Crush the cookies & coconut to crumbs in a food processor. While those are being pulsed, melt the shortening. Pour over the cookie crumbs and mix until fully incorporated. If the cookie crumbs still aren't wet enough to hold together when you squeeze it in your hands, then add another tablespoon or two of shortening. Press into the bottom and up the sides of your springform pan.

Cheesecake Filling
3/4 cup coconut milk
3 tablespoon EnerG Egg Replacer
28 oz Tofutti cream cheese (3 1/2 tubs)
1/4 cup coconut flour
1 cup sugar
scraping of one vanilla bean
zest of one lemon

Heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Warm the coconut milk and whisk in the egg replacer. Allow to slightly cool & thicken for several minutes. Meanwhile in the bowl of a standing mixer with the paddle attachment, combine all the remaining ingredients. Add coconut milk and beat until the batter is smooth. Pour into to springform pan, smoothing the top of the cheesecake. Bake for 40 minutes or until the center of the cheesecake is only slightly wiggly but appears firm. Allow to cool overnight. I topped it with coconut whip, additional lemon cookies, and tons of toasted coconut flakes.

Samoa Cheesecake

A few months ago I bought a tin of raw coconut sap crystals because I wanted to try them, but I didn't really have any intentions for it. I knew that it boasted all sorts of claims like being high in nutrients and having a low glycemic index making it diabetic friendly. But being someone who doesn't generally avoid cane sugar, it just kept sitting around. Eventually I forgot to buy sugar for long enough to work my way to that unopened tin of coconut sugar in a late night baking spree. I knew that it didn't taste like coconut, but had more of a caramel flavor. But while I was thinking about the combination of coconut and caramel, I knew there was no other flavor duo that would suit me that night. So I settled on a samoa cheesecake. Last year I made these homemade girl scout cookies, and they were easily some of my favorite sweets ever baked. I decided to turn them into a new medium, because all I have been craving this year is cheesecake. And I made it gluten free so that I could share it with a few friends.
While I used coconut sugar, it could easily be substituted for regular cane or brown sugar in these recipes. The brown sugar would help lend the filling a similar caramel note that the coconut sap crystals add. If you want to read a little more about various sugars, I highly suggest Fork & Bean's guide to sweeteners.



Samoa Cheesecake
one 9" or several mini cheesecakes, varying based on size of pans used

Coconut Shortbread Crust
8 ounces cookies (I used these gluten free animal crackers which are very reminiscent of shortbread)
4 ounces coconut (flakes or shredded)
10 tbl shortening

Pulse the cookies and coconut to crumbs in a food processor. Melt the shortening. Pour over the cookie and coconut crumbs and mix with hands until fully incorporated. Press firmly into the bottom of your springform pan(s).

Cheesecake Filling
24 oz non-dairy cream cheese, I prefer Tofutti
3/4 cup coconut sugar
1 tbl vanilla bean paste or scraping from 3 vanilla beans
2 tbl Ener-G beaten into 1/3 cup hot water

Make your cheesecake filling by beating the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, and Ener-G together until smooth. Pour into crust filled pan. Bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes until the cheesecake appears set. Allow to cool for at least 4-6 hours before attempting to slice the cake. I find that overnight is best.

Coconut Caramel
1 can full fat canned coconut milk
1 1/3 cup coconut sugar
2 tablespoon brown rice syrup
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
pinch sea salt
4 tablespoon Earth Balance margarine
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 cup unsweetened flaked coconut

In a small sauce pan combine coconut milk, sugar, brown rice syrup, cream of tartar, sea salt, and Earth Balance. Allow to come to a low boil. Simmer for 20-25 minutes until the mixture has thickened into a syrup and smells like caramel. It will also darken in color. Once removed from heat stir in vanilla extract and allow to cool.
While the caramel is cooking, spread your coconut on a sheet pan and bake at 350 degrees for 5-7 minutes. After 4 minutes stir the coconut to ensure that the coconut isn't browning unevenly. Remove when at least half of the coconut is lightly browned and continue to stir on the pan while it is cooling, as the coconut will continue to toast while the pan is hot. These steps can be done while the cheesecake is baking to limit your time in the kitchen.

Ganache
1/3 cup dark chocolate
1/4 cup coconut milk
1 tablespoon agave nectar

In a double broiler heat all ingredients whisking frequently until the chocolate has totally melted and the ganache is smooth. Remove from heat and allow to cool for several minutes before assembling the cheesecake.

Assembly
For the mini cheesecakes, I held the cheesecake upside down and spooned ganache over the bottoms. I was afraid of dipping them like I would samoa cookies because my gluten free crust was a little fragile. If you have a full size cheesecake, I might forego the ganache dip. I toyed around with the idea of scattering mini chocolate chips along the bottom of the crust before adding the cheesecake filling to give it some semblance of a chocolate dipped bottom, but I ended up holding back on my 9" cheesecake and did regret it later.
Pour your caramel over the tops of the cheesecake until it comes to the edges. Top with ample toasted coconut flakes, and ganache stripes to mimic the cookie. Also whatever you do, don't combine your coconut and caramel before topping your cheesecake. I tried it, and it ain't pretty y'all.

Soy Nog Cheesecake with Gingersnap Crust

The holidays have finally come and gone. The new year is rapidly approaching. If your past month was anything like mine you probably have ample cookies tucked away in cabinets and half finished containers of nog in the fridge, already starting to get pushed towards the back behind those takeout containers and almond milk. This is the perfect recipe to help you finish off those cookies and nog. I started looking around for recipe inspiration and was really intrigued by Meet the Shannon's soy nog cheesecake, but I didn't have all the ingredients on hand. It was 9pm, I was already in pajamas and was set on making nog cheesecake now. So I took their beautiful recipe and tweaked it to fit my needs.
I made the crust from some gingerbread cookies that I rolled out too thin and baked a bit too long. They were too crisp to put into the cookie baskets I made for our friends & neighbors, so I tucked them away at the time not sure why I was saving them. But low and behold, they were perfect for making cheesecake crust. The spice balanced nicely with the creamy filling, and I didn't have to throw cookies away. One of the utmost offenses known to man. Also, if my cheesecake looks a little soft it's not because the recipe will give you a too soft filling. It's solely because I took the cheesecake out of the oven ten minutes before it was done baking. I suddenly got really tired and decided it was time to turn the oven off and go to sleep. Late night baking: you win some, you lose some. Waking up with soy nog cheesecake, a win. Even if it's a little under baked.



Crust
13 ounces gingerbread or gingersnap cookies
1/2 cup Earth Balance margarine.
Crush the cookies to crumbs in a food processor. While those are being pulsed, melt the Earth Balance in the microwave. Pour over the cookie crumbs and mix with hands until the butter is fully incorporated. Start with 1/2 cup of melted Earth Balance. If the cookie crumbs still aren't wet enough to hold together when you squeeze it in your hands, then add another tablespoon or two. Press into the bottom and up the sides of a 9 or 10" springform pan. I used a 10" pan.

Soy Nog Cheesecake Filling
3/4 cup Silk soy nog
3 tablespoon EnerG Egg Replacer
28 oz Tofutti cream cheese (3 1/2 tubs)
3 tablespoon coconut flour
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoon flour
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon nutmeg
scraping of one vanilla bean

Heat oven to 350. Warm the soy nog and whisk in the egg replacer. Allow to thicken and slightly cool for several minutes. Meanwhile, in the bowl of a standing mixer with the paddle attachment combine all the remaining ingredients. Add nog and beat until the batter is smooth. Add to springform pan. Bake for 40 minutes or until the center of the cheesecake is only slightly wiggly but appears firm. Allow to cool overnight.

Baklava Cheesecake

Heather at Sprinkles Bakes makes the most unbelievable desserts all the time. Some of my favorites have been her hibiscus poppyseed shortbread cookies, Edgar Allen Poe inspired red velvet cake, and all of the recipes she shares on the Etsy blog. Everything she makes is beautiful and flawless. Her cookbook SprinkleBakes: Dessert Recipes to Inspire Your Inner Artist is one of my favorites. Her perfect execution of recipes inspires me to keep practicing, and hoping that I develop an artistic eye half as decent as her's. She made a baklava cheesecake at the end of May, that I have been stuck on since. Once I successfully made vegan baklava, I knew the cheesecake was the next step. It also fell perfectly into position. It wraps up cakes & ties in with my last theme for the month, pastry! I am definitely someone saves the best for last.



Vegan Baklava Cheesecake
one 8" cheesecake, veganized from this recipe on Sprinkles Bakes

Cinnamon "Honey" Syrup
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown rice syrup
1/2 cup agave
1 1/3 cup water
1 tsp cinnamon

Bring sugar, syrups, & water to a boil. Simmer for 25 minutes. Stir in cinnamon & allow to cool.

Cheesecake
7 oz walnuts, chopped into tiny pieces
1 tsp cinnamon
pinch sea salt
1/3 cup warm water
3 tbl Ener-G
24 oz vegan cream cheese
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup Earth Balance, melted
15 sheets phyllo dough

In a small bowl, combine 5 oz of chopped walnuts, 1/2 cup of the "honey" syrup, the cinnamon, and salt & set aside. Whisk together water and Ener-G and let sit until it thickens. In a mixer, combine cream cheese with thickened egg replacer, sugar, & vanilla. Beat until smooth.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Place a piece of parchment paper on the base of your springform and then reattach the top of the pan (as Heather shows in her more detailed directions). Take each sheet of phyllo and lightly brush with Earth Balance. Fold in half. Lay in pan so that it is in the middle, and then hanging over the edge. Repeat many times so that each piece of phyllo is overlapping the last. Pour in half of cream cheese filling. Add a few blobs of cinnamon walnut mix, then top with rest of cream cheese. Add remaining nuts, and swirl.
Fold the overhanging phyllo on top of the cheesecake. I added another sheet of phyllo to the top of the cheesecake to fully cover all the filling to keep any of the syrup from burning. Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes. Once your cheesecake has finished baking, turn oven off, open a few inches and allow to cool for an hour. Place cheesecake in fridge and allow it chill for 4 hours or overnight.
Bake a few of the remaining phyllo sheets at 350 for 10-20 minutes until golden. Sprinkle on top of cheesecake. Add remaining chopped walnuts and drizzle with some of the "honey" syrup.


I am going to warn you. This cheesecake is messy. Next time I would consider putting a piece of parchment inside of the springform pan ring after I lock it as well. The syrup does ooze as the cheesecake is baking. While most of the syrup stayed on the bottom piece of parchment, I found that a bit did also spill onto the sheet tray I placed under the springform. Next time I might just line the oven rack with aluminum foil, because the sheet tray kept the bottom bits of phyllo from browning the way I wanted them too.
The mess is totally worth it though. This cheesecake is amazing. It's rich and just sweet enough to add a more syrup to the top without it being too much. It also looks beautiful with minimal effort. Really once you pile the extra phyllo & walnuts on top, it just looks amazing. The way the phyllo wraps around the edge of the cake and then has extra height in the middle reminds me of a wrapped package. One that I can't wait to open until it is totally cooled.

Cherry Cheesecake

I have been incredibly nostalgic these last few weeks. Ever since I graduated college it feels like time just slips by at a faster & faster pace. It was just winter, and all of a sudden I can't walk outside without smelling honeysuckle. Every time I catch a breath of it I am reminded of growing up in Tennessee, reading books in little swings made of grapevine hooked between the trees & playing in the the ravine we affectionally called FernGully. I grew up in a place very different from my friends. For most of the life that I remember we lived on a 20 something acre piece of land that mostly consisted of forest. I went to a public school that had less than 300 children enrolled. The kindergarteners were just down the hall from the high schoolers. I was always a little out of place in that school, and though I wasn't really bullied or tormented by anyone, I also didn't have very many good friends.
Once I got to college and was surrounded by more people, it wasn't difficult to find my niche. But I often think about how much quieter and more solitude my growing up was and how that has probably shaped me to have different expectations of life than most people. I am quite comfortable being alone. I really only need a book or a kitchen at my disposal, and I will be content for most of the day.


In college it seemed so easy to fit it all in. I took fifteen or more credit hours a semester, worked part time in a laboratory, and still managed to spend an indecent amount of times with my friends. These days I feel like no matter how little I sleep it's never quite enough to do everything I want. I am sure that a fair part of it is being "an adult". There's always errands to run. There's doctor's visits to schedule & bills to pay. But goodness do I miss having a whole summer to just do whatever I wanted to. I didn't think twice about buying a place ticket to visit a friend in another state or hopping into a bus with ten of my friends to drive across the country. How do we find the balance in that fun spontaneity and the responsibility of keeping up with our lives? Even though I love my job, spending so much of my life working is also a fairly disappointing thing.


Cherry Cheesecake
filling adapted from Emily Manquist's Sweet Vegan

Crust
13 ounces graham crackers or speculoos cookies
1/2 to 3/4 cup Earth Balance margarine.
Crush the cookies to crumbs in a food processor. While those are being pulsed, melt the Earth Balance in the microwave. Pour over the cookie crumbs and mix with hands until the butter is fully incorporated. Start with 1/2 cup of melted Earth Balance. If the cookie crumbs still aren't wet enough to hold together when you squeeze it in your hands, then add the remaining spread. Press into the bottom and up the sides of a 9 or 10" springform pan.

Cheesecake Filling
24 oz non-dairy cream cheese, I prefer Tofutti
3/4 cup sugar
1 tbl vanilla bean paste or scraping from 3 vanilla beans
2 tbl Ener-G beaten into 1/3 cup hot water
Make your cheesecake filling by beating the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, and Ener-G together until smooth. Pour into crust filled pan. Bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes until the cheesecake appears set. Allow to cool for at least 4-6 hours before attempting to slice the cake.

Tart Cherry Topping
24 oz tart cherries
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup cherry juice
1/4 cup cornstarch
In a sauce pan combine cherries, 1/2 cup of cherry juice, and sugar. Allow to come to a boil over medium heat. In a small bowl whisk together cornstarch and remaining juice to create a slurry. Whisk the slurry into the boiling cherries and reduce heat to low. Allow to cook until mixture is thickened. Allow to cool before spreading on top of cheesecake


One of my favorite things about baking at home is taking time to do everything. I am not worried about multi-tasking in the way that I normally am. Instead of sifting powdered sugar while Earth Balance is creaming in the mixer and and whisking something every few minutes as it cools, I can really focus on what I am doing and enjoy it. I can look at the patterns the vanilla bean makes as it is stirred into the batter. I can anticipate actually serving the food to people I care about & seeing them enjoy it too. Those are the things we remember in a few years, the things we become nostalgic for.

Cheesecake Brownies

Sometimes you need a recipe in your arsenal that takes no time or effort to prepare. It bakes while you are paying bills or doing laundry or some other pesky task that always ends up falling on your day off. These brownies are one of those "recipes". I am not ashamed to use a box mix. Sometimes it's just really convenient. I know that I can mix together flour and cocoa powder and sugar and baking powder. But sometimes it's just easier to dump everything out of a box, and not worry about if I ran out of sugar and forgot to buy more again. For the box mix, I generally prefer Ghirardelli Double Chocolate. There are a few other vegan brownie mixes, but I don't remember them off the top of my head. I found Ghiradelli and never went back. I have used all sorts of egg replacers when using brownie mixes. While blending a can of black beans is still one of my favorites, I decided to try something else this time I went with yogurt. I had a little cup of coconut yogurt ready to explode, and I thought I would make use of it. It worked really well for me. Just use 1/4 cup for every egg you need to replace.


Cheesecake Brownies
one 9" pan

One batch brownie batter*
8 oz non-dairy cream cheese, I prefer Tofutti
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 Ener-G egg

Make your brownie batter* (As I already confessed I used the box mix combined with 1/3 cup water, 1/3 oil, and 1/4 cup coconut yogurt). Pour 3/4 of the batter into a 9" pan that is well greased or lined with parchment. Make your cheesecake filling by blending the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, and Ener-G together until smooth. Dollop the cheesecake filling on top of the brownie. Then spoon remaining brownie batter on top. Swirl lightly with a chopstick or butter knife. Bake at 375 for 45-55 minutes until a toothpick comes out almost cleanly. You want these brownies to be slightly underbaked so they stay incredibly fudgey.


Do you have a store mix that you turn into something more amazing than it normally is? I'm always interesting in hearing how people modify things to better fit their needs. I'm all into shortcuts lately. Between work, getting hooked on a book series, and getting back into a solid gym routine it seems like there is less & less time to spend in the kitchen. I have been comilingp a list of other quick desserts that will satisfy my sweet tooth. Baklava is next!

Pumpkin Swirl Cheesecake with Speculoos Crust

As the last few days of October are winding up I had to rethink what I was going to make a little more closely. I decided to combine a few of my things and make a pumpkin vanilla swirl cheesecake with a speculoos cookie crust. I always see pumpkin cheesecakes with gingersnap crusts, so I decided to tweak it and go with speculoos instead. I also have been trying to use more cookbooks, so I went with a recipe from Emily Mainquist's Sweet Vegan. I thought that I had all the ingredients, but when I started making the filling last night, I realized that somehow 2 of my 3 containers of Tofutti cream cheese had some sneaky little chunks missing. I ended up replacing the missing ~6 oz of cream cheese with vegan sour cream since the ingredients are pretty similar and the taste isn't too different either in my opinion. This might have led to my cheesecake setting a bit more softly than with all cream cheese, but no one seemed to mind. I also added a half tablespoon of vanilla bean paste to the vanilla cream cheese filling, and at least an additional teaspoon of cinnamon to the pumpkin cream cheese filling. I think pumpkin pie is pretty boring, so I was happy to know that this works & would be a fun substitute for the upcoming holiday dessert table.


Speculoos Cookie Crust
enough for an 8-9" cheesecake
13 ounces Speculoos Cookies (one & a half packages)
1/2 to 3/4 cup Earth Balance cinnamon spread
Crush the cookies to crumbs in a food processor. While those are being pulsed, melt the Earth Balance in the microwave. Pour over the cookie crumbs and mix with hands until the butter is fully incorporated. Start with 1/2 cup of melted Earth Balance. If the cookie crumbs still aren't wet enough to hold together when you squeeze it in your hands, then add the remaining spread. Press into the pan's bottom and up the sides. Bake as directed for your preferred cheesecake filling. If you want to use the regular spread, it will be just as good, but the kick of extra spice is really nice here, so I would add a half teaspoon of cinnamon to the cookie crumbs.
After the cheesecake baked I let it set overnight, then topped it with dollops of coconut whip cream and halves of the remaining speculoos cookies leftover from the crust recipe. I was glad to have so many people home from the storm so that I wasn't tempted to eat more than one slice of this cheesecake! Do you have a favorite cheesecake recipe? This is the first one I have ever made. I have never been a huge cheesecake fan until recently. Now that I found a nice springform pan at the thrift store for $2 I feel a lot more compelled to try a few recipes!