My First Baked Cheesecake! :D

*R*

I have never attempted a baked cheesecake before. :) There, I said it. ;) Lol!

I have always made our family's favorite no bake cheesecake, which is easy and delicious, but not quite the same thing. Plus, it doesn't have that sense of accomplishment along with it. ;) I had wanted to try a baked one before this, but for many various reasons, I just never have. :) Until now! I wanted to celebrate my feeling better and the good report from my Dr. :) And, I just "happened" to have all the ingredients! So, Cheesecake here I come! ;D Lol!

I did my research first.

Water bath...check.
Room temperature ingredients...check.
Don't over-mix...check. :)

Recipe for the BEST New York Style Cheesecake...check! ;D

I didn't have any trouble at all with this, it turned out almost perfect. :) Just a bit more of the sour cream topping spread more evenly would have been nice, but I'll work on that. ;) Just be sure to mix together slowly, and do just what the recipe says. :)

The Results.....

A perfect cheesecake with no cracks! ;D Woohoo! Well, almost perfect. That spot at the top is driving me nuts without hardly any topping on it. :P And then there's that glob on the bottom....Oh, well. ;) You won't be able to tell when it has cherry topping on it. :D *licks lips in anticipation* ;D

My tips:
1. Use a flat object like a cup or a measuring cup to flatten out the crust crumbs in the pan. This helped me a lot, it wouldn't flatten with just my hands very well and wasn't very even.

2. I filled a casserole dish (an oven safe bowl or anything like that would work) about a little less than half way with hot water and placed it on the rack under the cheesecake.

3. I also put a cookie/baking sheet underneath the spring-form pan with the cheesecake in case it dripped out some (which it didn't). Another site said you could line the pan with foil, but I didn't want to do that.

4. Have the ingredients at room temperature before mixing. A site I looked at recommended 1/2 hour. One reason cracks form is because they are too cold when put in the oven. ;)

5. Mix together ingredients SLOWLY!!! You don't want to mix in too much air. That is part of the reason the cracks form in a cheesecake. And be sure your cream cheese is soft first, before adding other ingredients to it, that way you don't get lumps in your batter. You can microwave the cream cheese if you need to for a bit. Try it on 15 min for each bar of cream cheese, and then just add another 15 min. at a time until you can kind of stir it around and it's softer, but not melted. ;) Lol!


Have you signed up for our giveaway yet? :) You only have until tomorrow night to enter! ;D

Have a Blessed Afternoon! :D
~Rachel~