Say Cheese!

Every month, my family tries to do "family dinner." It's about gathering together--but it's also about trying new recipes, and spending time creating in the kitchen. Each month we try a different theme: we've done everything from Chinese New Year to "things on sticks".

This month's theme is wine and cheese, (my mother got the Tillamook Cheese Cookbook for Christmas) and we're also using it as a little celebration of my stepfather's 75th birthday.

My mother, sister-in-law and I search for recipes that sound fun, that we want to try, and that my nephews will (most likely) eat while still enhancing both their skills in the kitchen and their inclinations toward new foods.

This month, I'm in charge of "befores" and "afters"--the appetizer and dessert. Before-sies is pretty simple (we always have too much food, and with cheese as our "Iron Chef" ingredient, the trick is to keep things as light as possible), so I'm just doing an herbed brie fondue with crackers and apples. But dessert....

Here in the desert, we've had a very mild winter--despite rain the last two days, and more expected come Monday. Which means that the citrus trees have been very happy. My friend Justine has a lemon tree that has been producing in large quantities, so last weekend I decided to try a new recipe. I took the resulting cheesecake into the office for feedback--and actually got a marriage proposal from the endeavor--from an avouched bachelor. (Don't worry, I was generous, and chalked it up to a temporary loss of wits due to my culinary skills.)

Since I still have quite a few lemons, I decided to make it again for tonight. As cheesecakes go, it's a surprisingly light dessert--and the lemon curd gives it a freshness and zing that I think clears the palate beautifully.

You want the recipe? Here it is:

Lemon Curd Marbled Cheesecake

Lemon Curd:
1 teaspoon finely grated fresh lemon zest (I probably use a little bit more than that--like 3 small lemons worth)
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (from those same lemons--it worked out perfectly today!)
1/1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1/4 cup butter

Whisk together the zest, juice, sugar and eggs in a saucepan. Add butter and cook over medium low heat, whisking frequently, until the curd thickens so you can see the tracks of the whisk, and it JUST starts to bubble. Pour the curd into a shallow dish to cool. If you're going to make the cheesecake right away, you can cool it uncovered; if you make the curd the night before, cover it by pressing wax paper onto the surface, and stick it in the fridge.

The original recipe says to force the curd through a fine-mesh sieve on its way to the shallow pan, but I just use a super small zesting grater, so that's not necessary for me.

Now, for the Crust:
1 and 1/3 cups finely ground graham cracker crumbs (I actually usually use ginger thins, because I like the zing the ginger gives to a cheesecake crust)
1/3 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
5 Tablespoons butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 350.
Stir together the "dry" crust ingredients. (NB: I go a little shy on the sugar--and then I add a dry spiced chai mix--which is mostly sugar and spices. Again, zing.) Drizzle in melted butter so the crumbs begin to hold together. Press the crumb mixture into the bottom of the springform pan until you have an even layer of crust. Put the pan in a shallow pan to bake (sometimes the butter from the crust mixture leaks out the bottom of the springform pan, and this keeps it from dripping on the oven. I hate cleaning ovens. Seriously.) Bake for 10 minutes, then remove and put pan on a rack to cool.

And Now...the Cheese portion of our cheesecake:

3 8-ounce packages of cream cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
3/4 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla

If you're making the cheesecake all in the same day, if you put the cheesecake on or near your stovetop as you're doing everything else, it's just about the perfect softness to work with when you get to this point. If it's too firm, mixing it is a pain in the ass.

Set the oven back to 300 degrees.

Beat the cream cheese and sugar together with an electric mixer until smooth. Then add the eggs one at a time. (Last year, a pastry chef at a cooking demo shared that she liked to work with all her ingredients at room temperature, and that eggs should always be added one at a time. I don't know why, but it works--you get a much smoother product). Beat in the sour cream and vanilla. (Today, I discovered I was out of vanilla, so I substituted a half teaspoon of lemon extract.)

Pour about two thirds of the cheese mixture into the cooled crust. Then spoon about half the lemon curd on top of that. Take a knife and make pretty swirlies through the curd--but don't let the knife hit the crust below. Repeat this with the remaining cheese and curd.

Bake the cheesecake until its set to about 1 and a half inches from the edge--the center should still be a little loosey goosey. It'll set while it's cooling. The baking time is about 45-50 minutes. Transfer the pan to a cooling rack, and cool there for about two hours, then transfer to the fridge and let it cool at least f hours before serving.

It sounds intense, but it really is an easy recipe. And I love love love the results.