Imgur Album

Special Ingredients

Mesophilic Cheese Culture

Special Equipment

Flour Sack Towels

Spring Form Pan

As I mentioned in the podcast, each one of the components will have their own recipe, and I’ll list them in the same order as they appear in the podcast and the Imgur album.

Apple Cider Syrup

Reduce apple cider by 50% and then strain through a flour sack cloth laid inside a colander suspended over a pot. Continue to reduce on moderate heat until the final volume is approximately 25% of the starting volume. The liquid will coat a spoon when hot and will be thick and sticky when cool.

Cream Cheese

To 1/2 gallon of heavy cream, add 4oz of mesophilic cheese culture. Cover the bowl with Saran Wrap and let sit at room temperature for 12-24 hours. The cream will develop into a semi-solid curd in that time. After the curd is set, dump the contents of the bowl into a flour sack cloth laid inside a bowl and tie up the corners. Hang this bundle to allow the moisture to drip out of the curd for 12-24 additional hours.

Butter

To 2 cups of heavy cream, add 1 teaspoon of salt. Beat on medium to medium high through the whip cream stage and continue until the milk fat and the buttermilk separate and you are left with a wad of salted butter and buttermilk. Dump the contents into a flour sack cloth laid inside a bowl and twist the ball of butter to express the buttermilk through the cloth. Do not twist so tightly that butter is pressed through the weave of the cloth. Transfer the ball of butter to the refrigerator until cold and firm.

Caramel

Add one tablespoon of lemon juice to 2 cups of granulated sugar and mix until fairly evenly-incorporated. In a moderately high-sided pan, heat the sugar on medium high until the sugar begins to melt. You can back off the temperature a bit to avoid having spots of sugar scorching faster than the rest. You do not need to stir the sugar. Just slowly and consistently heat the sugar until it forms a liquid pool of amber-brown syrup. Remove from the heat and carefully add 6 tablespoons of butter in 1 tablespoon increments to the hot syrup. Whisk the butter into the syrup until it’s incorporated. Add one half cup of heavy cream and continue to whisk. If the cold cream causes the syrup to solidify, return to medium heat and continue whisking until you have a brown, smooth caramel. Add a half teaspoon of salt, whisk to incorporate, and then transfer to a glass jar or bowl to cool. If you need to soften it prior to use, microwave the caramel in 15-30 second increments until it’s workable.

Graham Crackers

4oz Butter

1/3 cup Sugar

1/2 cup White Flour

1 cup Whole Wheat Flour

3/4 teaspoon Salt

1/4 teaspoon Baking Powder

1/4 teaspoon Baking Soda

1/4 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon

2 tablespoons Honey

1 tablespoon Milk

1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

In a food processor, pulse the dry ingredients to mix thoroughly. Cut the butter into small pieces, add to the dry ingredients, and pulse to incorporate until the mixture resembles that of wet sand. Add the wet ingredients and blend until the dough forms a ball. Transfer the dough to a cutting board, divide into two equal parts, and refrigerate for 30 minutes to chill and firm the dough.

Place each portion of dough between two sheets of parchment paper and roll out to 1/8” thickness. If you are just making Graham Crackers for the sake of having Graham Crackers, you can square these up into large rectangles and press dividing lines and docked holes into the surface, similar to store-bought Graham Crackers. If it’s just for Graham Cracker crust, this is unnecessary. Transfer to floured baking sheets.

Preheat the oven to 350ºF and bake for 16-20 minutes. After 8-10 minutes, rotate the baking sheets. The final crackers will be darker than they were when they went into the oven and will be exceptionally soft immediately upon withdrawal from the oven. They will stiffen as they cool.

Graham Cracker Crust

Pulse broken Graham Cracker pieces in the food processor. I started with about 2 cups of the large shards of cracker, which reduced down to 1.5 cups of cracker crumbs.

If using store-bought Graham Crackers, melt 5 tablespoons of butter and add to the crumbs. If using homemade Graham Crackers, use 3-4 tablespoons of butter, since there is a lot of butter already in the crackers. Add 2 tablespoons of sugar and a dash of salt. Mix until you have a consistent wet mix. Press this wet mix into the bottom of a spring form pan.

Preheat the oven to 375ºF and bake the crust for 10 minutes. Once it’s out of the oven, reduce the oven temperature to 325ºF in advance of baking the cheesecake. Wrap the bottom and sides of the spring form pan with heavy aluminum foil (see the linked photo album) to slow the ingress of heat into the cheesecake filling.

Cheesecake Filling (finally!)

32oz Cream Cheese

2 cups Sugar

6 Large Eggs

3 tablespoons White Flour

4 teaspoons Vanilla Extract

1 teaspoon Lemon Juice and the Zest of one Lemon

1/4 teaspoon Salt

1/2 cup Sour Cream

In a stand mixer bowl, or with a hand mixer, blend the cream cheese, flour, and sugar until smooth. Add the lemon juice/zest, vanilla, and salt and continue to mix until incorporated. On low mixing speed, add the eggs one at a time until incorporated. Finally, fold in the sour cream, being careful not to over-mix.

Pour the cheesecake filling into the spring form pan.

Transfer the spring form pan to a large roasting pan. Using an electric kettle or a pot on the stove top, boil enough water to fill the roasting pan the side of the spring form pan to a depth of 1”.

Carefully move the roasting pan full of water and cheesecake into the 325ºF oven and bake for 1 hour 30 minutes. After that time has elapsed, turn off the oven heat, check that the cheesecake filling has set, and leave everything in the cooling oven for an additional 15 minutes.

Remove from oven and allow to rest and cool on the counter for 45 minutes. After 10 minutes, run a sharp knife around the edge of the cheesecake to make sure it isn’t sticking to the side of the spring form pan. The filling will shrink down as it cools, and if it’s stuck to the sides of the pan, it may warp or crack.

After 45 minutes, transfer the cheesecake to the refrigerator to cool completely.

Finally, after what seems like a hero’s journey, pop the latch on the side of the spring form pan and remove the ring. If you are using the apple cider syrup and caramel as a toping, drizzle both over the top. Depending on how thick the syrup is, you may need to microwave it a bit to loosen it up. You’ll almost certainly need to microwave the caramel to make it, as I said several times in the podcast, drizzleable.

And that’s all she wrote.