Cranberry Swirl Cheesecake from Cooking Light

First issue of my new Cooking Light subscription finally showed up in my mailbox, and I couldn't resist the cover photography of this beautiful cheesecake with red cranberry swirl. I made it within next couple of days. And I have to say the cheesecake is amazing. Very light and airy with decadent flavor. Definitely a keeper! Great for Holiday season. [It was almost gone before I had a chance to even think of photographing it.]




The cranberry sauce swirl can be replaced with any other fruit swirl, or even a chocolate. The bottom of the cheesecake can be mad with regular Nilla wafers, or graham crackers. If you don't like fruit, i would recommend making white chocolate ganache, or even milk chocolate ganache on top of it to add extra flavor. The base cheese mixture is made using 1/3-less fat cream cheese and fat free yogurt, which helps to keep calories down.

Below is the recipe to save you time for researching the internet.


Crust:
4 ounces chocolate graham crackers
[I used Nilla wafers and 2 TBSP of cocoa powder]
3 tablespoons canola oil

Cranberry Compote/Sauce:
1 1/2 cups fresh cranberries
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup Chambord (raspberry liqueur)
3 tablespoons water

Cheesecake:
1 cup sugar
2 (8 oz.) packages block-style 1/3-less-fat cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup (4 oz.) block-style fat-free cream cheese, softened
1 cup plain fat-free Greek yogurt [I used regular fat free yogurt, not Greek]
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs [I added 4 eggs and skipped egg whites step]
2 large egg whites

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 375°. Wrap outside and bottom of a 9-inch springform pan tightly with a double layer of heavy-duty foil.
Place crackers in a food processor; process until finely ground. Drizzle with oil; pulse until combined. Press mixture into bottom and 1/2 inch up sides of prepared pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 375° for 8 minutes; cool on a rack.
Reduce oven temperature to 325°.
Place cranberries, sugar, liqueur, and water in a saucepan; boil. Cook 8 minutes or until cranberries pop and mixture is syrupy. Cool 20 minutes. Place mixture in a food processor; process 1 minute or until smooth.
Combine 1 cup sugar and cheeses in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until smooth. Beat in yogurt, vanilla, and salt. Add whole eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.
Place 2 egg whites in a medium bowl; beat with a mixer at high speed until soft peaks form using clean, dry beaters. Fold beaten egg whites into cream cheese mixture. Pour filling over crust. Spoon cranberry mixture over filling; swirl together using the tip of a knife. Place springform pan in a 13 x 9-inch metal baking pan. Add hot water to pan to a depth of 2 inches. Bake at 325° for 50 minutes or until center of cheesecake barely moves when pan is touched.
Turn oven off. Cool cheesecake in closed oven 30 minutes. Remove cheesecake from oven. Run a knife around outside edge. Cool on a wire rack. Cover and chill 8 hours.

[Photo courtesy of Cooking Light]

Mango Cheesecake

Indie Cafe in Chicago has this awesome mango cheesecake on their menu. Ever since I tried this wonderful, creamy dessert I have been trying to recreate it. I have to say, it's not as easy as I thought. I did quite a lot of research and apparently it is very hard to achieve this great "mango-ey" flavor I remember from Indie Cafe. In my cheesecake I used fresh mangoes and a mango puree thinking that might give me more flavor than just using fresh mangoes. I read several reviews on different blogs/sites, and there was a lot of complains that the mango flavor was just not strong enough.

For the crust, I used graham crackers with melted butter and a little bit of sugar. And I experimented with the cheese mixture portion. The final effect was pretty good... maybe a little too moist... so there is definitely room for improvement there. One thing I thought was great, is the taste - it was creamy, smooth and mango-ey! :)




For Crust: 1 1/2 cups of graham cracker crumbs mix with 1/2 cup of sugar and 3/4 of a stick of melted butter (unsalted). Stir cracker crumbs with sugar and add melted butter, mix until moistened. Lightly butter 9 " springform pan and press crumb mixture onto the bottom of the pan. Preheat oven to 325 F/160 C, bake until crust is set, about 12 minutes.

For Cheese Filling:
1 1/2 cups mango puree (from the can)
1 cup fresh mango - pureed in food processor or blender
3 8oz packages of cream cheese, room temperature
3/4 cup of granulated sugar
3/4 cup of condensed milk
1 vanilla sugar/2 tsp. vanilla
4 larg eggs
2 - 3 TBS fresh lemon juice (brings out the mango flavor)
3 TBS pudding powder

Beat cream cheese, sugar, vanilla sugar until smooth adding 1 TBS of condensed milk at the time. Add mango puree, mix well. Add eggs one at the time, beating well after each addition, add lemon juice and pudding powder to incorporate. Pour the cheesake mixture over the crust. Bake until set, puffed and golden around the edges, about 1 hr and 25 minutes. Cool 1 hour, refrigerate uncovered overnight. Serve with mango slices or mango puree. {I run out of mangoes, and served it with a blackberry and mint.}

This recipe is combining couple of my cheesecake recipes... basically taking bits and pieces of other recipes... the cheesecake was super moist, so maybe next time less mango puree or less condensed milk... oh, and while I was making it - I constantly tasted my cheesecake mix, making sure that it's not too sweet or too sour... making sure it tasted good... and that definitely helped. The cheesecake tasted pretty darn good!



Oh, and maybe next time I will use champagne mangoes instead of the regular ones {on the picture}... I think they might have more flavor...

White Chocolate and Raspberry Cheesecake

Another great cheesecake recipe. I found this one on line and I made it several time. Valentine's Day is on it's way and this could be THE dessert to finish the romantic dinner for two!

I changed the recipe a little. Adding some sour cream to the cheese mixture will make it smoother, and I use more wafer cookies and less almonds, so the crust have a nice hint of almond, but doesn't over power it. My husband is not a fruit lover, so I always make it plain, and than I can dress individual portions with raspberry sauce and fresh raspberries.

Crust

• 22 vanilla wafer cookies
• 1/2 cup almonds, crushed or grated
  
• 4 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Filling

• 4 ounces imported white chocolate (such as Lindt), chopped
• 2 8-ounce packages cream cheese, room temperature
• 1/2 cup sour cream (or less, depends on the consistency of your cream cheese)
  
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3/4 teaspoon grated lemon peel
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup fresh raspberries or frozen unsweetened, thawed, drained
  

Topping

• 1 8-ounce container sour cream
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Raspberry Topping

• 2 1/2-pint baskets raspberries or one 1-pint basket strawberries
• 1/2 cup seedless raspberry jam

For crust:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Place large piece of foil on heavy large baking sheet. Set 8x2-inch bottomless heart-shaped cake pan atop foil. (If unavailable, use 8-inch springform pan; omit foil.) Wrap foil around outside and 1 inch up sides of pan. Butter foil and pan. Finely grind cookies and almonds in processor. Add butter and blend until mixture forms very moist crumbs. Using plastic wrap as aid, press crumbs firmly onto bottom and 2 inches up sides of pan. Bake until golden, about 10 minutes. Cool. Maintain oven temperature.

For Filling:
Melt white chocolate in top of double boiler over simmering water until smooth, stirring often. Remove from over water. Using electric mixer, beat cream cheese, sugar, vanilla and peel in large bowl until smooth. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating just until combined. Beat in white chocolate.

Spoon half of batter into crust. Top with 3/4 cup berries. Spoon remaining batter over. Bake until edges of cake are set but center 3 inches still moves when cake is shaken, about 45 minutes. Cool 20 minutes. Maintain oven temperature. Using fingertips, press down gently on edges of cheesecake to flatten slightly.

For topping:
Whisk sour cream, sugar and vanilla in bowl. Spoon over cake, spreading to edge of pan. Bake 5 minutes. Transfer cake in pan to rack. Run small knife around sides of cake. Cool completely. Chill cake overnight.

Fold down foil along sides of pan. Lift cake pan off cheesecake. Transfer cheesecake to platter, discarding foil. Cover cake with berries. Bring jam to simmer in small saucepan, stirring often. Gently brush jam over berries. (Can be prepared 3 hours ahead; chill.)

Coconut Cheesecake

I'm a sucker for CHEESECAKES! I love all of them. No exceptions, no... actually except the ones that don't taste good... I have a few great cheesecake recipes I tried and I like. One of them is this awesome coconut cheesecake I found on-line. You can serve it with all kinds of fresh fruit, or fruit puree, tastes great with a tropical flavor like mango. Or if you like it plain, like my husband (he's not a big fruit fan) it will taste just fine. The recipe is very simple and easy.



Crust:
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 1/2 cups sweetened shredded coconut, toasted
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted

Wrap outside of 9 inch diameter spring-form pan with aluminum foil. Mix graham crackers crumbs, coconut and sugar in the medium bowl, add butter and mix to blend. Press mixture to bottom and sides of prepared pan. (I usually bake it for 10-15 minutes in the oven before I pour cheese mixture)

Cheese filling:
32 oz cream cheese (room temp)
3/4 cup of sugar
3 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
1 (15 oz) can cream of coconut
1 cup whipping cream
1 cup sweetened shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Beat cream cheese and sugar in large bowl until blended (believe me you need the largest bowl you have...), add eggs 1 at a time,beating after each addition. Beat in egg yolk. Add cream of coconut, whipping cream and shredded coconut**, beat until blended. Pour into crust. Bake cheesecake until puffed and golden, about 1 hour and 25 minutes. Transfer to rack and cool completely. Refrigerate until well chilled.

Serve with purred mango. YUMMM... raspberries or anything you want...

** shredded coconut can be stringy, and I actually did not like it, I like my cheesecake smooth, so I think next time I make it, I will either skip the coconut completely or maybe run it through the food processor...