The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

Apologies for the late posting of my completed Daring Bakers challenge for April. We've had huge broadband problems and our connection has been up and down like a yo-yo for a while. Typically, it decided to give up the ghost for a couple of days when it was time to put up my first challenge; I was going to try and get some time at work, but its been manic again there too. I was absolutely gutted as I'd managed to get the cheesecake baked and deavoured in time for the challenge deadline date but the powers of BT were conspiring against me. Anyway, we're back online, thanks to the fantastic customer service of O2! So anyway, its better late than never, I suppose!

I need to apologise for my lack of photos. The challenge was completed for a friend's dinner dessert and I'd been baking a huge batch of cupcakes too so I didn't get any 'action' photos. Plus, by the time it got to cutting and eating the cheesecake, we'd had a couple of glasses of wine in celebration of her birthday, so they were not the best.  I've also been getting used to the Other Half's lovely SLR, and these were taken on my little point and shoot that really isn't the best for taking food shots. I've had a look at them and they are horrific, completely blurry, white light from the flash and generally the poorest photos I've ever taken. However, some lovely person did take some photos, that will be ten times better than these appaling ones I have here; so I'll see if I can grab copies and up load those as soon as possible...

So then, let's get on with the challenge...

This month's challenge was to take a basic cheesecake recipe and have a play with it, give it a tweak here and there and generally get creative with crusts and flavours... anything goes! The cheesecake recipe called for a US-style 'Graham Cracker' base, however, when I've made cheesecake before I've always gone with a crushed digestive biscuit base. I just love the taste and texture; I was going to go for a Oreo style base at first but when I'd decide on my flavour combination, digestive definitely came out as the best combination. I must confess that I can't take all the inspiration for the flavours; I put suggestions to the vote at work and the Guys came back with a 'Toffee Apple' style cheesecake. I'd been wanting to do something with apples over the last couple of months, and didn't fancy a straight forward apple pie, so this seems a perfect opportunity.

The crust was a a typical biscuit crumb and butter mixture, with the addition of soft dark muscavado sugar instead of white caster sugar, that was then pressed into the bottom of a spring-form tin. Whizzing the biscuits up in the Magimix is the simplest way of crushing them to get a good texture and minimise the chance of large pieces of broken biscuit ending up in your crust.

For our apple filling, 1 large bramley apple was peeled, cored and diced then cooked in boiling water for about 2 minutes or some so that it is soft, but not mushy. The cheesecake filling was made as per the challenge recipe, and was nice and easy to put together. The filling was poured into the springform tin, so that there was a good covering on the crust. The cooked apple pieces were then scattered across the filling, and then dusted with cinnamon. The remainder of the filling was then poured over the top of the apple. The whole cheesecake was then baked in the oven as per the recipe for about an hour. I didn't chill the cheescake in the fridge as it seemed to bake to just the right consistency. However, it was kept at room temperature for 4 hours before it was served. If it hadn't been completely chaotic in the kitchen, I'd have planned my time a bit better and I'd had put the cheesecake in the fridge for an hour also. 

I had wanted to swirl in some of the Dulce de Leche into the cheesecake filling before I baked it, but I got in a right muddle and hadn't warmed the toffee sauce up, so it didn't so much swirl into the filling but was just a lump of toffee in the filling. So, the sauce was warmed up so that it was more spreadable and an hour before serving it was poured over the top of the cheesecake.

I must say that although it was particularly pretty, the cheesecake was a hit at the dinner party. The responses from everyone was that it was a cheesecake with a sort of apple crumble style combination. I was thinking that the toffee sauce might have been a bit too much, but in essence it gave a nice sweet balance to the slightly savoury, wintery taste of the cinnamon apple. I think next time, I'd try a different take on the toffee sauce aspect to the cheesecake, and I think that I'd add another apple into the mix so that there is more fruit in there, especially as it does make a rather large cheesecake.

The original recipe is below.

Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake

What You'll Need

Crust

2 cups / 180 g digestive biscuit crumbs

1 stick / 4 oz butter, melted

2 tbsp. / 24 g sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Cheesecake

3 sticks of cream cheese, 8 oz each (total of 24 oz) room temperature
1 cup / 210 g sugar

3 large eggs

1 cup / 8 oz heavy cream

1 tbsp. lemon juice

1 tbsp. vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean)

1 tbsp liqueur, optional, but choose what will work well with your cheesecake

What You'll Need to Do

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (Gas Mark 4 = 180C = Moderate heat). Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker's choice. Set crust aside.

Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.

Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done - this can be hard to judge, but you're looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don't want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won't crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve.

Pan note: The creator of this recipe used to use a springform pan, but no matter how well she wrapped the thing in tin foil, water would always seep in and make the crust soggy. Now she uses one of those 1-use foil "casserole" shaped pans from the grocery store. They're 8 or 9 inches wide and really deep, and best of all, water-tight. When it comes time to serve, just cut the foil away.

Prep notes: While the actual making of this cheesecake is a minimal time commitment, it does need to bake for almost an hour, cool in the oven for an hour, and chill overnight before it is served. Please plan accordingly!