New York Cheesecake

My Oma (what we call my grandmother on my mom's side) has won contests with her cheesecake recipe. It's so good. It's one of the things I associate with Oma. The other things include chocolate ices (milk, ice and chocolate syrup in a blender), Kashi cereal (that's what she always ate) and diet orange soda. Spending so much time with her when I was young I learned a lot about baking from her. Since cheesecake is an "Oma staple", I have always loved making it... and eating it. I tweaked her recipe to better suit my American taste buds. She has said it's better than hers..... That's kind of a big deal :)

 

Her recipe had a lot more lemon in the filling and fresh strawberries with a strawberry glaze on top. I'm a simple girl. No fruit on my cheesecake please. Just give it to me straight. This is how I make it....

 

This picture is not mine. It belongs to www.browneyedbaker.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NEW YORK CHEESECAKE

 

Time

Prep: 15 min 
Total: 5 hr 25 min
Servings: 16 servings

 

Ingredients

1 cup Nilla Wafer crumbs (about 1/3-1/2 a box), finely crushed

3 Tbsp. butter, melted
5 pkg.  (8 oz. each) Cream Cheese, softened
1 cup  sugar
3 Tbsp.  flour
1 Tbsp.  vanilla
1 cup  Sour Cream
4  eggs
Zest of 1 lemon
Juice of 1 lemon

Directions
 

Heat oven to 325ºF if using 9-inch springform pan (or to 300ºF if using a dark nonstick 9-inch springform pan).

 

Mix Nilla wafer crumbs and butter; press onto bottom of pan. Bake 10 min. Remove from the oven and allow to cool while preparing the filling.

 

Beat cream cheese, 1 cup sugar, flour and vanilla with mixer until blended. Add sour cream; mix well. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing on low after each just until blended; stir in the lemon juice and zest; pour over crust.

 

Bake 60-70 minutes or until center is almost set. Turn the oven off and barely crack the door and let the cheesecake remain in the oven to completely cool. Refrigerate 4 hours (preferably overnight). Run knife around rim of pan to loosen cake; cool before removing rim.

 

Notes

 

**If you don't have the time or it is inconvenient, you can take the cheesecake out of the oven and let it cool on the counter or on a rack. Leaving it in the oven with the door cracked just allows it to set a little more evenly. It'll be good either way :)

 

**You can make this in a 13"x9" pan. Just line the pan with foil, press the crumbs into the pan and make the rest the same way. 40 min. or until center is almost set. Cool completely. Refrigerate 4 hours. Use foil handles to lift cheesecake from pan before cutting to serve.

 

**You can make this with a graham cracker crust. Just use 1 cup of graham cracker crumbs, 3T. sugar and 3T. butter for the crust. You could also use Oreos, shortbread, any type of cookie really.