Alton Brown's Sour Cream Cheesecake | Food Network

think about it aside of course from the crust a basic cheesecake only contains some sugar vanilla eggs and dairy it's a custard no matter how you cut it in fact the only real difference between a cheesecake and a cream pie is that most of the dairy in the Cheesecake comes in the form of a soft smooth tangy cow's milk cheese containing no less than 33% milk that and no more than 55 percent moisture known far and wide as cream cheese now well I also like to use a little whipping cream and some sour cream to up the tangy 'no sand to soften the batter softer batter richer cake and since the cheese is a little on the bricky side right now I'm gonna keep all this on the counter for a few minutes to warm up most if peace of mind comes for the price of a single piece of parchment paper long line how long well long enough so that when it's unfurled to completely cover the inside walls of the pan now cut out one corner making sure that it's wider in all directions than the pan is itself got it okay now fold it over side to side kind of like you're starting a paper airplane and then fold it over and to end handkerchief then fold a corner to corner no this is an origami trust me and one more time so that you got kind of a calm hold the point of this coming over the center of the pan measure to the edge and then cut to fit all right now set that aside and I get some melted butter and just brush the inside of the pan make sure you get the corners and the walls all the way to the top open up your cone and well would you look at that every time I take your knife kind of measure the wall and kind of measure that out on the Romanian parchment I'm gonna kind of strip just as tall as the wall is if it's a little bit taller that's okay if it's shorter that's not so okay and just make sure that you can press it right up against the walls you're covered unlike pastry crust who's finicky temperament has been well-documented through the ages the oppressed or crumb crusts under which cheesecakes are built are actually no brainers all you need is some old cakes and cookies or maybe some crackers in this case the classic graham crackers I'd say about thirty three of them to be exact the other secret are prepping this crust is that you don't want to chop these up too fine you want to crush on them by hand Jero you can do in a food processor but it'd be way too even you want to end up with lots of big pieces integrated with a lot of little bitty crumbs perfect now this goes into one stick that's half a cup of unsalted butter and add to that one tablespoon of sugar now stir thoroughly just to get everything moistened well this we're gonna add straight to the pan but we're not gonna add all of it we're only gonna add about two thirds of it there we go don't worry we'll save the rest of that for later now if this loose amalgam of crumbs is gonna come together to form a cohesive crust we're gonna have to add a little bit of pressure I think that an empty glass does a really good job but I think that an empty glass was some weight doesn't even better job so just start in the middle and tamp around now this goes into a 300-degree oven for 10 minutes batter building begins by putting your paddle attachment on your mixer the first thing that goes in is one and a quarter cup of sour cream and we're going to mix that by itself for a few seconds on medium-high speed now why in the world would you mix one ingredient by itself lubrication by covering the inside of the bowl with sour cream and of course the paddle we're gonna make it so that the the cream cheese that's coming is not gonna be able to stick it's not gonna be able to get hold and that's gonna make the batter come together a lot quicker there we go now 20 ounces of cream cheese that's about 2 and 1/2 packages I said it was good I didn't say it was fat-free there we go and I'm gonna go ahead and add a cup of sugar now not only is the sugar an important agent of flavoring but it's also going to work as is kind of an abrasive and help this batter come together you need to start at a very low speed though where the sugars gonna end up in the floor as soon as the sugar is moist you can go ahead and turn it up to medium now it's gonna look like kind of cottage cheese for a long time let it go it's gonna break down and kind of look like a cream cheese icing will be smooth just like that in the meantime combine 1/3 of a cup of cream with a tablespoon of vanilla extract and 3 egg yolks and two whole eggs okay now stop do not add this to this without scraping down the side of this bowl first because the batter cannot come together if everything stuck to the side of the bowl and make sure you get all the way down in the bottom a rubber spatula is really the only way to do this there also wipe off the paddle you can see there's still some some chunks of the cream cheese in there so it's got a little more work to get back on medium it's okay to go ahead and start adding the liquid but do it very very slowly once you've got half of the liquid in stop and take a look at the batter it should be coming together pretty nicely at this point go ahead and stop and scrape one more time this may seem like a really small thing but it is the big difference between just an iffy cheesecake and a cheesecake that's really light and fluffy there now we're going to turn up the speed a little bit higher out the side and add the last of the liquid it's batter time go ahead and turn your oven down to 250 and get that crust out of there now this has to cool down thoroughly before the batter is introduced okay ten minutes on the counter or you're going to end up with a pool of fat down at the bottom not good eats in the meantime bring two quarts of water to a boil pour in your batter making sure to scrape out every last bit of goodness there before you go to the oven give it a little twist just to make sure you get all the air bubbles out and if any float up to the top but don't break on their own give them a little bit of help there now since this is a true custard we will be cooking it in a hot water bath of course that's going to mean another pan now you could just put it in a roasting pan but if you've got one it's always nice to go with the same shape just bigger this pan goes right in the middle of the oven and I like to put a towel right down in the bottom it's gonna add some extra insulation it's also going to prevent water from splashing up when we pour it in now the cheesecake goes in the middle of that but push it over to one side just for now they're all the water you only need to add enough to come about 2/3 up the side of the cheesecake you don't have to go any higher than that or you'll just steam the cake now you can start to appreciate the one-piece pan approach maybe a springform well they leak it's just the way they are and now I don't know about you but I'm not interested in making soup here there we go usually takes about two quarts for me now we move this back right into the middle and push it right on doesn't look done doesn't look done at all does it you know what it isn't but that's okay because just like scrambled eggs if a cheesecake looks done in the pan it's going to be overdone on the plate it's just like a roast you have to take carryover into account the temperature is going to continue to go up so what I like to do is just leave it in the oven turn the oven off open the door for one minute to let the hot air out and then just close the door and leave it for one more hour an hour is gone by and that looks nice now obviously when we get this out you don't to pick up this pan or you'll slosh water into this pan which would be a bad idea so this goes straight into the refrigerator for six hours I said it was easy I didn't say it was fast nothing left now but the slicin

Channel: Food Network

Views: 828,833

Rating: 4.8876624 out of 5

Keywords: Good Eats, Food Network, Alton Brown, cooking techniques, Sour Cream (Food), Cheesecake (Dish), how to

Id: L-rLiYl-b1E

Length: 9min 15sec (555 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 04 2010