Daring Bakers: Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake

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

I happen to love cheesecake, so I was excited by this choice. I knew I would want to do something different with it though and therein was the challenge for me. I couldn't make up my mind. I made a toffee cheesecake a while back for Tuesdays with Dorie which was insanely good, but I didn't want to just do the same thing here.

I finally decided on a chocolate crust, substituting homemade chocolate wafer cookies, a vanilla bean flavored cheesecake batter, and topping it off with some small strawberries brushed with a little warmed strawberry jam for extra sweetness and shine.

Recipe from Smitten Kitchen

I also decided, in honor of the Blogging for Babies event, to make my cheesecake in my mini loaf pan as individual bar sized cheesecakes. It was fun and easy. To save on frustration with attempting to remove the cheesecake bars from the pan I just made a mini 'sling' out of parchment paper to place in each cavity. If you don't have a mini loaf pan you could easily do the same thing with muffin tins.

This cheesecake was very good and was easy to work with, but I have to admit that my favorite cheesecake recipe, hands down, is still the one from Dorie Greenspan. I dream of that cheesecake - the flavor, texture and ease of preparation, are all perfect in my book.

You can visit the Daring Bakers at their new home at The Daring Kitchen to see more amazing cheesecakes!