This past week I’ve been doing a lot of tweeting and facebook questioning, trying to find the perfect cheesecake recipe. With the help of a lot of experienced bakers (like Lori at My Wooden Spoon) and friends, I got plenty of helpful opinions and even more recipe variations. In the end, I just decided to wing it. LOL I know, that sounds strange, especially when it comes to baking, everything is about exact measurements and here I am just tossing out numbers and ingredients praying whatever I make comes out edible.
In the end, I came out pretty proud of myself. I not only baked my first cheesecake, but I baked one that 1) didn’t crack and 2) tasted absolutely awesome! In the future, I will do more experimenting with different ingredients because I’m looking for a cheesecake that is a bit more dense, but this sure wasn’t bad at all for a first try.
The first part was the fun part and a great way to get the kids involved. My daughter, Kaydence, just loves being in the kitchen with me, so I happily put her in charge of crushing the vanilla wafers to create a golden crust.
Once the cookies and sugar were rolled as fine as we could get them we added the melted butter to create the base of the cheesecake.
I popped the crust in the preheated oven while I made the cheesecake filling to allow it to set and get crispy.
In my KitchenAid mixer, we tossed in the room temperature cream cheese, along with flour and sugar. There seems to be a bit of debate on whether or not to use flour, it appears some also use cornstarch, but in the end, I decided to give it a try.
The best part of the process was popping the top on the Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Bean Paste. Last week I had mentioned that using real vanilla beans to create Vanilla Bean Buttercream can be a bit expensive. Well, a more affordable option is the Neilsen-Massey Vanilla Bean Paste. It’s made with real vanilla and has all of those beautiful specks of from the bean already mixed in. You can use it just like vanilla extract in your recipes.
This one 4 oz bottle can be bought for around $10 and definitely will provide you with enough to use in dozens of recipes. Compared to buying vanilla beans at almost $5 each, this is a steal!
My daughter added a tablespoon of the vanilla bean paste (which smelled absolutely divine) to the cheesecake batter, along with melted white chocolate.
After more reading on cheesecakes, I found that the best way to bake one evenly is to wrap the pan in aluminum foil and bake it in a water bath to help distribute the heat evenly. You just place the wrapped pan right into a large pan of water and bake.
The result – an incredible cheesecake. It came out so smooth and creamy. While many people like to top cheesecake with fruit, this one just needed a bed of white chocolate shavings.
Recipe: White Chocolate Cheesecake
Crust Ingredients
- 4 cups vanilla wafers
- 1/2 cup melted butter
- 1/4 cup white sugar
Filling Ingredients
- 3 (8 oz packages) Philadelphia cream cheese
- 3/4 cup white sugar
- 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
- 3 large eggs
- 1 tablespoon Nielsen-Massey Vanilla Bean Paste
- 1 (4 oz) Ghirardelli White Chocolate Baking Bar
Topping Ingredients
- 1 (4 oz) Ghirardelli White Chocolate Baking Bar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.
- Grease a 10 inch springform baking pan and wrap the outside with aluminum foil.
- Place the baking pan in a larger baking pan filled with 2 inches of warm water.
- In a large ziplock bag, combine vanilla wafers and sugar.
- Crush with a rolling pin until the crumbs are very fine.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine crushed wafers and melted butter. Mix well.
- Press the crumbs in the bottom of the springform pan evenly.
- With an electric mixer, beat together cream cheese, flour and sugar.
- Add eggs one at a time and combine.
- Add vanilla bean paste and combine.
- Add melted chocolate bar and combine.
- Spread cheesecake batter over the crumb crust and bake for approximately 70 – 75 minutes.
- Allow the cheesecake to cool in the oven for one hour and refrigerate overnight.
- Top with white chocolate shavings.
The Vanilla Bean Paste featured was provided free of cost to me by the manufacturer or representing PR agency. Opinions expressed are my own and are NOT influenced by monetary compensation.
About Cat Davis
That looks delicious! I need to bake something for a Dessert Auction. I am doing a giant cookie and that looks like something that isn’t too hard to make either.
OMG that looks so yummy…. We LOVE cheesecake. The other night hubs made me go to walmart to get one of their specialty ones and him and DD at almost all of it… After looking at the calorie count 400 a slice I could only bring myself to eat one…. I will have to try this one day.
That looks delicious!! I may have to try that!!
I got some Neilson-Massey vanilla, too. I can’t wait to try it out!
Oh wow, thanks for all of the tips. Especially on the vanilla bean paste…I’d never heard of that before. I love how you have your LO’s helping you, that’s so great to see!
LOOKS FABULOUS woman!!!! I am drooling! I think your version is fantastic and might just have to give it a try come Memorial weekend:)
Thanks Lori! Let me know if you try it. This poor cheesecake has been attacked by the family and all I have left is one slice I hid deep in the fridge for myself. lol
Oh Cat, cheesecake is definitely the key to my heart. I was just going to make one this past week but my pampered chef springform pan is MIA! So I either have to search high and low for it in my basement or bite the bullet and buy a new one. I’m thinking I’ll end up buying a new one from Wilton!
You know, I was getting ready to make the cheesecake on Friday when I realized the springform pan I borrowed from my mom was missing. I must have accidentally returned it to her. LOL
So anyways, I went to Meijers and found a 3 pack of springform pans from Wilton for $15. The set included an 8 in, 9in and 10in. I thought for sure they must have mislabeled the price, but nope, they were just super cheap and worked like a charm.
I am not a huge cheesecake fan like my wife but that sure does look tasty plus vanilla to boot. Double Yum! Don’t eat it all at one time. LOL.
NUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM Okay, now that my hips are a couple inches wider from just looking at this stuff and it looks soooooooooooooooo good, I need to get up and go wipe my chin from drooling all over myself! I totally luv cheesecake, any kind of cheesecake. Guess I inherited that from my Dad. He was a cheesecake man too! That looks so good & pretty easy to make, huh! Okay, save me a nice big slice!!!
yummmmmmmm quick, easy and delicious! thanks for sharing the recipe, I’ll definitely have to try it.
Cheese Cake is my most favorite in the whole wide world. It is so easy to make. Hmmm, guess what I’m making this week?
It not only looks yummy, it’s pretty! Can you get that bean paste at any supermarket?
Hi Tiff, here’s the link to the store locator for the vanilla bean paste. I haven’t seen it in our local stores but I know you can buy it online on Amazon.
http://www.nielsenmassey.com/wheretobuy.htm
This looks amazing! Thanks so much for sharing! Maybe one of these days I’ll get the courage to try it in the kitchen! Hehe
You should Michelle. Believe me, I was scared of attempting this one but it’s a lot easier than I had thought. It’s just the prep work that takes a bit of time.
Well this is just wonderful! I was looking for a vanilla cheesecake recipe earlier this week and couldn’t really find one that sounded right. I will definitely be making this as soon as I can get all the ingredients together. Thanks!
Let me know if you try it. I looked at a lot of different recipes and they were all so different so I ended up just pulling ingredients from this and that and it just happened to work out. Yah for luck!
Hello Cat! I just wanted to pop in and thank you for mentioning our Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Bean Paste. As you mentioned, it truly is a time and money saver! Keep up the great work and writing!
Best Regards,
Matt Nielsen
Nielsen-Massey Vanillas
This looks yummylicious!!!
purposedrivenlife4you at gmail dot com
You know I don’t think I ever wanted cheesecake as much as I do now
It is beautiful and I want it…NOW
I am not a fan of cheesecake (yes I know I’m weird), but it does look good. Beautiful job!
Oh yum! Cheesecake is awesome. That vanilla looks divine!
I so love cheescake and will be trying out your fabulous recipe, thank-you for posting!
I LOVE white chocolate – may I have a slice, please?