Entry tags:
Baby Steps
It's been a long time since I did anything particularly creative. I mean, years. Almost all the spoons have gone to caregiving, to clearing out Mom's house, to processing loss and other related things. I've written the occasional snippets, mostly left unfinished. I've started a few knitting projects, likewise unfinished. But as of about ten days ago I'm done with Mom's house, and I'd wondered if something might break loose. And something sort of has. I made a recipe. So I'm putting it here.
This started life as the Israeli Cheesecake recipe from an article in the Forward on Cheesecake for Shavuot. I really did intend to follow the recipe. Except I couldn’t find pot cheese, so I substituted ricotta. And the local grocery didn’t have a good quality plain yogurt that wasn’t fat free, so I got vanilla yogurt, which of course already had sugar in it, so I cut out the sugar the original recipe called for. And it just looked really bland and…you get the picture. There really isn't much of the original left.
RICOTTA CHEESECAKE
Preheat oven to 400º F
Butter a 9” springform pan, or coat with non-stick spray. Put on a sheet of foil on a cookie sheet to prevent having to clean an unholy mess later. Set aside
Ingredients:
1 ½ pounds whole-milk ricotta (you can use low-fat, but it will change the texture. Don’t even think about fat free.)
3 large or extra-large eggs
1 cup whole milk or low fat vanilla yogurt
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup sour cream
½ cup honey
1 cup raisins
1 tsp ground ginger
In a large mixing bowl, beat together ricotta, eggs, yogurt and vanilla until very smooth. Add sour cream and mix until very smooth and creamy.
Combine honey and raisins in a heat-proof microwave safe measuring cup and heat until the honey is very thin and the raisins start to plump up, about a minute. Stir well. Add ginger, stir in, and heat for another 15 seconds. Stir into ricotta mixture.
Pour into springform pan. Put in the oven and bake at 400º F for 30 minutes. Turn the temperature down to 325º F and bake for another hour. Place pan, still on foil, on a wire rack to cool a bit. When it’s cool enough to pick up without oven mitts, put it in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours or overnight.
In theory, at that point you should be able to remove the outer ring, unmold it, and serve it. I wouldn’t know. I haven’t had more than half of one survive to the following morning, let alone long enough to unmold for dinner the following day. It does, on the other hand, make a lovely breakfast.
This started life as the Israeli Cheesecake recipe from an article in the Forward on Cheesecake for Shavuot. I really did intend to follow the recipe. Except I couldn’t find pot cheese, so I substituted ricotta. And the local grocery didn’t have a good quality plain yogurt that wasn’t fat free, so I got vanilla yogurt, which of course already had sugar in it, so I cut out the sugar the original recipe called for. And it just looked really bland and…you get the picture. There really isn't much of the original left.
RICOTTA CHEESECAKE
Preheat oven to 400º F
Butter a 9” springform pan, or coat with non-stick spray. Put on a sheet of foil on a cookie sheet to prevent having to clean an unholy mess later. Set aside
Ingredients:
1 ½ pounds whole-milk ricotta (you can use low-fat, but it will change the texture. Don’t even think about fat free.)
3 large or extra-large eggs
1 cup whole milk or low fat vanilla yogurt
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup sour cream
½ cup honey
1 cup raisins
1 tsp ground ginger
In a large mixing bowl, beat together ricotta, eggs, yogurt and vanilla until very smooth. Add sour cream and mix until very smooth and creamy.
Combine honey and raisins in a heat-proof microwave safe measuring cup and heat until the honey is very thin and the raisins start to plump up, about a minute. Stir well. Add ginger, stir in, and heat for another 15 seconds. Stir into ricotta mixture.
Pour into springform pan. Put in the oven and bake at 400º F for 30 minutes. Turn the temperature down to 325º F and bake for another hour. Place pan, still on foil, on a wire rack to cool a bit. When it’s cool enough to pick up without oven mitts, put it in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours or overnight.
In theory, at that point you should be able to remove the outer ring, unmold it, and serve it. I wouldn’t know. I haven’t had more than half of one survive to the following morning, let alone long enough to unmold for dinner the following day. It does, on the other hand, make a lovely breakfast.