The Best Cheesecake Ever
A very good basic cheesecake recipe
Servings 10
Ingredients
Crust
- 1 ¾ cup graham cracker crumbs
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 6 tablespoons butter, melted
Filling
- 4 8 oz packages cream cheese, softened
- 1 ⅓ cups plus 1 tablespoon sugar
- ¾ teaspoon lemon extract
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons fresh orange juice
- 3 tablespoons heavy cream
- 2 ½ tablespoons flour
- 2 large egg yolks, room temperature
- 4 large eggs, room temperature
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 475 degrees F.
- Prepare crust. Mix crumbs, sugar, and butter and press into bottom of a 9 inch springform pan.
- If you haven't already, bring all filling ingredients to room temperature. This is important.
- In large bowl, with mixer at medium speed, beat cream cheese just until smooth; slowly beat in sugar, scraping bowl often with rubber spatula. Add extracts, orange juice, cream, flour, egg yolks, and eggs; Stir until smooth. Do not beat the eggs, just stir them and try not to whip any extra air into the batter.
- Pour filling over crust and bake cheesecake for 12 minutes.
- Reduce oven heat to 300-degrees; bake 35 minutes longer. Turn off oven; let cheesecake remain in oven 30 minutes.
- Remove cheesecake from oven; cool completely in pan on wire rack. Cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours or until well chilled.
- When cheesecake is firm, with spatula, loosen pan side from cheesecake and remove cake from pan bottom; slide onto serving plate. Pour topping over center.
- If you used parchment, you can gently pull the cake onto a beautiful serving platter. Otherwise, just serve it off the pan bottom.
