Best Strawberry Cheesecake and Sauce Recipe
About Cheesecakes
Cheesecake is a popular dessert that consists of a layer of soft cheese (sometimes interspersed with thin layers of sauce or syrup) laid on top of a crunchy base. The base is usually made from biscuits such as graham crackers or digestives. Sometimes these cakes are decorated using fruit, chocolate, sauce, nuts, or a mixture of these.
Evidence (such as recipe books) suggests that the Ancient Greeks ate cheesecakes, and the dessert was adopted by the Romans. In 1872, an "unripened," heavier sort of cheese was accidentally created when William Lawrence of New York attempted to duplicate Neufchatel (a French cheese). In 1912, James Kraft used the cheese developed by Lawrence as a base for his now-famous Philadelphia Cream Cheese. This is the most commonly used brand of cheese used in the baking of cheesecake.
Cheesecakes can be baked or unbaked, and come in a huge variety of flavours. These include chocolate, raspberry, coffee, Malteser, mint, lemon, blueberry, orange, cookies and cream, and peach, among others.
Strawberry Cheesecake
No-one will be able to resist this tempting combination of a soft cream cheese filling and crunchy biscuit base. The tangy strawberry sauce makes this cheesecake especially delicious. Serve it up to some house guests and sit back as the compliments come flowing in.
Rating
Cook Time for Strawberry Cheesecake
Ingredients for Strawberry Cheesecake & Strawberry Sauce
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1/3 cup butter, melted
- 1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 2 (10 ounce) packs frozen, sweetened strawberries, thawed
- 3 (8 ounce) packs cream cheese, softened
- 1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- 3 eggs
Method
- Combine the sugar, butter and graham cracker crumbs in a bowl and press them down into the bottom of an ungreased 9inch spring-form pan. Leave it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
- Toss the cornstarch and strawberries into a blender, cover it, and blend them together until the resulting sauce is smooth and free of lumps.
- Empty the sauce into a saucepan, bring it to the boil, and continue to boil and stir it for 2 minutes. Set 1/3 cup of the sauce to one side.
- Pour the rest of the strawberry sauce into a container and let it cool, before covering it and placing it in the refrigerator until you are ready to serve the cheesecake.
- Place all of the cream cheese in a mixing bowl and beat it until it takes on a light and fluffy texture, then beat the condensed milk in gradually.
- Mix the lemon juice into the concoction and add the eggs, beating the mixture on low only until they've combined: no longer.
- Pour half of the cream cheese mixture over the graham cracker crust.
- Drizzle half of the reserved 1/3 cup of strawberry sauce over the cream cheese mixture, adding 1/2 teaspoonful at a time.
- Carefully scoop the remaining cream cheese mixture on top of this, then drizzle the remainder of the reserved 1/3 cup strawberry sauce on top, adding 1/2 teaspoonful at a time.
- Cut through the top layer of strawberry sauce only, and swirl it around with the knife's tip.
- Bake the cake at 300°F (150°C) for a period of 45 - 50 minutes, or until the centre of the cake has almost set.
- Cool the cheesecake on a wire cooling rack for 10 minutes and run the blade of a knife around the edge of the pan to loosen it, then leave it to cool for a further hour.
- Refrigerate the cake overnight, then remove the side of the pan the next day. Drizzle slices of the cake with the strawberry sauce just before serving.
Useful Equipment
Notes & Tips
-Store the cake in the refrigerator. Do not place any other food or containers directly on top of the cake.
-In step 2, the strawberry sauce can be blended using a food processor if you do not have access to a countertop blender.
-If the strawberry sauce is too thick, thin it by adding roughly 1 tablespoon of water to it and mixing them together.
-Sample a piece of the cake before you pour any of the strawberry sauce over it. Some members of my family felt that the sauce in the cake was enough, whilst others preferred it with more sauce poured on top.
-If you prefer your cheesecakes with a little less cream cheese filling, use only 2 packs instead of 3.
-If you wish to sweeten the cheesecake filling a little, add 1 teaspoon vanilla to the mixture mentioned in steps 5 and 6. Mix it in right before you add the lemon juice.
-If you wish to add a little more flavour to the cake's crunchy base, add 2 teaspoons of cinnamon to the mixture described in step 1.
-If you live in a part of the world where graham crackers are not readily available, Digestive biscuits are a good substitute.
