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Mar. 6th, 2005 12:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickAsh wants cheesecake for his birthday. (He's seventeen.) He's not getting it.
Pie. For the boy. Not cheesecake. It's not even like he's my boy. I don't have a boy. This is La's boy. He's not even a relative, for heaven's sake. He doesn't really want pie, though he'll take it and be glad. He wants cheesecake. Apparently La told the boy I know how to make cheesecake because the boy was asking after cheesecake. He's only seventeen and not entirely up to speed on the whole craft-and-guile thing, so he didn't evade my "Ash, where did you get the idea that I might know how to make cheesecake?" question. (Go, go, old-age-and-treachery!) Lovely boy said "La told me you made good cheesecake." Right.
La thinks I will fall for the wiles and charms of the seventeen year old boy and make him a cheesecake that she can commandeer no small portion of as the parent of the boy. La wants me to make her a cheesecake because she's a big fan of my cheesecake. The reason that La knows what my cheesecake tastes like is that she's had it before, once. Long ago, I was dating her brother who bitched and moaned about how much he wanted a cheesecake and how much he LOVED cheesecake and how very wonderful it would be to HAVE a cheesecake. So I made him one and topped it with real sour cherries from my grandmother's cherry trees and schlepped the damn thing the two hours from where I was living to his house, whereupon he ate one very small slice and carefully explained that he didn't really like that kind of cheesecake. He'd meant the Jell-O kind of cheesecake, that pudding-ish shit that you can make in maybe five minutes on top of a stove, from a box.
It is a testament to my restraint (which people keep claiming I don't have any of, and go figure, because if that were true, there'd be a lot more corpses in my wake) that I did not slay him where he stood. I was mad. I am still mad. It does not matter how much anyone related to him wants a cheesecake, there will never be another one for them from me. It doesn't matter that this was just about ten years ago. There will be no more cheesecake from my household to that one. Period. They can eat the Jell-O shit.
Anyway, that's why Ash isn't getting cheesecake for his birthday. I did tell La that I would be happy to make him ONE cheesecake while teaching him to make the damn things so that (a) he could have one and (b) he would then know how to make them so that I wouldn't have to do it ever again. La didn't think that was too bloody likely. I didn't either, which is why I offered it. *grin* Never said I was nice...
Now, as it happens, I do know how to make cheesecake. I have an excellent recipe for cheesecake, even. I'm quite competent in the wonderful world of cheesecake. There's just a slight problem -- I don't really like cheesecake. I don't like making cheesecake. I don't like eating cheesecake. I don't like any of it. Given the amount of time and fucking around involved, there are approximately four hundred dessert recipes I like better than cheesecake, some of them I like one fuck of a lot better.
I think I will leave the making of cheesecake to the people who actually LIKE the stuff. Those who want to give it a go, the following is a handy, relatively straightforward recipe that produces a pretty solid cheesecake that people-who-like-cheesecake seem to find acceptable.
Real New York Cheesecake
1/2 cup crushed graham crackers
2 packages (8 oz) cream cheese
1 lb. creamy cottage cheese (about 2 cups)
1 1/2 cup sugar
4 large eggs
3 Tablespoon flour
3 Tablespoon cornstarch
1 1/2 Tablespoon lemon juice (get a real lemon)
2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup (one stick) real butter, melted
1 pint sour cream
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel (or more, to taste)
--------------------------
1. Set oven to 325. Grease 9" springform pan and press grahamcracker crumbs over the bottom
2. Put eggs and cottage cheese in blender or food processor. Mix until smooth.
3. Beat sugar and cream cheese together until fluffy. (It helps if cream cheese is at room temp.)
4. Add (cottage cheese & egg) to (sugar & cream cheese). Mix well with a mixer.
5. Add cornstarch, flour, lemon juice, lemon zest, and vanilla. Mix pretty well, by hand, using a wire whisk.
6. Using an absolute minimum of stirring, mix in sour cream and butter until just smooth. BY HAND. NOT WITH A MIXER.
7. Pour/glop this into the prepared pan and bake 70 minutes. Turn off oven WITHOUT OPENING and let things sit as they are for two more hours. It will probably crack on the top. Life is like that, sometimes.
8. Take cake from oven, fridge at least 3 hours. Glaze as appropriate and fridge another hour before serving.
Pie. For the boy. Not cheesecake. It's not even like he's my boy. I don't have a boy. This is La's boy. He's not even a relative, for heaven's sake. He doesn't really want pie, though he'll take it and be glad. He wants cheesecake. Apparently La told the boy I know how to make cheesecake because the boy was asking after cheesecake. He's only seventeen and not entirely up to speed on the whole craft-and-guile thing, so he didn't evade my "Ash, where did you get the idea that I might know how to make cheesecake?" question. (Go, go, old-age-and-treachery!) Lovely boy said "La told me you made good cheesecake." Right.
La thinks I will fall for the wiles and charms of the seventeen year old boy and make him a cheesecake that she can commandeer no small portion of as the parent of the boy. La wants me to make her a cheesecake because she's a big fan of my cheesecake. The reason that La knows what my cheesecake tastes like is that she's had it before, once. Long ago, I was dating her brother who bitched and moaned about how much he wanted a cheesecake and how much he LOVED cheesecake and how very wonderful it would be to HAVE a cheesecake. So I made him one and topped it with real sour cherries from my grandmother's cherry trees and schlepped the damn thing the two hours from where I was living to his house, whereupon he ate one very small slice and carefully explained that he didn't really like that kind of cheesecake. He'd meant the Jell-O kind of cheesecake, that pudding-ish shit that you can make in maybe five minutes on top of a stove, from a box.
It is a testament to my restraint (which people keep claiming I don't have any of, and go figure, because if that were true, there'd be a lot more corpses in my wake) that I did not slay him where he stood. I was mad. I am still mad. It does not matter how much anyone related to him wants a cheesecake, there will never be another one for them from me. It doesn't matter that this was just about ten years ago. There will be no more cheesecake from my household to that one. Period. They can eat the Jell-O shit.
Anyway, that's why Ash isn't getting cheesecake for his birthday. I did tell La that I would be happy to make him ONE cheesecake while teaching him to make the damn things so that (a) he could have one and (b) he would then know how to make them so that I wouldn't have to do it ever again. La didn't think that was too bloody likely. I didn't either, which is why I offered it. *grin* Never said I was nice...
Now, as it happens, I do know how to make cheesecake. I have an excellent recipe for cheesecake, even. I'm quite competent in the wonderful world of cheesecake. There's just a slight problem -- I don't really like cheesecake. I don't like making cheesecake. I don't like eating cheesecake. I don't like any of it. Given the amount of time and fucking around involved, there are approximately four hundred dessert recipes I like better than cheesecake, some of them I like one fuck of a lot better.
I think I will leave the making of cheesecake to the people who actually LIKE the stuff. Those who want to give it a go, the following is a handy, relatively straightforward recipe that produces a pretty solid cheesecake that people-who-like-cheesecake seem to find acceptable.
Real New York Cheesecake
1/2 cup crushed graham crackers
2 packages (8 oz) cream cheese
1 lb. creamy cottage cheese (about 2 cups)
1 1/2 cup sugar
4 large eggs
3 Tablespoon flour
3 Tablespoon cornstarch
1 1/2 Tablespoon lemon juice (get a real lemon)
2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup (one stick) real butter, melted
1 pint sour cream
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel (or more, to taste)
--------------------------
1. Set oven to 325. Grease 9" springform pan and press grahamcracker crumbs over the bottom
2. Put eggs and cottage cheese in blender or food processor. Mix until smooth.
3. Beat sugar and cream cheese together until fluffy. (It helps if cream cheese is at room temp.)
4. Add (cottage cheese & egg) to (sugar & cream cheese). Mix well with a mixer.
5. Add cornstarch, flour, lemon juice, lemon zest, and vanilla. Mix pretty well, by hand, using a wire whisk.
6. Using an absolute minimum of stirring, mix in sour cream and butter until just smooth. BY HAND. NOT WITH A MIXER.
7. Pour/glop this into the prepared pan and bake 70 minutes. Turn off oven WITHOUT OPENING and let things sit as they are for two more hours. It will probably crack on the top. Life is like that, sometimes.
8. Take cake from oven, fridge at least 3 hours. Glaze as appropriate and fridge another hour before serving.
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no subject
Date: 2005-03-06 08:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-07 12:54 pm (UTC)Also, I don't know how your grocery is, but I've never seen fresh sour cherries for sale. They're pretty fragile. We have trees, is how I get them. Sweet cherries (like Bing) don't have the same flavor when cooked that they do when fresh -- they're insipid and poor shadows of their fresh selves. I know this because I've cooked with sweet cherries and it is invariably disappointing.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-07 09:18 pm (UTC)Um.
What's JELL-O® cheesecake? Is it like grocery store cheesecake?
no subject
Date: 2005-03-08 12:25 am (UTC)Jell-O cheesecake is a flavor of instant pudding made by the fine folks at Kraft Foods, current owner of Jell-O. As the name suggests, it's supposed to taste like cheesecake. It does not. However, while not as firm as actual cheesecake, the instant pudding food item is broadly the same color as real cheesecake, and that should count for something.
Poor white trash frequently serve this instant pudding food item (Can you feel the contempt? Because I'm working hard to give you a quality contempt vibe here, and I'd hate for it to go unnoticed.) in a bowl lined at the bottom with graham cracker crumbs (as you'd do for a real cheesecake) and with an artistic dusting of graham cracker crumbs over the top. I expect that this is some sort of cargo-cult attempt to associate the instant pudding food item with graham crackers to make it seem more cheesecakely. "Why look, Ethel, here is a food item served WITH GRAHAM CRACKER CRUMBS! And it's off-white! It must be CHEESECAKE!!" Yeah, I know. It doesn't really work for me, either, but they do it anyway. A lot.
As a result of this, there exist people in this world who think that cheesecake flavored Jell-O Instant Pudding is "cheesecake".
I used to fuck one of them.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-08 12:37 am (UTC)I regret knowing this.