We learn from our failures as well as our successes. We are left confused by mediocre results that are neither great nor miserable. My first attempt at a gluten-free cheesecake fell into this third category. It tastes fine, but the texture is not what I prefer in a dessert.
I flipped through a couple recipes on Pinterest, and then totally winged it based on the size of cake I wanted. It might explain why it was so much wetter than I expected it to be. (And to my mom: most of the recipes I saw called for flour in the filling. That would explain where we went wrong last week, assuming that only the crust of cheesecake contained gluten.)
Here was today's process. Refer to yesterday's blog for the gluten-free shortbread cookie recipe in the crust.
I tried to make the almond meal a little finer by running it through the food processor. I blended the entire crust in there, and it seemed to help a little bit. But the difference was minor.
I still don't have parchment paper, so I thought tapioca starch on foil would make it come off of the springform pan base better. I ended up regretting the foil at the end. I would not repeat this step.
I used a full recipe for the shortbread cookies. I put the whole thing in the base of the pan, and baked it at 350, for 16-17 minutes.
It came out looking good. I let it cool while I mixed up the filling. I don't know whether it should have cooled longer or not. I also didn't touch it with my fingers to know how firm and/or crisp it was.
I was trying to make a very small cheesecake, so I used just two packs of cream cheese, two eggs, and a glob of sour cream that was probably about 2/3 of a cup. I probably should have used less sour cream. It might explain why the final product was so overly soft and silky. In place of flour, I used tapioca starch to keep it gluten-free. I'm not sure that was the right choice.
I didn't use anything to grease the sides of the pan, and it ended up not mattering.
Hm. I uploaded a picture of it sitting in the oven in a water bath. That photo didn't seem to want to be seen. You know how to do a water bath, right? Foil around the base of the pan to keep the water out, put it in a pan with a half an inch of hot water around the springform pan.
After 40 minutes of baking, I mixed up sour cream and sugar as a topping, as I've done in the past, and liked.
And before I put it on the cake, I remembered to add a little flavor.
Sour cream topping spread on the partially baked cheesecake.
I left it sitting in the oven after I turned the heat off, for like an hour, while I wrote a super-long email to my dad. It did not seem to overbake. I put it in the freezer for half an hour to chill. It probably could have used more time to get cold.
To make it pretty, I smushed about a half cup of raspberries through a strainer with a wooden spoon, to get a few tablespoons of puree. It was plenty.
It came out looking very pretty. Not very tall, not very dry on the edges. It tasted just fine.
Now, what this experiment was all about--the crust. Whether the cookie was crisp when it came out of the oven initially, it did not end up that way. I regretted the foil, because I was afraid I would tear it when I tried to scoop out the moist crust. Graham cracker crusts are somewhat moist too, so I'm not considering it a total failure. My recipe could use tweaking, but I will show you what I did, so you can correct as you see fit.
Raspberry Cheesecake (Gluten Free)
Vanilla shortbread recipe -- available here http://scenesfromsmithpark.blogspot.com/2014/06/annies-test-kitchen-part-1.html
Filling --
2 8oz packages of regular cream cheese, room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
2/3 cup sour cream
1/4 cup tapioca starch
1 tablespoon vanilla
Topping --
2/3 cup sour cream
1/3 cup sugar
splash Amaretto
1/2-3/4 cup raspberries, pureed through a strainer
In a mixer, with the paddle blade, combine cream cheese and sugar until smooth and fluffy. At low speed, blend in the eggs, one at a time. Add the tapioca starch, sour cream, and vanilla. Pour over baked crust. Double wrap the springform pan in foil, and place in a waterbath 1/2 inch deep. Bake at 350F for 40 minutes, or until the outer inch and a half seems set when jiggled. Pull out of the oven to spread the sour cream topping over the cake, leaving a small border around the edge. Bake for another 20 minutes, and then turn off the heat. Let the oven cool with the cheesecake still in it. Remove from oven and cool completely, chill in the refrigerator before topping with pureed raspberries.
Update, 18 hours later: Once fully chilled, everything was perfect. The consistency of the cake was smooth and firm, the flavor was good. The crust was exactly what it needed to be, moist enough to eat, set enough to hold together when cut. This recipe could easily be doubled for a full-sized cake.
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