new york cheesecake and blackberry sauce

I love cheese.  I also love cake.

So one would naturally assume that I love cheesecake.

And I do, sort of.

Only, most of the time cheesecake is way too rich for my tastes.

If cheesecake comes my way I usually share it with Leif.

I just can't often eat an entire piece on my own, which is why

I hardly ever bake it.

An entire cheesecake in the house is a whole lot of cheesecake.

But Leif, who normally doesn't have a sweet tooth equal to my own,

really likes cheesecake and so for Christmas I decided to make him one.

In order to cut some of the sweetness I also made a quick 

blackberry sauce to drizzle on top.

It turned out pretty well and was a very easy recipe to follow

It was not, however, low-calorie

Should you want to make a lower calorie version, I'm sure

using light cream cheese would still work.

For the cheesecake:

Crush 15 gram crackers

Melt two tablespoons of butter

Combine the crackers and the butter

Place gram cracker mixture in the bottom of a greased, round springform pan

Press so that it makes a firm layer

Mix 4 (8 oz) boxes of cream cheese together with 1 1/2 c sugar until smooth

Mix in 4 eggs, one at a time, until incorporated

Mix in 1c sour cream

Mix in 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Mix in 1/4c white flour

Pour mixture into pan

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 350 for one hour

Turn off heat and let cheesecake sit in oven for 5-6 hours

Chill in refrigerator before serving

For the blackberry sauce:

Mix 16oz fresh or frozen blackberries with 1/4c sugar (or water)

Simmer for 5-10 minutes

Strain mixture through a sieve

Stir in 1 tablespoon lemon juice (optional)

Chill in refrigerator before serving

Learn from my mistakes:

Don't over mix the eggs, sour cream and flour

This causes bubbles and will lead to cracking

Do not cook over an hour

It may not look done but it will continue to cook after the oven is off

recipes from:

cheesecake

blackberry sauce