Yay! It’s finally the weekend!
As I mentioned in our previous post, it was a tiring week for us, so we’re pretty excited to have a little time off.
This week, Liz and I reviewed our calendar, and guess what??? We’re already booked up until mid July!
How does this happen? It’s all fun stuff, so no complaints, but it’s amazing how quickly our free days fill up.
Music before food…
Saturday is normally our busiest day of the weekend. Today, our eldest son and I woke up at 6:20 am to attend a local MusicFest.
This is our second year attending and it’s a lot of fun for us.
There were great deals on music gear, clinics with real pros, and live music outdoors… oh, and food trucks! What’s not to like? (Nothing…except for the 6:20 Saturday morning wakeup).
Someone’s gotta work while we’re out having fun 🙂
Liz stayed home with our little guy and she took the pics of this cheesecake that I made last night. I came home to write this post and now we’re off to my cousin’s house for BBQ and swimming.
This family is a great group of people and we’re looking forward to a wonderful afternoon of good conversation, laughs, and of course, delicious food!
There’s always food at our get togethers…you’ll soon see this trend if you hadn’t noticed yet.
Family BBQ
This family BBQ is what prompted the idea for the cheesecake. Ontario farmers grow sweet, plump and delicious strawberries in June and July.
Although we’re just entering the season, our local grocery store happened to have some great looking strawberries yesterday. I’ve made some cheesecakes in the past–strawberry, lemon/lime, blueberry, etc.
But there’s something so fresh and summery about strawberries. I thought it would be the perfect treat to contribute to the BBQ and to get us ready for strawberry-picking season.
Tweaks and improvements!
I tweaked this recipe a bit from the last one I made. For this cheesecake, I used all fresh strawberries for the glaze and top. In the past, I’ve used a combination of fresh and frozen.
This is fine as well, but these strawberries looked so fresh, I just couldn’t resist. Also, I made a larger batch of the cheese filling, so we were left with a slightly taller cheesecake than my previous versions.
The top of the cake did crack a little in the oven, but this wasn’t a concern for me because I new I was going to cover it all up with fruity goodness.
If you’re planning a summer weekend, don’t forget to include some music and a nice summer treat like this… and always eat well, friends!
- Crust:
- 2 cups graham cracker
- ¼ cup unsalted butter, melted
- 2 packed tbsp brown sugar
- Cheesecake Filling:
- 2.2 lbs or 1 kg cream cheese (about 4½ packages in the US or 4 packages in Canada), room temperature
- 1½ cups granulated sugar
- 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
- ½ tsp salt
- 4 large eggs
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1 tsp lemon zest
- Cheesecake Top:
- 1½ lbs or 0.7 kg of fresh strawberries for the cheesecake topping, washed, hulled and tops sliced off so they can sit upside-down on the cheesecake.
- Fresh Strawberry Glaze:
- 1 cup fresh strawberries, washed, hulled and roughly chopped
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1 cup water
- 3 tbsp cornstarch
- Preheat the oven to 350 ºF.
- Butter the sides and bottom of a 9 inch springform pan.
- In a medium bowl, mix the graham cracker, melted butter and brown sugar until completely combined.
- Pour the graham cracker mixture into the pan.
- Distribute the mixture evenly to cover the bottom.
- Now press the the mixture down all around the pan evenly using a flat surface like the bottom of a glass. Set aside.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the granulated sugar, flour and salt, set aside.
- In a stand mixer bowl with the paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese on medium until smooth.
- Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides.
- Set the mixer to medium low and slowly add the flour/sugar mixture. Beat until well incorporated.
- Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides.
- Speed up the mixer to medium.
- Add the eggs (one at-a-time), vanilla extract, lemon juice and lemon zest.
- Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides.
- Mix until everything is creamy and smooth. The filling is quite liquid at this stage.
- Pour the cream cheese mixture into the pan over the crust.
- Jiggle the mix a little to make sure the top is flat.
- Place the pan in the oven and bake for 60 minutes.
- While the cheesecake is baking, place 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup of strawberries, ¾ (leave ¼ cup aside) cups of water and 2 tsp lemon juice in a small pot and heat on medium high. Stir occasionally.
- Once the strawberry mixture starts to boil, reduce the heat to medium and continue to simmer for about 4 minutes. Stir occasionally.
- In a cup, dissolve the cornstarch in the remaining ¼ cup of water. Make sure there are no lumps.
- Pour the cornstarch mixture over the simmering strawberries.
- Whisk for about 2 to 3 minutes until the mixture thickens.
- Turn off the heat.
- Using a hand blender, blend the strawberry mixture.
- Place a large sieve over a small bowl, and strain the strawberries to clear out any larger lumps.
- Set aside at room temperature to cool for about 15 to 20 minutes.
- This is a good time to wash, hull and slice the tops of the remaining strawberries.
- Remove the cheesecake from the oven and place the pan on a cooling rack.
- Let the cheesecake cool for about 20 minutes.
- Run a thin knife around the sides of the cheesecake. Because the sides are buttered, the cheesecake shouldn’t be to attached to the sides.
- Snap the springform open and remove the side container.
- Starting on on the outside, place the fresh strawberries upside-down along the outer edge until you have a full circle. Keep repeating these circles, moving inward until the entire top of the cheesecake is full of strawberries. Make use of smaller or larger strawberries to fill the gaps as you make the circles.
- Using a spoon, pour the strawberry glaze evenly over all the strawberries, making sure to fill in the gaps between them. Let a little pour off the side… this looks good!
- Refrigerate the cheesecake for at least 6 hours before serving. We prepared this one the night before.
- Enjoy!
The cheesecake looks awesome!!! Where are our pieces????
Is this baked using a water bath?
Hi Stacy, thank for stopping by. No, we didn’t make this using a water bath. Although that might be a more gentle approach, our process worked nicely. Take care.
This came out perfect! I made it according to your directions.. Everyone absolutely loved it! I’m making a 2nd one right now! Blessings on you!!
Everyone loved it!
Thanks so much for sharing the results with us Heather. Happy cooking!
Can you use a 10 inch pan instead?
I’m so sorry Bre, I completely missed your comment. My guess is that you tried it anyway or moved on to another recipe. Again, I apologize for the delay in getting back to you. I’ve never tried this in a 10 inch pan, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. It would just be a tad shorter, but wider. Whatever recipe you used, I hope it was delicious. Take care.
Do you allow the ingredients sit at room temperature or use them cold.
Hi Kelly, thanks for touching base. That’s a great question! I did leave the cream cheese out for a while to bring it to room temperature. I have updated this on the recipe. Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention. Happy cooking.