Raspberry Marbled Cheesecake

Hey everybody! Welcome to our blog! We celebrated my grandma's 79th birthday on Sunday. Lionel wanted cheesecake, so we decided to bake one and bring it to the birthday party. I decided to make a raspberry swirled cheesecake. Here goes, my very first post! Lien, I'll try to make it detailed for you if you ever want to try this out.

Crust:
1/2 cup melted butter
2 cups graham cracker crust
3 tablespoons sugar

Cheesecake:
16 ounces softened cream cheese
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
10 ounces raspberries
1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch

1. Puree raspberry and cornstarch in a blender. I just used a bag of frozen raspberries and put all of the contents in. If you don't have a blender, I think it would work if you just put the raspberry and cornstarch in a pot and mixed it as best as you can.





2. Place the puree in a pot. Make sure that there's at least 1-2 inches of room in the pot, because the puree will sputter a bit. Heat the puree on medium heat. When it started to boil, I was scared of stuff spewing out, so I stirred it often. Heat for about 8 minutes or until the mixture has thickened. I judged the thickness by looking at the spatula. It will coat the spatula (or spoon, or whatever you have) and slowly drip off, but not completely.



3. I would preheat the oven to 350 sometime about now. Place the puree in a strainer and place a bowl underneath it. When I was straining the puree, I had to use the spatula to press the puree through the strainer.





4. Combine the crust ingredients: graham cracker crumbs, butter, and sugar. I used a box of graham cracker crumbs, but you could always break the crackers up yourself. Or, you can experiment with different cookies, like nilla wafers or oreos...yum. I put them straight into my springform pan, which is a pan with a separable base and rim. It's convenient, but you could use a round pan that is two inches high instead. You could use a rectangular pan, but you might need to double the recipe.





5. Mix the ingredients with your hand and press it against the pan. Make it however you prefer. I actually doubled the original amount of crust, so if you aren't a huge fan of crust, reduce the amount of ingredients for the crust by half. You can make the crust climb up to the sides of the cheesecake, but you don't have to.



6. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes. After you take the crust out, you can reduce the heat of the oven to 300. I also place a glass pan of water in the oven to create steam. The steam helps keep the surface of the cheesecake from cracking. If you are using a pan to hold your cheesecake, you can use a water bath. The hot water helps the cheesecake bake evenly. I can't use a water bath because of the springform pan...the water would leak into the cheesecake. I know Rachel doesn't do the water thing, and her cheesecakes turn out great so I guess it's optional.

7. Combine the cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl. I like to use a large bowl to make sure that I have a lot of splash room. Make sure that the cream cheese is soft. You can either leave it out at room temperature 30-60 minutes before you start, or you can microwave it. If the cream cheese is too cold, it won't mix well. I used an electric hand mixer, but you could also use a blender (Lionel does that) or manually.

Oh and another thing: my cheesecake is short. The original recipe called for 32 ounces of cream cheese and three eggs, but I only used 16 ounces and 2 eggs, keeping everything else the same. If you want a taller cheesecake, just add those back in.



8. After the sugar has been incorporated with the cream cheese, add one egg. Mix until it is mostly combined, then add the next egg. If there are little lumps in the batter, that's okay. You don't want to overmix the batter because it can result in a grainy cheesecake.



9. Okay, ready for assembly. Pour half of the cheesecake batter into the crust.



10. Spoon half of the puree on top of the cheesecake batter.



11. Pour the rest of the cheesecake batter into the crust.



12. Spoon the remaining puree onto the cheesecake. Lionel had fun with this and made a face. Can you see it?



13. Next, you swirl the puree. Using a butter knife, make vertical serpentine movements. Insert the butter knife all the way through the batter. I hope that makes sense >.<
Making the first stroke


Completing the vertical movements.

14. Lift up the knife and then make horizontal serpentine strokes into the batter.



15. Taa-daa! Bake at 300 for 50-60 minutes until the cheesecake is set. The surface of the cheesecake will be dry. When you jiggle the pan, the center of the cheesecake (about 1 1/2 inch diameter circle) will jiggle. I kept the oven door ajar for 10 minutes before I took the cheesecake out of the oven. Then, let the cheesecake cool completely before placing it in the fridge. When it's chilled, it's ready to serve!



There you go everybody! I hope that didn't seem too complicated. It took us about an hour and 45 minutes to make and bake the cheesecake. It tasted really great.