8-Hour Cheesecake

Dimple's Mom

Here you go, Ann.

This is from the book *Maida Heatter's Cakes* Here is the cheesecake recipe, verbatim:

8 Hour Cheesecake

2 lbs. Philadelphia cream cheese at room temperature
1 c. sugar
2 TABLESPOONS vanilla extract
2 tablespoons cognac
2 tablespoons Myers Dark Rum
5 eggs

Adjust oven rack one third up from the bottom of the oven and preheat to 200. Correct oven temperature is vital for this recipe since you will not "bake until done" but you will bake for the specified time based on correct oven temperature. Butter an 8" by 3" one piece cheesecake pan or a 2-quart souffle dish and set aside.

Have ready a large pan in which to place the cake pan or souffle dish. It must not be deeper than the cake pan but it must be wider.

In the large bowl of an electric mixer, beat the cheese until soft and perfectly smooth. To ensure the smoothness, scrape the bowl and beaters a few times during mixing.

When the cheese is as smooth as possible, gradually beat in the sugar, vanilla cognac and rum. Then add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Spray the bottom of the buttered pan with cooking spray.

Pour in the mixture into the pan or souffle dish. Place the cheesecake pan into the larger pan. Pour hot water about 2 inches deep into the larger pan and place them in the oven.

Bake for 8 hours. Then remove from the hot water and let stand at room temperature for several hours or overnight. Or, if you bake the cake during the night, let it cool for most of the day; it should stand for at least a few hours after it has reached room temperature.

To unmold, cover the cake pan with a flat cake pan or serving board, and turn the pan and plate over. If the cake does not slip out, gently bang the pan and plate on the work surface once or twice. Serve the cake upside down.

If you serve this before refrigerating or freezing (it freezes well) it will be especially delicate, creamy, tender and custardy. If you do freeze or refrigerate the cake, bring it to room temperature before serving. (However, if it is cold when you serve it, it is still wonderful, only different--that's all.)

Serve this as it is, perfectly plain, or serve any type of fresh berries along side.

That's the end of the recipe as it came to me. I don't actually have the book. This was given to me quite a number of years ago and I can't remember where. It may have been on a Aga list.

We have an Aga, so it's a very simple thing for us to do to slip it into the simmering oven.

I only recently started turning it out of the baking dish. I guess I never read that far in the recipe before because I didn't realize you could turn it out. I just used to serve it from the baking dish.

Here's another plus - you don't have to refrigerate it! So if you're low on space, no worries. The texture of the cake will be different if it's not refrigerated. More like traditional cheesecake if it is refrigerated. You should try it both ways to see which you like best - first eating it cooled off but not cold and then putting the left-overs (if there are any!) in the fridge and trying it later (makes a great breakfast. :P )

I have tried it with a number of different liquors, including kaluha. The liquor as written in the rrecipe gives it quite a strong liquor taste. Children and many adults don't really care for it, and it's even too strong for me. After much experimenting, I now use 4 T of brandy. I buy the little airplane bottles. I think you'll need 2 bottles to get 4 T worth. There won't be any boozy taste at all with the straight brandy.

Also, I make mine using a souffle dish, mainly because my cheesecake pans are in storage and I can't find them. But I would think that using a lower, shallower pan would cook up quicker than 8 hours. When I eventually find those pans (and mine are not one-piece but I can't see that it makes any difference), I'll probably try them just to find out.

If you try it out, let me know how you like it.

And if you want to cover it in chocolate - melt 6 oz chocolate chips and add 1/2 c sour cream and a dash of salt. If the chocolate isn't hot enough, it won't mix up right with the sour cream. If it isn't really dark and smooth and very spreadable, put the whole thing back into a low warm oven and let it warm up (sometimes the melted chocolate cools down too much when mixed with cold sour cream. It probably helps to bring the sour cream to room temp before mixing). Once it warms back up, it'll mix up into a nice spreadable frosting. This frosting is excellent on regular cheesecake too. I use about one and half recipes to frost the 8-hour cheesecake.

reelgem

Thanks so much for posting the recipe Gwen!! I can't wait to try this one.
You should definitely post it in the recipe section too. Looks like a great recipe.

Fluffyb

Bookmarking this recipe for sure. Very interesting.