After what seems like “forever”….

It does seem like forever since I posted something in my blog. But let me assure you that I have not been sitting idle. I have been wanting to take up Baking classes for a while now – and guess what! I did and it really helps to know the little tricks and techniques to get out a perfect cake or dessert out of the oven (or the fridge :-P). This post is about the cheese cake I made last week. I have tried to get the hang of baking a perfect cheese cake which does not flop when I cut it, for a long time and at my third attempt, I have finally done it. Yay!     In a short and sweet paragraph, I will let you guys in on the results of my experimentation! 🙂

To bake this cake, you will need:

13 Oreo cookies (and yes its an oreo crust!), 2 packets of cream cheese (200gms each), half a cup of sour cream, 2 tablespoons of butter, 1/4 cup all purpose flour, 1 cup sugar (or less based on how sweet you like your cake), vanilla extract and finally 3 eggs.

Get all your ingredients to room temperature (Secret no 1). They get incorporated much better and much faster when they are all in room temperature. Pulse the oreos, cream and all, and mix with the two tablespoons of butter. Make sure you get the butter on every small piece of oreo and dump them in your buttered up cake pan. Press them together and half an inch up the sides too and put them in a preheated oven (350 degrees Fahrenheit) for up to 10 minutes and let it cool on a wire rack. Now whisk together your sugar and flour to get rid of any lumps and keep aside. Beat your soft cream cheese until smooth and slowly add the flour and sugar mixture until well combined. Add you eggs, one at a time and mix well. Add a teaspoon of vanilla extract and the sour cream. Mix just until all the ingredients are well combined (Not over Mixing is secret No 2). Now pour your filling into the pan. The filling will come above the crust and that is okay. Wrap the cake pan securely in aluminum foil. This cake should be baked in a water bath so that the temperature is kept even and low (secret no 3). Place the cake pan in a roasting pan and fill with hot water that comes up to half the cake pan’s height ( take care with the aluminum foil – it should not let any water come into the cake pan). Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degree Fahrenheit for about 50 minutes and let it sit in the oven with the door slightly ajar for an hour. Bring the pan out to cool completely on the wire rack before refrigerating it (for an entire night). You can serve it plain or with some blueberries! – Like I did 🙂

Hope some of you try this out and get raving reviews from family and friends 🙂