real life test kitchen: lemon cheesecake
There’s something so summery about lemon desserts, which can be sweet and refreshing at the same time. I’ve always been a little intimidated by the thought of making a cheesecake, but this recipe in Everyday Food seemed fool-proof enough to try. The crust is simply graham cracker cookies, sugar and melted butter. Pat that into a 9″ pan lined with foil and bake for about ten minutes. Meanwhile, blend two boxes of cream cheese, two eggs, sugar and the juice and zest of one lemon. Pour onto the crust and bake for another 30 minutes. Afterwards, I chilled it overnight and woke up to find a perfectly sturdy, yummy lemon treat — though they are a bit on the heavy side. Ideally I would like to make lemon squares that veered a more towards pudding and less towards cheesecake. If anyone has any recipe suggestions, please send them my way! Thanks. — Angela M.
Love these from the Kraft Foods website..I made them last summer and I think I will make some tonight!
18 squares HONEY MAID Low Fat Honey Grahams, finely crushed (about 1-1/4 cups crumbs)
1/3 cup margarine or butter, melted
1 qt. frozen vanilla yogurt, softened
1 can (6 oz.) frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed
1/2 cup thawed COOL WHIP LITE Whipped Topping
Mint sprigs and lemon slices (optional)
MIX crumbs and margarine. Press firmly onto bottom of 9-inch square pan.
BEAT yogurt and lemonade concentrate in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Spread over crust.
FREEZE 4 hours or until firm. Cut into squares. Serve each square topped with a dollop of whipped topping, mint sprigs and lemon slices, if desired.
Oh, these look marvelous! Some store bought lemon curd would make a mighty fine addition!
I love lemon desserts, but only if they’re tart and lemony–there’s nothing more disappointing than a lemon bar that’s too sweet! Anyway I love this recipe from The Tassejara Bread Book–I’ve tinkered a little over the years so I’ll give you my revised version:
Preheat oven to 350.
Shortbread crust:
1.5 cup salted butter
3/4 cup powdered sugar
3 cups flour, white or half white, half whole-wheat pastry flour
splash of vanilla
As with pie crust, cut cold butter into flour/sugar mixture, work with fingers until mostly blended (the size of rough breadcrumbs), add splash of vanilla, continue working together until just able to form into a ball. Press into the bottom of a 9×13 lasagna pan (you may have some left over), prick all over with a fork, and bake at 350 until firm, 25-30 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool.
Reduce oven heat to 325 and prepare Lemon Filling:
1 and 1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
4 tsp baking powder (not baking soda)
1 cup + 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
4 eggs
zest of at least one lemon (you’ll probably have more since you need so much juice, so you might as well zest them, too)
Put sugar, flour, and baking powder in a larger bowl than you think you need. Whisk them together to blend evenly. Break the eggs in a separate bowl, add the lemon juice and zest, and stir with a fork until just blended. Dump the wet ingredients into the dry and whisk them together. The mixture will start getting foamy from the chemical reaction between the lemon and the baking powder–this is why you need a large bowl, otherwise the mixture is liable to overflow.
Pour the filling over the shortbread, put back in 325 degree oven, and bake until the center appears “set” (that is, not too shiny or jiggly). The original recipe says to bake until the top is slightly browned, but in my experience the edges brown way before the top does, if it even does. I usually end up taking them out at some arbitrary point when I decide they seem “done” enough. It’s supposed to be 30 minutes but I probably do about 45.
Because the mixture foams up and then shrinks on baking, there’s always a darker rim around the pan of extra-bakey filling, which is delicious but not so sightly. Usually I cut this off before I remove the bars from the pan. You can sprinkle with powdered sugar if you want, but the bars are so moist it usually melts so I don’t bother.
Bon appetit!
Wow! thank you so much for sharing. I certainly give both those recipes a try. I’m getting hungry just thinking about it…
Don’t have the recipes handy, but you may want to try a shortbread/crumb crust with lemon curd on top. That would definitely give you a softer, pudding-like texture. Lemon curd is surprisingly easy to make – Cook’s Illustrated has a great, fool proof recipe (secret – strain after cooking and add a bit of heavy cream). The current issue of CI also has a recipe for key lime bars that looks great and I’m sure could be easily adapted for lemon. Their regular key lime pie recipe is also awesome. And no, I don’t work for them!