Blueberries and Lobster

I’ve been thinking about cheesecake. Lucky me, because of the time of year there have been oodles of cheesecake recipes around the blogosphere. I even saw a recipe on America’s Test Kitchen recently for a lower fat cheesecake that supposedly passes Christopher Kimball’s muster. (A difficult thing to manage. Those Vermonters love their dairy.) It’s a little more labor-intensive than most cheesecake recipes, so I thought for my first cheesecake I’d go a more straightforward route.

I saw a recipe over on Cast Sugar for Eggnog Cheesecake with Caramel Rum Sauce. Immediately, I knew it had to happen.

A problem, though: All of the cheesecake recipes I’ve seen call for a food processor, and I don’t have one! I just have a little mini-prep. It’s great for salsa, sauces, and small batches of things, but an entire cheesecake? No way.

Enter the KitchenAid. (Cue ominous music.)

Yes — with the paddle attachment and my favorite kitchen workhorse, I beat that cheesecake into submission.

Also, the recipe calls for rum extract. I looked for it at the grocery store, but the only thing I could find was imitation rum extract, made from glycerin and corn syrup and nasty artificial flavors. I prefer real ingredients, so I substituted.

Oh, and speaking of real ingredients: buy real eggnog please, the kind that comes from your local dairy and doesn’t contain thickeners or artificial stuff. You know, the kind that actually contains eggs.

Eggnog Cheesecake
Slightly altered, from Cast Sugar

1 c. ground gingersnaps
3 Tbsp. melted butter

3 (8-oz) packages cream cheese, softened
1 c. white sugar
3 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
1 c. eggnog
2 eggs
1/4 c. rum
Freshly ground nutmeg

Sauce:
1 Tbsp. cornstarch
1 c. water
2 Tbsp. butter, melted
1/3 c. packed light brown sugar
1/4 c. rum

Preheat oven to 325 F. Combine ground gingersnaps and butter, and press into the bottom of a 9-in. springform pan. Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes. Place on a wire rack to cool.

Preheat oven to 425 F. In a stand mixer bowl, combine cream cheese, sugar, flour and eggnog. Beat with a paddle attachment for 5 minutes or more, until silky smooth. Beat in eggs, rum, and nutmeg. Pour mixture into cooled crust.

Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes.

Reduce heat to 250 F and bake for 45 minutes, or until center of cake is barely firm to the touch. Remove from the oven and immediately loosen cake from rim. Let cake cool completely before removing the rim.

For the sauce:
In a small bowl, dissolve the cornstarch in water. In a medium saucepan, melt 2 Tbsp. butter. Stir in brown sugar and the cornstarch mixture. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat, and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat, and stir in rum. Allow to cool.

Rum sauce with cornstarch? This was… just fine, I suppose. Next time, though, I’ll make an actual caramel sauce by cooking sugar, and add rum. This still tasted a little bit like tortillas to me, even after cooking the sauce for ten minutes.

The cheesecake, though, was superb.