That was the obligatory blog checking line. Its how the Daring Bakers know we participate. We were allowed to make some changes to the flavors... and I went for it! The original is a simple cheesecake recipe. I usually make one similar to that because fussed up cheesecakes turn me off. No caramel or chocolate or oreos here. Those are all good, just not in my cheesecake! I wanted to dress it up a little so I decided to go with a Goat cheese, lavender and honey cheesecake. Mmmmm. It turned out wonderfully!
Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake (Original Recipe):
crust:
180 g graham cracker crumbs
4 oz butter, melted
24 g sugar
1 t vanilla extract
cheesecake:
24 oz room temp cream cheese
210 g sugar
3 large eggs
8 oz heavy cream
1 T lemon juice
Innards of 1 vanilla bean
My recipe:
crust:
30 squares graham cracker crumbs
1 stick butter, melted
cheesecake:
1.5 blocks cream cheese, room temp
4 oz goat cheese, room temp
1 pint sour cream, room temp
3 eggs, room temp
2/3 c honey
2 t lemon juice
2 T dried lavender flowers, crushed to a fine powder (got mine at the health food store)
Innards of 1 vanilla bean
DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 325 F. Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.
2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker's choice. Set crust aside.
3. Add cream cheese, goat cheese and sour cream into a bowl and whisk (or beat on low) together. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add honey, vanilla bean scrapings and lemon juice and blend until smooth and creamy. *** Important note: over beating makes cheesecake tough and grainy, kind of like scrambled eggs. You want to minimally mix the cheesecake, and always on low. This way you will get a ridiculously silky cheesecake. remove about 1/3 of the batter, this will be the lavender flavored bit. Add the lavender flowers and a bit of purple food color (optional).
4. Pour non lavender batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Drizzle in the lavender batter on to in a zigzag fashion. Tap again. Pull a toothpick though the top of the cheesecake so it looks streaky. I just did a huge swirly design. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.
5. Bake 45 minutes, until it is almost done - this can be hard to judge, but you're looking for the cheesecake to jiggle in the center... like jello sort of. It wont look done to you, trust me. Pull cheesecake out and chill to room temp. Chill in fridge for 4 hours. Eat! It helps to slice it with a knife dipped in HOT water, so you get a nice looking slice.
Ingredients: Vanilla, goat cheese and lavender.
Close up.
More.
The swirly lavendery cheesecake. 
YUM.
This is so amazingly beautiful, Tara! I am salivating looking at this cheesecake. You are really blowing me away!
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