Three Cheesecake

Just as we were starting to lose faith in Martha.

Ingredients

For the crust:

• cooking spray
• 1 & 1/3 cups crushed cinnamon graham crackers
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
  

For the filling:

• 1 cup sour cream, room temperature
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 4 oz mascarpone cheese, room temp
• 4 oz cream cheese, room temp
• 2 oz soft goat cheese, room temp
• 3/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp lemon zest
• 1 cup heavy cream

Make the crust the way you normally would. Coat a 9" springform pan with cooking spray and line the bottom with parchment paper. Crush the graham crackers in a food processor, adding the butter slowly. Press the mixture into the bottom of the pan. Refrigerate while you make the filling.
Beat the sour cream, 1/3 cup of the sugar, the cheeses, vanilla, and lemon with an egg-beater on medium speed until very smooth, about 4 minutes. DO NOT pass through a sieve at this step. MARTHA. Add the heavy cream and the other 1/3 cup sugar and beat on medium until medium peaks form.
Spread evenly over the crust. Smooth top and freeze until firm, about 2 hours. Move to the refrigerator for about 45 minutes about serving.
Can be topped with fruit compote of your choosing.

Thoughts: Hot damn. This is the best cheesecake I have eaten. Dan agrees. The goat cheese really does good things here. The only thing I would do differently is add more butter to the crust. There wasn't nearly enough to make the crust adhere properly, so it sort of crumbled away when you cut a slice. But that's easily remediable. We would maybe double the amount of butter in the crust to 4 tbsp. It's also a little tricky to move the cake from the freezer to the fridge, and then back to the freezer. You have to remember to let it thaw a little before you eat it, otherwise it just sort of tastes like the freezer. But I don't think you can just leave it in the fridge 24/7, because it's no-bake and it might de-constitute itself or something. All in all, this is hella easy to make and hella delicious.

Disaster Index: 1/10, even with the imperfect crust

Tiramisu

Pick me up.
Ingredients

• 3 large eggs, separated
  
• 3/4c granulated sugar
  
• big pinch of salt
  
• 3/4lb mascarpone cheese
  
• 20 lady-fingers
  
• a pot of espresso or similarly strong coffee - we used about 4-8oz
  
• 3oz semisweet chocolate, grated coarsely
  
• ~1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa
  
• 1 bread pan
  

Separate the eggs so you have three egg whites in one big metal bowl and two egg yolks in another large-ish bowl. You can do whatever you want with the third yolk - we don't need it*. Add the sugar to the yolks and beat until they turn pale and creamy. Now, with a clean, dry whisk, beat the egg whites with the pinch of salt until they form stiff peaks. THIS TAKES SOME ARM MUSCLE. Seriously. Throw the mascarpone in with the yolks and beat together. Now FOLD the whites in with the yolk mixture.

Now is the assembly. Just put 1/3 of the egg mixture into the bottom of the bread pan and spread evenly with a spatula. Put 1/2 the grated chocolate over it. Now, dip the lady fingers one at a time in the coffee and lay them out across the mixture until you've more or less covered the layer. In our bread pan, this takes 10 lady fingers (hence 20 in the ingredients) but depending on the size of pan, you could be looking at more or fewer. Feel free to spoon a little extra coffee over the lady fingers if you think they could use to soak up more, but be careful - if you dip them too long, they start to crumble in your hands right away. Better to play it safe, I would say, and just spoon a little extra on afterward.

After that layer, put 1/2 of what remains of the egg mixture (1/3 of the original amount if you're keeping track of the math here) and spread that evenly across. Add the remaining grated chocolate, another layer of lady fingers, and then the remainder of the egg mixture. Now sprinkle the cocoa powder evenly across the top (I recommend using a fine mesh sieve - put the cocoa in it and then tap the side to release the cocoa pretty evenly - it's just like sifting flour).

Chill for minimum 4 hours before serving. Serves 6.

*I'd consider adding it anyway

Thoughts: This was an amalgam of two recipes, actually - one we found online and one we found in a cookbook kicking around here. The flavor was FANTASTIC, but I'm afraid the texture was a little softer than I had expected. I think that one thing that would help is if the lady-fingers were a little spongier and a little less brittle. When they soaked up the liquid, they were just falling apart. Second of all, the custard (if I may call it that even though it is not, strictly speaking, a custard) was also softer than we had anticipated. This could be related to the egg whites. I think in the future, it would be advisable to use some cream of tartar in the preparation of the egg whites to get some stiffer peaks. This might help thicken up the custard. Second of all, I could use more mascarpone to egg ratio - that, too, might thicken it a little. Also, I would add a bit less sugar to the custard. I thought it bordered on too sweet. I would use just 1/2 cup next time. Personal preference, I guess. Finally, we could kick up the espresso flavor (if we wanted) with a little instant espresso powder. I would go easy on it, but it could potentially improve the flavors. Just an idea. Maybe if I used the espresso powder I would use full sugar just to even it out?

In the end, though, this was delicious and REALLY easy, except for whipping the egg whites. I would DEFINITELY make this again.

Disaster Index: 1/10