patagonian cheesecake.

Dear cheesecake, 

You will always be welcome in my home. You are the blue in my eye and the curl in my toes. My heart twinkles for you, like that lone bright Google satellite that's sat low on the clear-eveninged horizon for the past month.

This post has been a long time coming... ever since we bought blueberries and cream cheese in the big city a few weeks back. This time around I wrote down this recipe, so I can easily refer to it in the future. I usually end up going back and forth between a few recipes, tweaking them as I go. Changing ingredients to stuff we can find here, and according to the size of my pan. I even measured a bit more religiously, which I rarely do.

This recipe uses 2.5 8-ounce packages of cream cheese and makes a plain, low-dished cheesecake. 

A springform pan is great if you have it. But I've made cheesecakes in round Pyrex dishes and in bread pans. They still taste great, but your presentation score will go down, because you won't be able to remove the delicousness in one piece. This time, I used a low-rimmed pastry type pan with a removable bottom. These ingredients fit it perfectly! 

Recipe adapted from Smitten Kitchen & Bakerella. 

 INGREDIENTS 

Crust:

• 2 cups butter cookies*, crushed into submission crumbs
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tbsp brown sugar
• 1/2 cup butter (1 American-sized stick), melted

*You can also use Graham crackers, yum! Another thing we can't get here. But change up the cookie crust depending on the flavoring of your cheesecake (if you decide to make it espresso/chocolate/Irish cream--for instance--you probably want to use some sort of Oreo or chocolate or biscotti cookie)

Cream cheese filling:

• 2.5 8-ounce packages of cream cheese.* I used Neufatchel (lower in fat and still delish!)
• 3/4 cup pure sugar cane type sugar (or azucar rubia--blond sugar--as it's known here)
• 2 tbsp flour
• 1/2 tbsp lemon zest
• 1/2 tbsp orange zest
• 1/2 tbsp vanilla
• 2 eggs**
• 1/2 cup sour cream (or plain yogurt, if you cannot/do not have sour cream... as we don't)

*You can make this using only 2 packages of cream cheese, too. Just lessen the amount of yogurt you add at the end, so the mixture doesn't get too oozy. 

**I've made this with 2 or 3 eggs, but I was running out of room in our tiny cheesecake pan, so this time I just dialed it down to 2. Both ways are good! Cheesecake is so forgiving. :)

Blueberry topping:

• 10 ounces blueberries (fresh is always ideal, of course, but I used frozen, 'cuz it's a Patagonian cheesecake and we have to make do with what we can find!)
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tbsp cornstarch (use flour if you don't have cornstarch, I did)
• 1/2 cup water*

*Try using only half the water at first, I always find I don't need as much water as the recipe calls for... Could be because I never use cornstarch though. 

Prepare the crust:

• Preheat oven to 325 (if you have an oven with a temperature gauge... can you guess that we don't?)
• If you don't have a food processor, be creative! There are tons of ways to crumb those cookies. Wine bottles + rolling pins are always helpful. 
• Stir together the crust ingredients with a fork, until the mixture is moist. 
• Press mixture into the bottom and up the sides of your pan. 
• Bake for about 10 minutes, remove and let cool. 

Prepare cream cheese heaven:

• Using an electric mixer, beat together cream cheese, sugar, flour, zests and vanilla until smooth. 
• Add eggs one at a time, mixing well between each addition. 
• Mix in sour cream, adjusting the amount if necessary, to ensure the mixture doesn't get too runny. 
• Pour mixture into cooled cookie crust.
• Bake at 325 for an hour or so. Check your cake every so often, at least every 20 minutes, to make sure the top doesn't brown too quickly.
• Take the cake out before the middle is completely cooked. It will finish cooking after you remove it from the heat. The middle should wobble a little when you shake it gently.
• Let cool for at least six hours, or overnight in the fridge or at room temperature if room temp is already a bit crisp. Now you have to wait. Sigh. Slide a butter knife around the inner rim of the pan to loosen the cake from the sides. 

Prepare blueberry topping:
By now, you probably woke up kind of early as if it was Christmas or something. That is, if you're a midnight baker like me.

• Throw all the blueberry topping ingredients into a sauce pan and bring to a boil for two minutes. Remember to add the water little by little so the topping doesn't get too runny. 
• Remove from heat (consistency should already be syrupy.) 
• Let cool completely. I know, more waiting!  
• Once cool, remove cheesecake from pan (if you can), and spread topping on the cheesecake. Brew some coffee, and dig in!