SoNo Cheesecake and my Say Yes Cheesecake

This recipe is from John Barricelli.  It’s from his “The SoNo Baking Company Cookbook” (Clarkson Potter, 2010).  The SoNo in the title is for the chef’s South Norwalk Connecticut bakery.
When I first saw the name of the SoNo cheesecake I thought it said, "Say No Cheesecake". I thought, who would say no to cheesecake? I like to call my cheesecake, with changes I've made, "Say Yes Cheesecake". The original recipe has apricot jam covering it with raspberries on top and chopped pistachios around the side and is baked in a water bath. Mine is gluten free, often with a nut crust, and uses a special cultured sour cream that has twice the fat as regular sour cream and I bake it with steaming hot water in a roasting pan underneath the cheesecake to put moisture in the water. I also use more eggs but lately I've been thinking its too much and I'll try less again. I initially bake it at a high heat, then turn it down low for a much longer time.

http://www.projectfoodie.com/cookbook-recipes/recipe/sono-cheesecake.html

http://www.poiresauchocolat.net/2011/02/raspberry-and-pistachio-baked.html  metric, European


This post was created in 2011 but never got posted. I didn't notice that it was a draft and so I went ahead and posted it.

My Son's Groom's Cake

 This groom's cake for my son, Edward, consumed my life for several months. That is an understatement. It was one of the highlights of my life but also one of the most stressful periods... in a good way. I make a lot of cheesecake but this is the biggest one I ever made. This has given me a lot more experience.

The groom's cake consisted of two tiers; a 12-inch and a 10-inch, each 4 inches tall. Each tier consisted of a 1-inch tall rich, moist chocolate cake (gluten free) with a most delicious 3-inch tall SoNo cheesecake (vanilla bean) with a layer of homemade cherry filling in between and covered with a chocolate ganache. The guests raved about it. It was sooo good!

I was a bit embarrassed that the groom's cake was taller than the wedding cake. We did have a fairly tall cake stand and decorations on top... still.. I guess I went a little crazy. Between the groom's cake, a couple of practice cakes and cheesecake pans and fancy stand, etc., it cost a small fortune. Was it worth it? Absolutely! May I never know how much I spent.

On top of the pillars and plate are the penguin Tux (the Linux mascot), and cheddar cheese. Wrapped around the pillars are strips of paper written in binary code. It says "Ed & Angie", "Together Forever", and the date in zeros & ones. He is a fan of Linux and majored in computer programming, as well as being a past president of a Linux group. Why cheese? I guess this is kind of silly but "cheese" was Edward's first word. He loved it then and he still loves it. By the cake were displayed photos of him with a big block of cheese. So cute!


                                                                                                 Preparing the cheesecakes

The 12"x3" cheesecake alone used 14 packages of cream cheese, 20 eggs, over 5 cups of sugar & 2 2/3 cups of sour cream! Even though my Electrolux DLX Assistent mixer is pretty big I couldn't mix it all at once. It was a bit tricky.

The practice cheesecakes were not tall enough so I had to increase the recipe. The tiers needed to be 4 inches tall because of having 4-inch plastic dowel rods. The rods go in the bottom tier and support the tier above, plastic pillars and plates.



In all, 20 bars cream cheese, 28 eggs, 7 1/3 cups sugar and 3 2/3 cups sour cream were used in the cheesecake part of the grooms cake. That does not include the cake part of it or the two practice 10-inch cake/cheesecakes I made.

As you can imagine, a 12-inch and a 10-inch cheesecake took up a lot of space in my refrigerator. There was also the challenge of transporting each tier to the reception and putting everything together there.

When I make cheesecake and cake I line the pans with parchment paper. When I've taken the side off of the pan and am ready I use cake lifters, plates and/or cooling racks to flip the cake so I can take the bottom of the pan and the paper off, and then flip it back. This sometimes is scary. One of the cakes I made slid out between the cooling racks when I was flipping it and fell to the floor, breaking in several pieces. It was delicious, though!

Trial Run Practice Cake
We had a big party and it was a lot of fun! No, the groom was not invited. This is what was left of the practice cake after the party. Doesn't it looks almost like a big Klondike
bar?

Practice Cake

Mother's Day was a good excuse to make this second practice run cake/cheesecake.

At the reception

Here's me putting the finishing touches on the groom's cake after assembling it. We weren't able to get there early but were a little late so I was a little self-conscious assembling it with guests watching.

                                                                       A problem with cutting the groom's cake

My brother and sister-in-law, Bruce and Taunya, were a great help in cutting the cake for the guests. Bruce is a caterer and wanted to take my cake idea for catering weddings.

There was one problem. Bruce was having a difficult time cutting through the first tier. The knife resisted going through to the chocolate cake. It took him a little while to figure out why. Bruce finally figured out that there paper in between the cake and cheesecake! Parchment paper was used in the baking of the cheesecakes and cakes.

Getting the paper and bottom of the cheesecake pan off the cheesecake pan can be a scary deal, especially when working with a very heavy 12"x3" cheesecake. I managed the get the paper off just fine but when I got to the 10-inch cheesecake I must have been a little overconfident and forgot to take the paper off of that one. It was either that or the paper from a chocolate cake. Whatever the case, Bruce slid the paper out and everything was smooth sailing from then on. There was no problem with the lower tier.

Links to recipes

The SoNo Cheesecake is easily searchable on the internet. It's a winner! I've made some changes to it but here's a link for the original SoNo Cheesecake. The recipe is from John Barricelli's cookbook, "The SoNo Baking Company Cookbook: The Best Sweet and Savory Recipes for Every Occasion". I will post my changes on another post. The ganache was from the same book from the recipe, "SoNo Chocolate Ganache Cake", found here. I substituted water for the coffee. If anyone is interested in the recipe for  the chocolate cake recipe I can post it. I liked the cake but wasn't totally thrilled with it, although others liked it a lot. I thought the cheesecake was the best part. Have questions? Ask away.

The bride and groom         

I don't go for the wedding cake smashed in the face thing but they sure seemed to have fun with it. They sure got each other good! There were laughs all around.

I believe in the sacred and eternal nature of families. Edward and Angie were married and sealed for time and all eternity in the Raleigh, NC temple by one who holds the sealing power and authority to bind husband and wife and family together for this life and the next.

Excerpts from THE FAMILY: A PROCLAMATION TO THE WORLD

"We the First Presidency and the council of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, solemnly proclaim that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator's plan for the eternal destiny of His children."

"The divine plan of happiness enables family relationships to be perpetuated beyond the grave. Sacred ordinances and covenants available in holy temples make it possible for individuals to return to the presence of God and for families to be united eternally."

"The family is ordained of God. Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan."... "Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities."

(The Family: A Proclamation To The World)

Raleigh, NC Temple

An old New York cheesecake recipe

I created this blog 3 years ago but I hadn't posted anything. In fact, when I thought about writing something I couldn't find it or remember if I had the title right. Today I was going through an on-line recipe that I had used for years and I thought I would post it here.

www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/89/Cheesecake-Plain-New-York-Style

This is the cheesecake I made. It was a very good cheesecake but I had problems with it burning on the top as it had a very high initial temperature when baking. I went through many of the comments and found this helpful and I hope it helps you. Give it a try and see what you think.

On August 11, 2005 at 06:24 AM, an anonymous reader said...
Re: cracking

"In my experience, cracking occurs when the cake spends too much time baking at too high a temperature, but that doesn't necessarily mean the interior is overdone. I've done tests keeping the oven at an even 300-350 for the whole baking time, and the cakes cracked like the devil even though the final color and texture were good. The problem lies in the fact that the filling doesn't cook uniformly."

"Solidity starts at the outer surfaces, then works its way in. Cracks occur when the solid layer at the top is about 1cm thick and the filling has puffed enough that the surface is fully domed. Basically, the custard can't stretch enough to take the stress (custards are notorious for low tensile strength), so it breaks and you get a panful of tasty fault lines."

"Puffing does *not* occcur uniformly, though. It starts as a ring around the edge of the pan and then moves in to the center. The trick to getting a good, light cheesecake is to have the puffing stop just as it reaches the center, then maintain that level of puff while the rest of the filling solidifies. Give the cake too much heat, and it will crack. Give it too little, and it will collapse.. you'll end up with a bowl-shaped, crumpled top."

"The key to controlling puff is knowing when to switch the oven from 500 down to 200. You don't want to wait until the top is fully domed, because the filling will continue to puff while the oven temperature falls, and you'll get cracks. Nor do you want to drop the temperature too early, because the center won't puff and you'll end up with a bowl. 10 minutes is a decent rule of thumb, but really, you have to watch the cake."

"I personally drop to to 200 when the un-puffed zone at the center is about 4-5cm in diameter. That happens to be the sweet spot for the cakes I usually make. Your mileage will vary based on the diameter of your pan, the depth of the filling, the amount of air you've whipped into the filling, humidity, your oven, the phase of the moon, and who knows what else. Just assume that your first two or three cakes will be ranging shots, and figure out what works best for you."

"That bit of timing is the 'secret' of cheesecake, though."

mike stone