Cheesecake

This is my first attempt to bake this type of cheesecake. It’s not as difficult as I thought. This is the recipe that I had used, taken from allrecipes.com. I roughly doubled everything, which made about 10-12 slices like this:


1/3 cup butter, softened
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup chopped walnuts (omitted)
1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
1/4 cup white sugar
8 ounces cream cheese = 227 g
1 tablespoon lemon juice (omitted)
2 tablespoons milk
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. To make Pastry: Cream together the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add in the flour and chopped nuts and stir until mixture becomes crumbly. Set aside 1/4 cup to use as a topping (I didn’t).
3. Press pastry mixture into 8-inch square pan and bake for 12 to 15 minutes. Let cool on rack.
4. To make Filling: Beat together the white sugar, and cream cheese until smooth. Stir in the egg, milk, lemon juice, and vanilla and mix well. Spread filling mixture over baked crust. Sprinkle reserved mixture on as a topping (I didn’t).
5. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes. Let cool on wire rack and refrigerate (tak sempat). Serve with fruit (I didn’t).

I baked this during Ramadhan, and since the cake got out of the oven at about 6+, it was still warm when we had it for iftar. For other cakes, it’s more delicious to have them warm out of the oven, but I think for this type of cheesecake, it’s nicer served cool. To my taste, at least.

I like to quantify results vs resources in terms of costs and time, where possible. Here’s my estimate:

Butter (250g) RM3.20
Sugar (1 cup) RM0.50
Flour (2 cups) RM0.70
Cream cheese (500g) RM11.50
Eggs (2) RM0.60
Milk & vanilla extract RM0.30
Total: RM16.80 (about RM1.50 per slice like the above photo)

Buying ingredients 30 minutes
Make pastry 15 minutes
Bake pastry and make filling at the same time 15 minutes
Bake filling 30 minutes

Simple variations that I could try in the future:
1) Substitute some amount of flour in the pastry mix with cocoa powder, to make chocolate cheesecake. I guess I can also put cocoa powder in the cheese filling, but I think I prefer to enjoy the cheese without it.
2) Put some coffee powder in the pastry. Sprinkle crumbled chocolate on the cheese filling (afterwards) to make tiramisu-ish cheesecake.
3) Put fruit filling on the cheesecake like strawberry or raspberry or lemon (I don’t like lemon cheesecake much though, so will opt for strawberry first).
4) Crumble Oreo biscuits and add in cheese filling.