Sunday, July 12, 2009

Sweet Melissa Sundays: Lemon (Blue-Raspberry) Cheesecake with Cornmeal Crumb Crust


This week's Sweet Melissa Sundays pick, Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake with a Cornmeal Crumb Crust, gave me lots of practice in two cooking and baking skills that I find crucial: knowing how to successfully scale down a recipe, and substituting what you need with what you have.

Based on my title, you can probably guess where the first substitution came in: raspberries for blueberries. This one came about by accident: I really thought I had a good amount of blueberries stored up in my freezer, but when it came time to make the sauce, I realized that I was way off. I had 10 blueberries. 10! So I added in raspberries to make up the difference.

I also toyed a bit with the foundation of the recipe: the cheesecake batter. The original recipe, which serves 12, calls for four bricks of cream cheese and a full cup of mascarpone. There is but one of me, and I had just one brick of cream cheese, so I decided to make do with what I had. I quartered the recipe, and also substituted sour cream for the mascarpone. My fourth-grade division skills definitely came in handy.

The cornmeal crumb crust was left as-is, although also quartered. I patted it into the bottom of cupcake liners, baked it for about 10 minutes until it was browned, and then spooned the cupcake batter over top of it. After that, one cupcake pan went into a water bath, and the other didn't - a bit of an experiment. They were both done baking after about 40 minutes, but the water bath-baked cheesecake bites turned out much better than their counterparts, who bubbled violently and threatened to explode out of the pan.

I was extremely impressed with this recipe and how it held up to my substitutions and tweaking. It was very creamy and had a bright, intense lemon flavour. The blueberry-raspberry topping was a bit tangy, which complemented the sweet lemon filling perfectly. And by making bite-size versions, I was able to make more servings - that's healthier, right? That is, assuming you don't eat all of the servings on your own. Not that I did that, of course.

For this amazing recipe, visit Eliana of A Chica Bakes. And to check out the rest of the Sweet Melissa Sundays bloggers, check out the member list.

16 comments:

Katiecakes July 12, 2009 at 12:42:00 PM EDT  

Awh, mini cheesecakes always make me happy. They're so sweet!

Glad your scaled down and revised version worked, they look divine :)

Katie xox

Anonymous July 12, 2009 at 1:21:00 PM EDT  

Nice job scaling! I love mini desserts! They look wonderful!

Cristine July 13, 2009 at 12:21:00 AM EDT  

Your minis look great!

k.a.r.e.n July 13, 2009 at 10:04:00 AM EDT  

Very cute & great tweaking! I halved the recipe and did it in my cupcake pan as well.

Eliana July 13, 2009 at 10:34:00 AM EDT  

Your cheesecake looks amazing. Thanks so much for baking along with me this week.

Unknown July 13, 2009 at 1:22:00 PM EDT  

I love your minis!! They look perfect! A bit of water seeped into my pan so mine was a bit soggy looking but still tasted great.

matty July 13, 2009 at 4:32:00 PM EDT  

Going to have some more tonight :)

Lulu the Baker July 13, 2009 at 5:27:00 PM EDT  

Yes, eating lots of small desserts is way healthier than eating one (or two!) huge ones. Of course!

Pamela July 13, 2009 at 8:35:00 PM EDT  

Mini desserts mean less guilt for me! They look wonderful.

Karin July 13, 2009 at 9:54:00 PM EDT  

Raspberries sound wonderful! Maybe I should have scaled down my slice of cheesecake.

Megan July 14, 2009 at 12:34:00 AM EDT  

Mmmm - looks perfect! And although I've dropped out of SMS, this cheesecake is calling my name!

Teanna July 14, 2009 at 10:15:00 AM EDT  

Hahah my fourth grade math skills always fail me in the kitchen, which is why I keep a calculator in the utensil drawer! The mini-cheesecake looks great!

Anonymous July 14, 2009 at 1:16:00 PM EDT  

Your minis look wonderful! Great job.

Sarah July 15, 2009 at 4:19:00 PM EDT  

Your mini cheesecakes look delicious, and it looks like all of your substitutions were very successful!

Eliana July 19, 2009 at 11:39:00 AM EDT  

Just a quick note to let you know I left you an award on my blog!

Mermaid Sews July 24, 2009 at 11:17:00 AM EDT  

What amazing little cheesecakes, I love them, so wish I could eat it.

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