Hey everyone, Sam here from Sugar Spun Run and today I'm showing you how to make my favorite, creamy, homemade cheesecake.
I am so excited to be sharing my all favorite homemade cheesecake recipe with you today.
This recipe only calls for a few simple ingredients. It's made entirely from scratch, and there is no waterbath required.
To get started, you will want to preheat your oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
Next, we are going to make our graham cracker crust. Now this is really simple.
We are going to start with 1 1/2 cups of graham cracker crumbs.
and stir in two tablespoons of granulated sugar.
and one tablespoon of packed light brown sugar. Just use your spoon to break up that sugar a little bit.
The brown sugar might try to clump so you want that evenly distributed.
Now we will add 7 tablespoons of melted butter.
Make sure to get all of that in there.
And we will just stir that together until all of that butter is incorporated in the graham cracker mixture.
It should have a kind of wet, sandy texture when you are finished.
This looks pretty good, so we are going to add this to a 9 inch spring form pan.
Now I am just going to use a clean measuring cup and use this to evenly tamp down the bottom .of the crust and also to just pack in the sides
so they are nice and compact and they are not going to just crumble when you cut into your cheesecake.
I also like to go around the side of the graham cracker crust, just with my fingers just to pack that down a little bit.
and again just make it less likely that the sides are going to crumble when you cut into this cheesecake.
So our cheesecake crust is prepped at this point, we are just going to set it aside. We don't need to prebake it or anything, just set it aside.
and now I am going to move over to my stand mixer to make the cheesecake filling. If you don't have a stand mixer, you can just use
an electric hand mixer. So we are going to start with 32 ounces or 4 8 oz bricks of cream cheese.
and you do want this to be bricks of cream cheese. Don't buy the spreadable stuff that is in the tub.
I also really recommend using all room temperature ingredients. This is one of the things that can help keep your cheesecake from cracking while it bakes.
So I like to set out my cream cheese and my eggs a couple of hours before I begin baking.
So I am going to add this to the bowl of my stand mixer.
Now we are going to stir this cream cheese on a low speed, just until it is creamy.
This is going to help get rid of any lumps that could form, but you do not want to do this on high speed.
You don't want to whip this together, one of the biggest things when making cheesecake, is you don't want to over-mix the batter.
If you do, you will incorporate a lot of air and you will end up with a cheesecake full of cracks, just keep it nice and slow.
Since our cream cheese was already softened to room temperature, it doesn't take much to get that nice and smooth.
So now we are going to add one cup of granulated sugar. I like to add this gradually while I have the mixer on low speed.
and we will just stop about half way so we can scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl, because we want that sugar and cream cheese to be nicely combined.
We will also add 2./3 cups of sour cream which is going to give this cheesecake a great rich flavor.
At this point, we will also add 1 1/2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract.
and just 1/8 teaspoon of salt, and now stir these together until just combined.
You want the sour cream to be nicely incorporated, but again don't over-do it.
We will get the sides and bottom of the bowl again
So you want to make sure your mixture is smooth at this point and there are no lumps.
Make sure you work out any lumps in your batter before we add our eggs, which we are going to do in just a minute.
Our cheesecake batter is looking pretty good, so we can add our eggs. We will need 4 large room temperature eggs,
for this cheesecake recipe, and the big thing here is you do not want to overbeat your mixture as you are adding these eggs.
We are going to stir them in gradually with the mixer on low speed, and to help incorporate them in the batter,
I am just going to lightly scramble each one with a fork before I add it to the batter.
We got that stirred up. We'll add this in.
and stir on low speed until just combined.
and we'll repeat that with our three remaining eggs
Again, I cannot overstate the importance of scraping the sides and bottom of your bowl while mixing everything together.
This is just about done, I am going to stir it just a few more seconds on low speed, and then we will be ready to pour it into our prepared springform pan.
I am just going to use my spatula to gently smooth over the top.
Now I have a pretty good spring form pan, mine never leaks, but I know not everybody is so lucky.
So one thing I like to do, just to safeguard against having a mess in your oven, is to just line a baking sheet, like a cookie sheet with aluminum foil.
and then I will put my cheesecake on top of that, so if we have any spills, we are not going to have a mess to clean up.
You can just roll up the foil and throw it away.
Now we are going to bake our cheesecake in our 325 degree Fahrenheit preheated oven,
for about 65-75 minutes. What we are looking for when it's finished baking is the center will still be jiggly when you touch it,
but if you touch the top with your finger, it should be set, and the edge should begin to turn a light golden brown and they'll be puffed up a little bit.
When your cheesecake is finished baking, you are going to want to let it sit on top of your oven.
The reason I let it sit on top of my oven is because that is usually the warmest place in the house
It's going to make that process of cooling a lot more gradual. It's not going to all of the sudden be shocked by cold air.
It's going to help prevent any cracks.
Now let this sit for 10 minutes, and once 10 minutes has passed, you will want to use a knife to separate the crust from the side (the inside) of the spring form pan.
What this is going to do, is it's going to help keep this crust from sticking because your cheesecake is going to shrink a little bit as it cools,
and that can actually cause cracks in your cheesecake, deep crevices, if the crust is stuck to the pan.
So just use your knife to separate those two.
Now you will continue to let your cheesecake cool for another hour or two hours, or until it reaches room temperature.
You don't want to put it in the fridge until it's reached room temperature.
Once it has, it will go in the fridge, and let it sit there overnight, or at least for 6 hours.
until it cools completely.
Once your cheesecake has finished cooling, now we can dig in and serve.
and that is how you make my favorite homemade cheesecake. I really hope you love this recipe as much as I do.
If you try it out, please leave me a comment and let me know what you think.
Thank you guys so much for watching and I will see you next time.
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