Hi guys, I'm Laura Vitale and on this episode of Laura in the Kitchen I want to share with
you, my raspberry swirl cheesecake. It's been a hot minute since we've made a cheesecake,
so I figured, might as well make a pretty one, right?
Ha!
It's actually incredibly simple and easy to do, it's a basic cheesecake but it's really,
really, really good and I want to take you over the ingredients so we can get started.
You'll need some crushed graham crackers, I've also got some granulated sugar, some
cream cheese that's been softened at room temperature, some additional granulated sugar,
eggs, a little bit of flour, some melted unsalted butter, I also have a pinch of salt with the
sugar here as well, some seedless raspberry jam, I have some sour cream, and some vanilla
bean paste.
That's pretty much all you're going to need. Really easy and really basic, you could add
a nice grating of lemon zest, which I very, very often do. I'm not going to today, but
most of the time I do and I think you should add it, it definitely gives a little zing
to the whole thing.
So, let's get started the first thing I've got - first of all you want to make sure your
oven's reheated to 350, I also have a 9 inch spring form pan that I've sprayed with non-stick
spray, and I've layered the bottom and the sides with a few layers of aluminum foil because
we're going to be cooking this in a water bath and I don't want any of the water to
seep through the bottom of the baking tin, so do that and get that ready.
Let's make the crust, graham crackers, sugar and butter. That's all you need my friend,
and all you're going to do is mix these together until your mixture pretty much is combined,
and then we're going to press it into the spring form pan.
Okay, add the graham cracker mixture in your pan. I'm going to get down and dirty. I have
to roll up my sleeves!
Okay, and then, just using your hands, I just kind of smear this so that it's in about a
single layer, like in an even layer, I shouldn't say a single layer, and then you want to press
this in the bottom and up like one inch of your pan, and if you need some help kind of
maneuvering this around, you can use a cup. Make sure it's clean, I actually just rinsed
the bottom with some water, but look what happens, you're kind of pressing this against
the bottom and the sides of the pan and it just makes it really, really flat and really
perfect and even!
This looks perfect, I'm going to pop it int the oven for about 8 to 10 minutes and then
in the meantime we'll get going on making the filling.
Now I'm going to add my cream cheese to my mixer that I have fitted with a paddle attachment,
and I'm going to give this a good two minutes just to get a head start, and get really,
really creamy - you want to make sure that your cream cheese is at room temperature because
if there are any lumps and bumps of cream cheese throughout your cheesecake, that's
just not right!
Nobody wants to bite down on one of those, so give it a couple of minutes to really work
and get really creamy.
I'll show you what it looks like when it's there.
That looks perfect!
Lovely and creamy, no lumps in sight!
Now, I"m going to add the eggs and I'm going to let those mix for a minute as well - I'm
pretty much going to add the eggs and then the sour cream and then we'll add the sugar
and the flour together, but I just want to give everything a minute in between just to
make sure that it's incredibly smooth and velvety because I want this cheesecake to
really be exceptional when it comes to texture.
So, giving it some time really does achieve that for me, so besides I'm not doing it with
my hands, the mixer is doing the whole thing.
Okay, perfect, I'm going to again just give it a gentle, just stir, scrape, and then we're
going to add in my sour cream. This just gives you great balance with the cream cheese and
then just a little bit of vanilla bean paste. Oh, I'm down to hardly anything in here!
I'm going to panic soon!
Okay, going to give this a good mix, and then we'll add everything else!
Is this perfection or what?
It looks like liquid velvet, oh I love it! And all of those little specks of vanilla
running through it, you know it's going to be good.
I'm actually giving this - well, some of this cheesecake away tomorrow to some friends that,
you know, work with us, and they love cheesecake, and when hey see this coming they're going
to be thrilled!
Sugar, pinch of salt, and flour are going to go in and those are pretty much the last
ingredients that go into the filling - and the flour just kinda acts as a binder that
kind of holds everything together, it's not very much, and then again another minute until
it's all combined.
Perfection!
Ah, that just looks absolutely magnificent!
And the base, the graham cracker base baked for about ten minutes.
Think it was actually 9 minutes, but clearly, who's really counting?
Haha.
You really can start to - a lot of foods tell you when they're ready, like I could just
start to smell the cookies - the cookie layer, so I just knew it was done.
Okay, this is so gorgeous, and now we're going to do like a little swirl topping, i'm just
going to take some seedless jam, this is raspberry but you can use whatever your heart desires.
We do little dollops, now I am so not skilled at making things look pretty and neat, nothing
like that, I just don't have that gift in life, but basically what I'm doing is just
adding little dollops, kind of in a circular pattern, all over the top.
And I'll do like, probably two layers of this.
And then I just take my knife and pull it in like so.
Like so..
And I'm going to do a little bit more because I have some more jam.
But clearly, I don't go for any fancy patterns, I just go for delicious!
That should be the best pattern.
How's it taste? How's it look?
But it's more like: How's it taste? Huh?
That's what I want to know!
Then I just basically run my knife through like that and then I run it up and down, just
to make a swirly little pattern.
Now, what I have here is - ugh! - a lot of really hot tap water, and I need to fill my
baking pan, now you can see I put my spring form pan inside of a baking pan, a bigger
one, and I'm going to add enough water to come up halfway up the sides of my pan.
This is going to bake in a water bath, it's going to be fantastic!
It just makes it - it bakes evenly, basically is all I'm going to say.
I'm going to pop this in the oven at 350F for one hour, after one hour you turn the
oven off. You open the door of the oven ever so lightly and you let the cake cool, the
cheesecake cool in there for one hour, and then you'll let it cool completely on your
counter before throwing it in the fridge overnight.
I"m going to show you what it looks like when it's completely cooled, because there's nothing
else really to see, and then I'll explain how I got to that point.
Ohh it's heavy!
Now, just to recap: my cheesecake was in the oven for one hour exactly.
Then I turned the oven off, opened the door of the oven just a little bit, let it cool
in there for one hour, and then I let it cool to room temperature for a couple hours before
popping it in the fridge overnight.
Now, I just want you to know that if your cheesecake cracks just a little bit, and mine
cracked just a little bit over here, it is no big deal, cheesecakes do that.
When you're making a proper cheesecake, it's very temperature sensitive, but I can tell
you one thing, it does not effect the actual flavor and the outcome of the cheesecake,
whatsoever!
This cheesecake is incredibly creamy and smooth, and you can see that the jam, the raspberry
jam, made it's own sauce.
It is absolutely, like it is so creamy that I don't even know what to do with myself!
I know, I am a huge cheesecake fan!
Oh my goodness, this is so good I could just slap somebody right now!
That's what you do when you're excited in an Italian household. Okay, it's like if Joe
was right here, my friend would be right here, I'd be like.
BOOM!
Do you not taste how good this is!?!?
I mean, it just makes me so excited!
It is so - just come close and look how creamy this is, it is not hard, it is not like chalky,
some cheesecakes have that really hard, powdery taste to them like texture, I don't like that,
I like creamy, velvety, smooth cheesecakes and this, in my opinion is as good as it can
possibly get. If you don't want to do the swirl thing, don't!
You'll have a beautiful plain cheesecake that is absolutely award worthy, it is so insanely
delicious, and I also want to point out you can use any seedless jam of your choice, it
doesn't have to be raspberry, it can be absolutely any flavor you want, you will just love it.
It is so easy to make, and it's so delicious, and if you love cheesecakes like I do, then
this is a recipe you need to make this weekend!
Go to LauraintheKitchen.com to get the written recipe, I'm so excited I keep staring at it
- ha! - I hope you enjoyed spending time with me, if you recreate it, you know I expect
to see a picture on social media, all the links will be down below!
I hope you've enjoyed spending time with me, and I'll see you soon! Bye!