(upbeat music)
- Hey guys, it's Natasha Kravchuk
of natashaskitchen.com.
Today we're gonna make a basic cheesecake,
said no one ever.
This is by no means basic.
This cheesecake is super impressive, it's tall,
it's kinda like a New York style cheesecake.
It's delicious, and it's pretty easy to make.
I think you'll be surprised.
So let's go over the ingredients real quick.
You're gonna need about a a cup and a half
of graham cracker crumbs.
You're gonna need six tablespoons of unsalted butter.
One tablespoon of regular sugar.
Five eight ounce blocks of cream cheese,
at room temperature, very important,
to get those five sticks of cream cheese at room temp.
A cup and a half of white sugar.
Seven large eggs at room temperature also.
A fourth of a cup of sour cream.
And then a teaspoon and a half of vanilla extract.
Alright, first things first.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.
Then get started on melting your butter.
So I got our butter nice and melted.
And measure out your graham cracker crumbs, cup and a half.
And your tablespoon of sugar.
So go ahead and pour the graham cracker crumbs
right in to that butter and add the sugar.
And we're just gonna mix it together,
until all of the graham crackers are moistened.
Alright so what we're gonna do next,
is transfer that to a spring form pan.
This looks like a nine inch spring form pan,
you see it's got that tall wall,
and the base comes out,
which is great for serving the cheesecake.
I wouldn't recommend any other kind of pan besides this one.
So just transfer your crumbs
into he bottom of your spring form mold.
And then even them out on the bottom.
Now this part doesn't have to be perfect.
You just want them to be pretty even.
And when you're putting in the graham crackers,
try and let them go up the wall,
just a little bit,
to make sure that we seal the edges,
and we're not gonna be getting cream cheese
seeping through the bottom.
And we're gonna pop this in the oven,
for eight minutes at 350.
Alright, the crust is ready and it's perfect.
So you wanna let that cool down to room temperature.
And in the meantime,
crank your oven up to 450,
and get started on your cream cheese filling.
We're gonna start with our five sticks
of softened cream cheese.
Now, again, super super important
that this is at room temperature,
because if it's not,
you can have clumps in your cheesecake,
and we don't like clumps in our cheesecake, no.
So put those in,
and then add your cup and a half of granulated sugar.
And you're gonna mix that together,
on about medium high speed for five minutes,
or until it's nice and fluffy.
And scrape down the bowl as you need to
so you don't get chunks of cream cheese.
(whizzing)
Alright, we're gonna scrape her down.
Make sure there's no clumps.
Okay and crank it back up
to finish off that last five minutes,
or the rest of the five minutes.
Alright, five minutes later,
you can see how nice and fluffy that cream cheese is.
We're gonna kick it down to medium speed,
and add your eggs one at a time,
until they're nicely incorporated.
(whizzing)
And it's a good idea to go ahead
and scrape down the bowl right now too,
just so you don't get any
globs of cream cheese on the sides,
it's all well incorporated.
So just scrape her down.
(whizzing)
Now we're gonna kick it down to low speed,
and add your fourth of a cup of sour cream,
and your vanilla.
And just keep mixing until it's well blended.
(whizzing)
We're ready to transfer the filling into the crust.
Yum, check that out.
Woo, that looks perfect.
So velvety smooth.
It's huge.
Look at this, it's fills up this whole pan.
Smooth out the top with a spatula,
and then you're gonna bake at 450 for 15 minutes,
then turn down your heat to 225,
and bake for another hour and five minutes.
Now also super important,
do not open your oven while it's in there,
otherwise it's more likely to form the cracks on the top.
Now this one,
sometimes it still forms a little crack.
But that's perfectly fine,
because we have a blueberry topping coming,
that's just fantastic.
Once the cheesecake comes out of the oven,
it's gonna be, oh yay tall.
Maybe half an inch, sometimes an inch above the rim.
Which is what it's supposed to do.
And then as it cools,
it sinks back down.
So you want this to cool.
Just take it out of the oven when it's done,
let it cool to room temperature in the refrigerator,
or if it's cold in your garage,
just pop it in the garage.
Let it cool down all the way.
And that's why I like making this cake in the evening,
is because it can really,
you're not gonna eat it anyways so,
why tease yourself all day?
So first things first,
we are going to
take your knife and run it
around the edges of the cheesecake.
Just to loosen it from the pan.
So that's what we're gonna do.
Just run it around the edge.
La-di-da.
Okay.
And then you can release the sides of your spring form mold.
Ta-da.
And then you're gonna take a thin edge spatula like so,
and just slide it under the base of the cheesecake.
You can just serve it right on the base
of the spring form mold,
and that's perfectly cool.
So push it through along the edges,
and then once you're done doing that,
you can transfer it to a cake platter.
Now be very careful,
because the base of this,
the cookie crust is very slippery.
And when I made this for Thanksgiving dinner,
I have a disaster story.
So I was carrying it to someone's house,
and as soon as I got out of the car, it just like (whoosh)
right onto the floor.
It was really a disaster.
(laughs)
True story.
So just be careful,
because this thing is kinda slippery.
And what I love about the topping on this,
is the border kinda create a bowl
for that blueberry topping that we're gonna make.
So let's get working on that real quick.
It's fast and it's easy you guys.
You're gonna love this.
So we start out with one fourth of a cup of water.
Cold water.
Two tablespoons of sugar.
Two teaspoons of corn starch.
And a tablespoon of lemon juice.
And you're just gonna whisk that together.
You wanna do this cold,
not on the heat,
because if you do it on the heat,
that corn starch before it's mixed into the water real well,
it'll start to turn jelly-like,
and then you get chunks in your sauce.
You don't want that.
Alright, mix that together.
Put that on the heat,
over a medium heat.
You see how it's starting to thicken?
Let's go ahead and add in
the four cups of frozen blueberries.
Alright, and once those are in,
you wanna just continue to mix it,
until you see a light bubbling.
You want to get rally hot,
but you don't want it to boil,
because if you boil blueberries,
they kind turn to mush,
and we want these to keep their form.
Alright, that blueberry topping is done.
And it's perfect.
And you know, this is great,
not just for cheesecake,
but you can put this on pancakes or waffles.
It's delicious.
Alright, now the important part,
the taste test.
So we're cutting big slices here.
And there's two ways to serve this.
You can, especially if you have cracks on the top,
which this one doesn't, it's perfect,
but you can put the blueberries on top,
and just make a topping out of it,
or you can serve individual slices of cheesecake,
on the plate,
and then top each slice with some blueberry sauce.
And that's the way I like to do it.
(upbeat music)
Mm.
This is delicious.
Wow.
I hope you guys love this recipe.
It's definitely a family favorite.
For a print friendly version of this recipe,
visit natashaskitchen.com.
I've also got it in the links below.
Mm.
Thanks for watching.
(upbeat music)