Honey Cardamom Cheesecake with Candied Kumquats - My First Daring Bakers Challenge

"The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge."

After talking for a year about joining the Daring Bakers, I've finally done it. My first challenge? Cheesecake! Well, of course I wanted to try some strange and exotic twist on cheesecake. But, I also wanted to try the classic "cheesecake flavor" cheesecake, because how can one truly know if it's a good recipe to modify unless you've tried the original? Hmmm. I had a dilemma: experiment with some wonderful, never-been-done-before flavor that could alter the course of all cheesecakedom hereafter, or go with the practical, classic choice.

And, what did I do in the face of such a moral dilemma? I made two cheesecakes. That's right - when faced with a choice, I don't make a choice - I choose both. (Sometimes this works better than others.) Anyway, what I discovered by making the plain NY style is that it's my favorite cheesecake recipe I've ever used. Sometimes altering ingredients and making substitutions before trying the original recipe so you know what you're starting with doesn't work out as well. So, at least I know now that I can feel confident making all sorts of tweaks and modifications to this recipe, because it's a good one. So if one flavor combo doesn't turn out so well, the original recipe isn't to blame. I did really like the honey-cardamom flavor, too. Especially the candied kumquats on top. I think the additional liquid from the half cup of honey I subbed for half of the sugar kept it from setting quite as well, but I'm not sure how I would fix that next time. Both flavors are very subtle, but they somehow give the cheesecake more of a full, lingering flavor, while the NY style has a fresh, crisp flavor. I'm going to post the recipe for the original, NY style cheesecake below, with notes on how I modified it for the honey-cardamom version following it, so you can do whichever you like.

crust:
2 cups / 180 g graham cracker crumbs
1 stick / 4 oz butter, melted
2 tbsp. / 24 g sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

cheesecake:
3 sticks of cream cheese, 8 oz each (total of 24 oz) room temperature
1 cup / 210 g sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup / 8 oz heavy cream
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean)
1 tbsp liqueur, optional, but choose what will work well with your cheesecake (I omitted this for the NY style, and used 4 tsp freshly ground cardamom for the honey-cardamom version)

DIRECTIONS: 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (Gas Mark 4 = 180C = Moderate heat). Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker's choice. Set crust aside.

3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.

4. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

5. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done - this can be hard to judge, but you're looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don't want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won't crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve.

Pan note: The creator of this recipe used to use a springform pan, but no matter how well she wrapped the thing in tin foil, water would always seep in and make the crust soggy. Now she uses one of those 1-use foil "casserole" shaped pans from the grocery store. They're 8 or 9 inches wide and really deep, and best of all, water-tight. When it comes time to serve, just cut the foil away.

Here are my notes:

I only had 8" and 8.5" springform pans, which increased my baking time to about an hour and twenty minutes before I turned the oven off. Even after using the water bath, and letting the cakes cool inside the oven after baking, the NY style cake still had a crack in the top. Maybe using the correct (9") pan-size would have helped that. But, I did find some heavy-duty aluminum foil at Ralph's (Ralph's brand) that's 18" wide, so I didn't have to worry about any water leaking in.

For the honey-cardamom version, I substituted 1/2 cup of the sugar for 1/2 cup of Orange Blossom Honey (so, 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup honey total). This was a suggested substitution with the recipe, but again, it seemed to make the cheesecake rather liquidy and it didn't set as firmly as the other.† Also, I think it may have prevented the crust from being as crispy as I would have liked, but maybe pre-baking the crust would solve that.

I then ground 4 tsp of whole cardamom, and added it to the heavy whipping cream, which I had heated in the microwave until it was just about to boil. After it had cooled, I poured the cream into the mixture per the instructions, using a strainer when doing so to catch the pieces of cardamom so the cheesecake stayed nice and smooth.

Finally, here's the recipe for the candied kumquats that I found on epicurious.com. I'd never had a kumquat before, but they just looked so pretty in the picture, I had to try it. I popped one into my mouth while I was seeding them (a process that requires patience, but well worth it in the end) and it was like a little burst of summer in my mouth! Just the perfect combination of tart and sweet. Anyway, I made the topping a day ahead, and just topped the cheesecake with it when it was ready to serve. Voilá! Two cheesecakes and a delicious experiment indeed.

Candied Kumquat Topping
2 Cups Water
2 Cups Sugar
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
about 35 (10 oz) kumquats, sliced thinly and seeded

Directions:
Combine the water and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat and stir until the sugar dissolves. Add vanilla extract (or scrape in vanilla bean, if you're really gung-ho). Then add in the kumquat slices and reduce the heat a little. Simmer until kumquat slices are translucent, about 25 minutes. Remove from stovetop and let the kumquats cool in the in syrup. Strain the kumquats and place them in a separate bowl, adding about 1/4 cup syrup to them. Put the remaining syrup back into the saucepan and boil until it reduces down to a nice, syrupy 1 1/4 cups (about 8 minutes).

*Can be made 2 days ahead. Cover separately and chill.

†One reader commented that 1/2 C honey is as sweet as 1 C of sugar... so for this recipe, it would work best to use 1/2 C sugar, 1/4 C honey, and then decrease the amount of cream by 1 or 2 T to eliminate the "liquidy" problem. Thanks for the tips!

** I apologize for the colors in the picture. This is better than my first attempt, and while it looks fine in Photoshop, apparently I need to figure out how to upload images better. Just use your imagination to envision a vibrant, tantalizing-looking dessert. I promise, you won't regret making this (well... until you realize you've just had cheesecake for breakfast... again).