Saturday, July 4, 2009

Red, White, and Blue(berry) Cheesecake

Disclaimer: This post gets a full on "Disaster" tag. Not that "Near Disaster" tag that I've been giving recipes that almost worked or that worked but not how I expected them to. Here's why.


Yeah... let's just start with the visual. We'll go ahead and let the cheesecake stand in for white, but do you see anything that even a little bit resembles red or blue?

Nah. Me neither. I forgot how unblue blueberries really are. I thought about enhancing the fillings with red and blue coloring but quickly threw that option out the window. And then I threw something else.

See that area at about 8:45 where the crust kind of blends into the cheesecake? Yeah... I had a little water bath issue and ended up flooding my cheesecake at that very point. I tried to remedy the situation by throwing a paper towel on my cheesecake to soak up the water before it absorbed. I don't know either.

So my colors are off, and I flooded the cheesecake, but... the polka dot technique will still wow people.

No... no, I'm afraid it won't. You see, there is a reason I couldn't find any examples of people polka-dotting cheesecakes with fruit flavors. The polka dot cheesecake technique is done with cocoa because cocoa thickens the cheesecake filling rather than thinning it.

Do you see polka dots in my cheesecake?


Perhaps here?


No. The thin fruit fillings mostly showed up on top of the cheesecake even though they were piped into the cheesecake. I don't know how it happened; that's why it's a disaster.


This is about as close as we got to polka dots. A mushroom-shaped blueberry blob. And... it makes sense that it be mushroom-shaped because my sister thought the uncut cheesecake resembled some type of poisonous mold. If the rest of the cheesecake were successful, I'd have covered the top with... something... but this disaster didn't even merit that much effort.


My sister found and photographed this dot. It's getting there but still not right. I now know for a fact that fruit polka dots do not hold up in cheesecake like cocoa polka dots do. Fair enough. Lesson learned.

How did it taste? (you might ask.)

Good! I used the cheesecake recipe from the Daring Bakers April challenge and it came through again. I chose iced oatmeal cookies for the crust this time and I would highly recommend that. It got rave reviews from my testers. Also, if you use the iced cookies you can omit the sugar called for in the crust. I did and no one missed it.

In conclusion: Cheesecake with random pockets of raspberry flavor (the blueberry, for some reason was barely discernable --- again, disaster) and an oatmeal crust - very tasty. Fruit polka dots - very unsuccessful.

Any questions?

7 comments:

Barbara Bakes said...

LOL - loved your post. I too did a red, white and blue cheesecake. Mine looked better than yours, but it didn't taste better, which is what really matters. :-( (I'll get my post up soon.)

Anonymous said...

You are too funny :D

Sorry it didn't work out the way you wanted it to - but I am glad that it still tasted good.

Evan said...

Nothing can truly be considered a disaster if it still tastes good. That's what I tell myself, at least.

kmari03 said...

yeah, i'm sorry, but this is the unprettiest thing you've ever baked.

the oatmeal cookie crust sounds incredible!

Eva said...

this post is hilarious. as long as it tastes good, that's all that matters!

How To Eat A Cupcake said...

Bahahaha ohhh well, at least is tasted good! :D :D :D Good thinking with the oatmeal cookie crust!

Amber said...

i can't lie; when i saw it and thought the exact thing as your sister: moldy cheesecake! but i bet it was delicious just the same.