When things go wrong with recipes that involve meats and vegetables, there is usually ample room to successfully adjust and substitute. Not so with desserts! That’s one of the reasons I’m not a big fan of making desserts. It’s nearly impossible to wing it. Dessert making, most times, is a science; one formula mistake and it’s over! None of that “I can’t be bothered.” It sort of takes the fun out of cooking 🙁
I saw a recipe on Epicurious for Peach Cheesecake and I do like peaches so decided to give it a try. Things immediately started to go wrong. The peach season has come and gone. In France that means there aren’t any, period. Disappointed, I bought some strawberries from Belgium.
For some odd reason I looked at the Philadelphia Cream Cheese in the supermarket and didn’t buy any. I think the constant banging and clanging going on in the house is snatching my mind! Having preheated the oven and prepared the cookie crust, I trotted down to the local 7-11 but they didn’t have any Philadelphia. I thought that maybe Kiri cheese might be a good substitute and bought 6 packages containing 8 individually wrapped 1 ounce servings. This was getting ugly.
I made a strawberry compote that boiled over and necessitated adding more strawberries and spending an unhappy time cleaning the stove. The recipe called for layering fruit compote between two layers of cheesecake batter. Honestly, I thought this was wrong but by that time it was a brief WTF thought, quickly forgotten. Of course the compote soaked the cookie crumbs and ran out of the springform pan. Good thing I put some aluminum foil under the pan, otherwise I might have gone postal. Clearly I was having compote issues.
The cheesecake was not done in 1 hour. It wasn’t just “jiggly” in the center, it was jiggly all over! I cooked it for another 30 minutes, turned off the oven and left it inside where, by the time the oven cooled, it had developed a San Andreas fault in the center.
I ceased to care and glazed it anyway with a peach glaze, piled some strawberries in the center, hacked it in half, giving half to Steve at the fish store and the other half to the ladies at the Litteraire, apologizing profusely but assuring them that it was edible.
I almost never have complete disasters with non dessert foods. I would not have wanted to serve this at a lunch or dinner. Such a bummer and I should have had peaches.
You like machines. Get an ice cream maker and D. Lebowitz’s The Perfect Scoop. Delicious desserts unlike anything you can buy. (Nothing like unbidden advice, n’est-ce pas).
The cake photographs well though.
Thank you. The magic of photography! I’ve got an ice cream maker 😀
Wow this looks amazing! Could u use Philadelphia instead of kiri cheese? I also love the colors perfect for this season and Halloween today!
Love Katie
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https://whatskatieupto.wordpress.com
I wanted Philadelphia.
Oh my god, you could have lost California!
Exactly
Imagine the tidal wave 😉
Too funny!
🙁
The mint leaves make everything good.
That’s what I thought 😉
I’ve been there…too often. In the end nothing beats fresh fruit as a dessert….and I have a particular dislike of cheesecake as an idea and as a dessert..but then that would be no surprise:)
I’m “not cake” as you know, but you should taste a good cheesecake. It’s very rich and you don’t need much.
We usually get the cracks on the cheesecake. We’re not bothered by them. I’m with you on the dessert bit though, it is way more stressful than regular cooking! 🙂
Yes, I’m going back to apple crumbles. Can’t go wrong 😉
And those are delicious with custard. 😊
Hi Rosemary,
I have way more dessert and cake recipes in my cardex than anything else, but I agree that the dessert recipes are unforgiving. I’ve have the cheesecake disaster many a time, and I’ve still not figured out why the cracks appear 😞
Next time will be better – I remember the cheesecake you posted a little while ago, which turned out perfectly for you and for me!
It was perfect! I think it’s the cheese I used.
The crack makes the cake more sexy :p
I love how you’ve captured making cheesecakes, they are quite difficult, but so delicious to eat. My top tips are to spray a mist of water in oven just before baking. When you get to the jiggling top stage turn the oven off with the door slightly ajar and let it cool down. You may still get crackng but not as wide or deep.I feel inspired to make one soon watch out for the recipe on taste2taste.com.
Thanks for the advice Lin!
Despite all the issues you had to cope with it still looks delicious! I get far more stressed with cooking savoury food, would rather make a dessert any day!
I’ll bet your desserts are fabulous. When one likes doing something, they usually do it well.
wow this looks amazing 🙂 I need to try this
Looks tasty
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