Virgin Cheesecake

There are cheesecakes for every season. Pumpkin cheesecake with gingersnap crust in the fall. Rum-laced chocolate cheesecake with chocolate wafer crust in the winter. A goliath slice of shortbread-crusted lime cheesecake might even be refreshing during the dog days of summer. The cheesecake of spring, however, is less presumptuous than her seasoned sisters. Stripped of their heady finery, her purity promises innocent pleasure. Pristine white cream cheese, a whiff of lemon, a teasing splash of vanilla, and a cool crown of sliced strawberries: a virgin cheesecake.


This dessert followed a sweet pea and asparagus studded risotto, stirred diligently to perfection by Brooke.

Virgin Cheesecake
adapted from Cook's Illustrated The Best Recipe

"Pure" cheesecake is not diet cheesecake. Low-fat cheesecakes are usually, to my mind, trashy imitators of their immaculate full-calorie rivals. So, no "light" cream cheese or sour cream has found its way into this recipe. But it could be slimmed down by doing so.

The cooking and cooling method here is a bit strange, but it does create a creamy cake that won't split or sink.

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
4 packs of cream cheese (2 pounds)
1 1/4 cups sugar
4 eggs at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest
1/2 cup sour cream
1 pound fresh strawberries, stemmed and thinly sliced
3 tablespoons strawberry jam

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F.

Combine melted butter and graham cracker crumbs and press them into the bottom of a 9 inch springform pan.

Beat cream cheese with an electric mixer until smooth. Add the sugar a bit at a time, beating on medium speed until the sugar dissolves, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until just incorporated and scraping down the sides of the bowl after each addition. This keeps your cake from having cream cheese lumps. Add lemon zest and vanilla and beat until just incorporated. Stir in sour cream by hand.

Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth the top with a spatula. Bake the cake at 500 degrees for 15 minutes. Then, reduce the oven temperature to 200 degrees (leave oven door open until temperature reduces). Bake until the outside of the cheesecake is set, but the middle still jiggles, between 60 and 70 minutes longer. Turn off the heat and leave oven door ajar by propping it open with a long-handled fork or spoon. Allow cake to cool in the oven like this for about 1 hour longer. Remove and cool to room temperature.

Arrange fresh strawberries on top of cake. Heat strawberry jam in a small pan over low heat. Using a pastry brush, coat surfaces of berries with warm jam. This makes them nice and shiny.

Cover cake and refrigerate until chilled, at least 4 hours. This cake can be refrigerated up to four days.

Food + Words = Blog Baby

I'm just going to go ahead and do it. As people say, there's no right time to make a baby...and maybe the same holds for one's own blog. So, with enthusiasm and trepidation, welcome to Food and Paper.

For today, some initial musings: One of the nice things about food -- buying it, preparing it, and eating it -- is its ephemeral nature. Food is there on the counter, on the stove, in hand, disappearing into mouth, tasted, relished, or gobbled down quickly, and then it's gone. And the whole act must be repeated again within hours. I've become addicted to the pleasure of knowing that we cannot be filled. And so, as long as we have bodies, the gastronomic anticipations, the search for new tastes and textures, the multiple combinations of dining places and companions... it need never end.

And so, writing about and photographing food seem to be enterprises in making indelible what is wonderfully fleeting. Yet, readers, this is what I want to do. I've got an itch to marry my affection for stable words and images to my promiscuous culinary escapades.

Here, though, is where I wonder whether this marriage has always already existed. Words are not constant, and a glass of good wine need not be sipped into oblivion. I've chewed on certain texts until I was sure I had my fill, only to return to them again. I've often been left hungry by a photo, no matter how many times I've fed on its every detail. A certain dinner of tomatoes and salt has left an unerasable imprint on me. I'm certain, moreover, I've read unforgettable stories on dinner plates. And things always taste better when words are shared.