The Times cooking app is ubiquitous. Everywhere you click you can come across recipes from it. I see friends’ postings on Facebook extolling their wonderfulness as easy-peasy splendor. But they’re not all created equal. And I’ve prepared many a NYTimes Cooking recipe that fostered these two reactions: “Not worth the bother,” and “nothing to write home about” –and the sheet pan dinners. Please put a hold on these for a while.
There are a few that have been wonderful, mostly baking recipes, which I favor. My least favorite are the pasta recipes. But I’m not an ardent pasta fan.
On the “like a lot said side” is a butter cookie that must be made with cultured salted butter; they’re terrific. And the best feature is the Saved Recipe section where you can get to them readily by typing in the search bar the recipe name or category. One that I had made long while back was the the famous pound cake from Detroit.
Otis Lee’s Detroit Pound Cake, NYT
Some work out beautifully and others are complete failures. I don’t know what happened to the line editing process at the Times because some recipes are not edited for clarity, as though line or copy editors were let go.
Sliced cheesecake
In the old days, we clipped recipes, saving files of these dog-eared mementoes for years. Now I print recipes found online. I go through a ream of printing paper at least once a month. I print the recipe because I take it to my kitchen prep counter to make it. I suppose the more computer savvy recipe collector would view it on an iPad. Or I could set up a file on my desktop to save the recipe to a pdf file and print as needed.
Martha Stewart’s Easter Almond-Crusted Cheesecake
But lately I’ve been “clipping” recipes from Martha Stewart that get posted on Facebook. They have gotten very high marks for clarity (though not always) and greatness of recipe. One was for a recipe for sheet pan pork chops that were glazed with a mixture of sweet chili oil and apricot jam and served with a cunning cucumber salad. The roasted sweet potatoes and broccoli is a great addition. It basically recreated my childhood fondness for a product called Saucy Susan, which my mother slathered on everything, put under the broiler in her countertop appliance that was both a rotisserie and broiler. These were then topped with Lipton’s onion soup mix and cooked until crunchy.
Martha Stewart’s sheet pan dinner of apricot glazed pork chops with cucumber salad and sweet potato and broccoli; I used sweet chili oil with the apricot jam to make it less spicy
The latest Martha Stewart recipe was for Easter Cheesecake. It turned out to be one of the easiest and most incredible tasting cheesecakes. It had three distinctive steps. The use of 4 packages of cream cheese, which is a lot considering that most cheesecake recipes hardly ever call for more than 3 eight-ounce packages. The mixture was then put into a tall cake pan that measured 8 inches wide by 3 inches deep–and not a removable bottom pan. The well buttered pan was coated in ground almonds, which made for a wonderful crunchy crust for the entire cake.
While it was baking and refrigerated overnight before unmolding I thought, how do I release this beauty from its confining pan? Couldn’t this have been made in a springform pan? Obviously not because Martha would have said so as an alternative.
Once thoroughly chilled I ran a butter knife around the perimeter, then double dipped with an offset spatula. I inverted the cake onto a platter, waiting to hear “the thump” of the cake releasing itself. It didn’t.
Martha’s recipe had not included a method of how to release the cake from the pan. Shame on you, Martha! The recipe was noted as being adapted from her first cookbook “Entertaining.” One method that I knew of to use to release stubborn items (not just cakes) is to briefly set the pan above a modest flame or heat from an electric cooktop for about 15 to 30 seconds. This worked and the cape came out unscathed, completely intact, the coating adhering totally around and under the cake.
I don’t know why it’s called an Easter Cheesecake. Maybe Martha’s test kitchen came up with it around Eastertime. It could be served anytime of year, especially apt to serve in the summer topped with local fresh berries. Strawberries, raspberries, peaches or blueberries would be ideal. Or just serve plain. It’s wonderful. The texture is incredibly creamy but still dense enough to use a good plunging of your fork to take a bite into it that literally melts in your mouth.
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon softened butter
- 1/4 pound finely ground blanched or sliced almonds
- 4 8-ounce packages cream cheese, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup heavy cream (your best cream, not ultra-pasteurized)
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 4 large eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten
- Grated zest of l lemon
- Grated zest of l orange
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
- Butter an 8-by 3- inch round cake pan. Set aside.
- In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese, cream and sugar until smooth. Add the eggs and beat until incorporated. Beat in zests and vanilla.
- Pour into the prepared pan and place in a large roasting pan Transfer to oven rack and carefully add enough boiling water for the roasting pan to come two-thirds up the side of the cake pan. The average tea pot in which to boil the water will not be enough. Use two kettlefuls, if necessary, until it reaches 2/3 the way up the side of the cake pan.
- Bake until firm, about 2 hours, adding more boiling water if necessary. The water level needs to be maintained in order to achieve the creaminess. Turn off the oven, keep the own door ajar, using a wooden spoon if necessary. Let cake cool completely in the oven.
- Transfer to refrigerator and chill overnight. Instead of using foil or plastic wrap put a plate over the cake instead to avoid "drip" from the covering of plastic or foil.
- Invert onto a platter as described above in the body of the article.
