Tall New York Cheesecake with Cherry Sauce

My husband absolutely LOVES cheesecake. It's not my favorite, but if it's homemade and has a fruit topping, I do enjoy it. But, it doesn't matter if I like it anyway. This particular cheesecake is for his birthday. His (ahem) 40th birthday.

He labors over my cake of multiple layers, buttercream and fondant. so I must make his favorite. I used the Tall and Creamy New York Cheesecake recipe by the NY Times. I figured a recipe right out of New York outta do the trick, right?  

I pureed grahm crakcers in the food processor to make the crumbs nice and fine, stirred in the sugar, salt and melted butter and then pressed it as evenly and as far up the sides of my 9 inch springform pan as I could. 

I mixed together the cream cheese filling and it filled the crust right to the brim. 

I was a bit concerned when it came out of the oven with this big crack in the side.  However, it calmed down a bit from it's Grand Canyon size crack to a smaller one as it cooled.  Plus, as it turns out, the crack was a nice little trap for the lovely cherry sauce. 

There you go. It's out of the springform pan. Thank goodness it didn't stick completely to the sides of the pan. Plus, that crack is barely as noticeable.  And, when the cherry sauce goes on top, you won't even notice. 

And, speaking of cherry sauce, here it is. I thought this bubbly deep red sauce was so gorgeous. I used frozen cherries to make this, but definitely didn't want to settle for just the gloopy canned stuff. I used this recipe which was very simple:

Ingredients:

3/4 C. sugar

2 t. cornstarch

1 pinch of salt

1/3 C. water

4 C. fresh tart red cherries or frozen unsweetened tart red cherries, pitted

Directions:

Combine sugar, cornstarch and salt in a saucepan. Stir in water. Add the cherries and cook until thick and bubbly. 

I let the sauce cool a bit and then added it to the top of the cheesecake.

I didn't mind the sauce running down the sides as it is such a pretty color. It's the year of the sparkler at our house to celebrate birthdays instead of candles.  Happy birthday to my hubby!

Raspberry Pate de Fruit

Whenever I'm down on M Street in Georgetown, I always enjoy strolling through Dean & Deluca to admire all the lovely and decadent chocolates, marzipan animals, macarons and pate de fruit. The pate de fruits are always luscious looking yet so expensive and I thought they can't be too difficult to make. 

The holidays seemed like a perfect time to try making them myself. I tried raspberry for a nice deep red color and raspberries have to be one of my favorite flavors too. I used this Food & Wine recipe by Jacque Pepin. 

It held together quite nicely after the gelatin set.

I cut several small pieces and found it easiest to wet the knife in hot water in between.

I rolled each piece in sugar and put them on a tray.  While they turned out quite nice, they were a bit too moist to package and give as little gifts. However, we enjoyed them with blue cheese and wine and it was a fabulous combination.