White Chocolate Cheesecake

There are some days that just aren’t going to work out. When you walk out of your house in the morning to discover it’s colder than you planned for. Shiver, shiver all the way to work… Or when your work project decides that it is going to fail and disappoint you. Grumble, grumble at your desk… Or when you find yourself wishing doom and destruction on your coworkers, just to spread the misery around. This has turned out to be one of those days.

If you were to happen upon me today, depending on the time, you would have found a sad person, a crazy person or even a vengeful person. The crazy person period of time lasted longer than my coworkers appreciated, I’m sure of it. But sometimes you just go off the deep end and you need to take a lap or two before you climb back out.

Luckily things seemed to turn themselves around toward the end of the day. My boss was understanding and we devised a new plan of attack. My coworkers decided not to commit me and waited out my cuckoo crazy hours. And I got a package from UPS! (Doesn’t that always cheer you up?) And on top of all that, I got to come home to this cheesecake.

When I read this recipe I knew I was in trouble. Cheesecake is rich to begin with, so adding a half pound of white chocolate would only make it decadent. Delicious. Very, very heavy! This cheesecake has to weigh at least 5 pounds once completed! I don’t even want to do the calorie count, I just know that I have to run the stairs of my building before AND after I have a slice. I brought half of the cake to work to get it out of my house! Luckily it freezes well, so now I have half a cheesecake (in lovely personal-size slices) in my freezer. No, you can’t come over.

White Chocolate Cheesecake

From Williams-Sonoma CAKES

6 graham crackers, crushed

¼ cup butter, melted

4 large eggs, at room temperature

2 lb cream cheese, at room temperature

1 1/3 cups sugar

2 tsp vanilla

3 tbsp all-purpose flour

8 oz white chocolate, melted

¼ cup heavy cream

½ cup sour cream

Heat oven to 325. Mix graham cracker crumbs and melted butter together. Press into the bottom of a 9” springform pan. Bake crust for 10 minutes, until slightly browned. Let cool slightly on a wire rack. Wrap bottom of the pan in foil.

Whisk eggs in a small bowl. In a large bowl combine cream cheese, sugar and vanilla, mixing until well beaten. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add flour. Next, add half the eggs. Mix until combined and add the rest of the eggs. Add melted white chocolate, combine. Finally, add heavy cream and sour cream and mix until no more swirls of white are present.

Pour cream cheese mixture into the springform pan and cook in the oven for an hour. Put the cheesecake pan in a roasting pan and put into the oven. Fill the roasting pan with one inch of water. Do not open the oven door to check on it! After an hour gently jiggle the pan, if the middle wiggles allow to cook for 5 more minutes.

Take out of the oven and cool on a wire rack for 1 hour. Take cheesecake out of the roasting pan, remove the foil from the pan and let cool for 1 more hour. Cover with plastic wrap and cool in the fridge for at least 6 hours before serving!

Unmold from the spring form pan and… NOM NOM NOM!