Cafe Au Lait Cheesecake With Caramel Sauce

Cafe Au Lait Cheesecake With Caramel Sauce
Recipe by Abbey

It's Daring Baker's time again and this month we have CHEESECAKE!

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

For this month's challenge we were given quite a bit of freedom in preparing this dessert. To quote Jenny ~ "The real challenge this month is to take this basic recipe and play with it. Make it unique. Make a showstopper of a dessert. Add flavor, sauces, decorations – dress it up and show it off." I hope I made you proud, Jenny. Enjoy!

Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake
(With Modifcations for Cafe Au Lait Version)

Crust:
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, melted
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Cheesecake:
3 sticks of cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons instant espresso powder
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean)
1 tablespoon mocha caramel liqueur, optional

Caramel Sauce (see recipe below)

Chocolate covered coffee beans

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9-inch springform pan. Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker's choice. Set crust aside.

3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg.

4. Take 1/4 cup of the heavy cream and heat it in the microwave for a short amount of time until very hot. Add instant espresso; stir to dissolve. Add this to the remainder of cream. Add the cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and liqueur to the cream cheese mixture and blend until smooth.

5. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

6. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done - this can be hard to judge, but you're looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don't want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won't crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, top with the caramel sauce (see recipe below) and serve with chocolate covered coffee beans.

Caramel Sauce
Recipe by Dragon

Ingredients:
1/3 cup water
1 cup sugar
1 cup heavy cream
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon mocha caramel liqueur
1/4 cup unsalted butter, cubed

Directions:
1. In heavy saucepan over moderately high heat, combine sugar with the water and bring it to boil. Continue cooking, swirling pan occasionally until light golden brown (about 5 minutes). Be sure not to stir the sugar.

2. Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in cream and salt. Return the saucepan to the heat and bring it back to a boil. Remove saucepan from the heat and add the liqueur; stir to combine. Let sauce cool a bit before adding the butter cubes. Stir to melt butter into the sauce. Keep warm.