Big Batch Chicago Style Cheesecake recipe (48 servings)

Darlings, I am re-posting a recipe of Mary's. This recipe originally  appearing in 2004 is still the best if you need to make cheesecake for a crowd.

Quick Note Folks:

Yes, absolutely you have time to make this before Thanksgiving, if you do it today.  Cheesecake tastes better if it sits in the fridge for a day.  Well, it does.  I made this recipe again yesterday, while I was making chili.  Seriously, mixing this together takes about 15 minutes, the baking not quite an hour.  Cool, wrap, into the fridge.

Now I did something different this time with the crust.  Saved a bunch of time.  I bought a package of Pillsbury ready made pie crust (the package that has 2 rolled single crusts for a 9 inch pie).  I used that for the bottom crust.  Line the bottom of 2 of  the spring-form pans, trim the excess, piece together the bottom of the third.  Do not pre-bake the crust, just pour the cake batter in on top and bake as directed for the cake.  Worked dandy.

If you don't need 3 cheese cakes, divide the ingredients by 3.

It Is All About The Cheesecake!

Note before you start -- this recipe makes 3 nine inch round cheesecakes.

Cheesecake freezes beautifully.

CrustPreheat oven to 325 degrees
In medium sized bowl combine:
3 Cups all purpose flour
1/2 Cup sugar
1/2 Teaspoon baking powder
1/4 Teaspoon grated lemon peel (from real fresh lemons not the dried stuff in the jar)

Mix well, then add
1 Cup softened butter (real butter, I use salted butter, if you prefer sweet butter, that works fine too. I have no idea what fake butter or shortening will do to this recipe and I don't want to know, if you try either, please do not tell me.)

Mix again until all ingredients are combined. You should be able to easily form a pliable ball from the dough with your hands.

Pliable like pie crust or play dough, not sticky.

If the dough seems stiff or wont form a ball - add water one tablespoon at a time until you can form a pliable ball.

Divide the dough into three pieces. Smash the dough into the bottom only of three nine inch spring form or straight sided cake layer pan. You can get all neat about it and roll the dough out and cut a nice circle then lay that in the bottom of the pan, but you were just smooshing the dough around with your hands to form a ball then divide it in three so you decide if you want to get out a rolling pin.

Bake the crust in your preheated (you did preheat -- right?) oven for 10 minutes. You don't want the crust to brown, just set, it will finish browning when you bake the cheesecake.

CheesecakeRemove your pans from the oven, set aside to cool. Turn the oven temperature up to 350 degrees.

In a very large bowl combine
9 eight ounce packages of softened cream cheese.  (single cake = 3 packages)
3 cups sugar (single cake = 1 cup)
1/3 cup all purpose flour (Single cake = use 2 tablespoons flour) 
1/2 tablespoon grated lemon peel (Single cake = 1/2 teaspoon)
1/2 tablespoon vanilla (single cake = 1/2 teaspoon)

Mix -Mix - Mix -- mix until well blended

then add
7 eggs (I use extra large eggs -- but cheesecake is pretty forgiving so if you use large or jumbo it should not make a huge difference. If you use small eggs, you are on your own.) (single cake = 2 eggs)

3/4 cup 1/2 and 1/2 (single cake 1/4 cup)

Mix until well combined. Pour cheesecake mixture into your prepared pans.

Bake at 350 degrees for around 50 minutes. Cheesecake is done when only the middle 2 inches of the cake jiggle when you move the pan slightly. Take the cakes out of the oven to cool. The middle will finish setting while the cake cools.

After the cake has cooled run a spatula around the outside of the cake to loosen it from the side of the pan. Do not remove the side of the spring form pan at this point. Cover cake with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator to chill at least four hours before serving. If you are going to freeze the cake, skip the refrigerator and put the plastic wrapped cake right into the freezer.

Raspberry Sauce
2 cups frozen whole raspberries
1 cup sugar
Place the raspberries and the sugar into a heavy saucepan. Heat over low heat until the berries are thawed and stirring combines the berries and the sugar into a liquid. Increase heat to medium. Cook, stirring frequently until the mixture reaches the "jell" stage on a candy thermometer.
Chill sauce and serve over slices of cheesecake.

One nine inch cake should be cut into at least 16 slices.

Last Quarter

The moon is at the last quarter, but the Fab sees it as half tonight. As you know darlings, Fabiola's moon is always half full (not half empty). What moon do you see tonight?

Intersection of this and that ...

Darlings, the Fab has been pondering music. One song from three days ago (that song is really from 1976 not three days ago -- but it was new to the Fab three days ago, which works out to be the same now does't it?) Holding up a hand:  Don't argue with the Fab darlings, the Fab is a figment, arguing with a figment of someone else's imagination, well, how can you win?  But mostly the Fab has been contemplating music remembered from her highschool(ish) years.  Perhaps music is too broad of a term, the Fab's years of 1975 through 1979 were dominated by power ballads and disco. What is a Fab to do?  She works with what she has that is what she does.  Don't worry if this isn't making any sense, nor does it appear to be headed towards a point.  Of course you know that the Fab has explained that she is less than linear, try as she might to have it point North, the Fab's compass insists on spinning round and round.  (That the Fab still follows that compass, despite knowing this is as much a wonderment to her as it may be to you.).  A destination then if not a direction?  Yes.

The destination is music once heard that grabs onto a moment and there it stays forever verses music that drifts along with you always staying close but never finding an anchor in memory.  You have no idea what the Fab is talking about?

A song that the Fab liked, Bad Girls by Donna Summer is stuck somewhere in the middle of a hundred or more hearings headed west through a stop sign at the intersection of 12th avenue and 34th street in Moline on a sunny summer afternoon. Why then, why there the Fab has no idea, but toot toot, hey, beep beep and there we are.

On the other hand, a song that the Fab loves has been drifting in and out of memory since 1975 without finding a spot to light and stay.  Perhaps it is a song that deserves more than a three second pause at a 4-way stop at the bottom of a hill.


Edit: the Fab has been re-reading her blog and she came across this entry from 2009.  The link to the song is broken, and the Fab has no idea what song it linked to. The Fab didn't create a hook to hang that song on and now 15 years later it has blown out the door and down the street and the why of the memory is gone.  Note to self: create a mental hook to hang important ideas on.

Remember Shrinky Dinks?

Remember Shrinky Dinks?  No the Fab didn't so much either until a week or so ago.  Of course, lovely, brightly colored, shrinking plastic had almost nothing to do with the actual event but as is the way with the Fab,  tossing some around can only help.

That said, the Fab went with Mary to her 30th High School Reunion. Fortunately, the Fab is ageless. Mary, on the other hand ... well, it is the mileage now isn't?  Gets ya every time. Still, Mary had a great time.  She did.  No, you ask her if you want to hear about it.  Isn't the Fab's story to tell.  Mary hasn't written a word since February, slacker.

Third paragraph darlings and the Fab is winding up to tell you what she came to say. Everything shrunk. While the places were all there and next to the other places remembered, and everything looked almost exactly the same, everthing was smaller and closer together.  Entire city blocks, shrunk. Parking lots were cut in half.  Nothing was as tall or as wide or anything as it should have been.  the Fab could not figure it out.  Until, the realization hit.  When the Fab last looked at Moline, she had city eyes, since then she has been looking through country eyes.  Out in the middle of not much of anything, everything is very far apart and the Fab now knows that a gal gets used to seeing things that way, because in her memory, the places that she used to live,  expanded.  A trip back however, shrunk them right back down to where they (always really were) and should be.  Interesting.

Don't for a second suppose that the Fab is talking about the people she talked to.  No, they were more wonderful than the Fab remembered.