Meyer Lemon Cheesecake

I decided to make a cheesecake for our Christmas dinner. I’m not much of a baker, but I do like cheesecake, and I remember Maya talking once about how much she loves Meyer lemon cheesecake, which she has had once or twice at local restaurants. So I looked around online and found a couple of recipes, but I didn’t love any of them. I was talking to my neighbor, Barbara, about it, and she told me she has a cheesecake recipe that she loves, that came with her Oster brand mixer that she got back in 1972. It’s not really lemony flavored, but it does have some lemon in it. She swears by the recipe and says everyone she serves it to loves it. I liked the sound of that, but she makes hers with a corn flake crust, and a sour cream and almond topping. I decided to make a crust with biscoff cookies, and top the cheesecake with homemade Meyer lemon curd, since I saw a recipe online that did that and it looked really pretty.

I don’t know if you have Meyer lemons where you are, but they are much prized here. They are a type of lemon that is a mix of regular lemon and clementine oranges, or something like that. They are sweeter than regular lemons but still tart without being acidic. Barbara has a Meyer lemon tree in her back yard, so she donated those to the cause.

As I said, I’m not much of a baker. I’ve only made cheesecake once before, back in 2011, so I am not well practiced at it. Mistakes were made. I didn’t feel like I had enough cookie crumb to go up the sides of my springform pan, so I just put it at the bottom. The cheesecake stuck to the sides of the pan, so it didn’t look very pretty on the plate. When it was still in the pan, I tried to take a picture to show Barbara, and I dropped my phone into the lemon curd topping. I was able to smooth that out, but it didn’t look as pretty as the part that had not had a phone dropped in. But overall it was a delicious cheesecake, and I would absolutely make it again.

Here’s the recipe, in 3 components: crust, filling, and topping.

MEYER LEMON CHEESECAKE

Biscoff Crust

Ingredients
• 5 ounces Biscoff cookies, crumbled
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Directions
Heat oven to 350°F. Prepare a 9-inch springform pan.

In a food processor, blitz Biscoff cookies until finely ground. Add sugar and salt and continue to process. Slowly pour in melted butter and process again.

Press mixture into bottom and up sides of springform pan. Bake in 350 oven for 10 minutes. Remove and let crust cool to room temperature.

Recipe found here.

Barbara’s German Cheesecake

Ingredients
• 4 eggs, separated
• 2 tbsp Meyer lemon juice
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 lb cream cheese, room temperature (Gina Marie Cream Cheese if you can find it)
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions
Put egg yolks, lemon juice, sugar, and vanilla into food processor. Slowly blend and start adding cream cheese in small amounts until all is blended smooth.

Whip eggs whites to near firm peaks, then gently fold into cream cheese mixture. Pour onto crust, bake 45 -60 minutes, depending on your oven. You want the center to be set, but just barely.

I read online that a lot of times, cheesecakes will crack as they cool, which did happen to me in 2011. One way to prevent this is to turn off the oven, crack the door open by putting a wooden spoon in, and let it cool off that way. I think I did that last time and it didn’t work, but it did this time, so no cracked cheesecake.

Meyer Lemon Curd

Ingredients
• 2 large egg yolks, at room temperature
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup freshly squeezed Meyer lemon juice (from 2 or 3 lemons)
• 2 teaspoons grated Meyer lemon zest
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces

Directions
In a large bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, eggs, and sugar. Whisk in the lemon juice. Transfer to a double boiler and cook the curd over barely simmering water, whisking constantly, until the lemon mixture thickens and reaches 170°F (76°C) on an instant-read thermometer. (The mixture will be very foamy on top.)

Remove the pan from the heat. Strain the curd into a bowl. Immediately whisk in the lemon zest and butter until the mixture is smooth and emulsified.

Recipe found here.