This recipe was requested about July 1st or 2nd.

Sorry it took so long, but it was like pulling teeth to get this recipe. Not all of us want to share our most coveted secrets and apparently this recipe is very close to one of our host families. While I was able to get the recipe, I could not get the story behind it.

This is a lemon cheesecake with lemon curd topping:

There are three parts to this recipe

1) THE CRUST: Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

• We use a deep dish glass pie plate to make this cheesecake. DEFINITELY NOT a shallow pie plate. Butter the pie plate and put it aside.
• Use organic graham crackers or organic vanilla wafers or your favorite crunchy sweet cracker or cookie. We use organic graham crackers.
• Put 2 cups organic graham crackers (or two packets) in a food processor or use a rolling pin to get them to the consistency of bread crumbs.
• To this, add 4 tablespoons organic turbinado sugar and one tablespoon cinnamon and mix thoroughly.
• Melt one stick of organic butter in a small iron skillet and add to the above mixture. If you are using a processor, pulse this mixture until it looks evenly saturated with the butter. If you used a rolling pin to break up your crumbs, mix thoroughly with a fork. We have the best luck with a food processor.
• Put the crust mix in the pie plate and pat it gently all over pushing it up and around the pie plate until it is evenly distributed and you have a pie crust which fills the pie plate and goes up the sides to the top.
• Bake for approximately 10 minutes at 325 degrees. Take it out of the oven and let it cool while you make the rest of the cheese cake.

2) THE CHEESECAKE FILLING:

For this you will need –

one 8-ounce package organic cream cheese (we use Organic Valley)

one 8-ounce package neufchatel Cheese (again Organic Valley)

one-half cup organic Turbinado sugar (we haven’t found a spectacular brand)

2 tablespoons ‘flavorganics’ French Vanilla Oil

the zest of one organic lemon

the juice of one freshly squeezed organic lemon

four large eggs

2 Tablespoons organic whole-wheat flour (optional)

4 ounces organic sour cream (again Organic Valley)

• In your large Cuisinart mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, put the cream cheese, neufchatel cheese, and sugar. Beat at a medium speed until these ingredients are well mixed, fluffy and look a little like whipped cream.
• Scrape down the sides of your bowl. Make sure the cheeses are melded together and you don’t have cream cheese on the bottom and a mixture of the two on the top.
• Turn the mixer to low. Carefully and slowly add the flour and a “pinch” of salt. You really need to add salt at this point because if you don’t the cheesecake will have an empty taste, as though something is missing. Don’t add a lot or the taste of the cheesecake will change.
• Add the eggs, one at a time, while continuing to beat the cheesecake to make sure they are properly incorporated.
• Add the French Vanilla Organic Oil, lemon juice, lemon zest, and sour cream.
• Beat on a slow speed until these are incorporated.

Pour this mixture into the crust in the pie plate you have been cooling and put it in the oven at 325 degrees for about 40 to 50 minutes.

For this you need:

• Take the zest from one organic lemon by using a carpenter’s rasp. Rub the rasp all around the lemon until you have removed the yellow skin and the only thing remaining is the white pith.
• Cut the lemon in half and squeeze the lemon for its juice.
• Whisk together the organic egg yolks, and organic turbinado sugar in a glass saucepan. No other kind of pot will do for this lemon curd.
• Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spatula until the mixture thickens and coast the back of a spoon. This will take about 5 to 10 minutes. If you feel better using a thermometer, it should read 140 degrees (a candy thermometer).
• Remove the glass saucepan from the heat and stir in the organic lemon zest, juice and organic butter. Stir until the butter melts.
• Put the saucepan on the side and let the lemon curd cool until you are ready to use it.

 

When the cheesecake comes out of the oven, let it cool a few minutes and then pour the lemon curd over the top. I always take a little out of the saucepan before pouring so I can have it with tea on biscuits or whatever kind of great bread or cake is available. It is a small immediate reward for making this cheesecake which others will devour.

The process used to make this cheesecake is not much different from the millions of other such recipes in cookbooks, newspapers, etc. What is different about this cheesecake is the quality of the ingredients you use. They should ALL BE ORGANIC, which takes the taste way into the stratosphere and makes your taste buds remember it for a very long time.

In addition, the ingredients should ALL BE TOP OF THE LINE ORGANIC. No “organic” from stores which sell their own brand to trillions at a cut-rate price. If you look cloely and taste – that cut-rate price produces cut rate quality.

No substituting regular sugar for the organic sugar and no substituting organic sugar processed in ways other than “Turbinado” – the least processed sugar you can find. All of these small things make a great difference.

I often have a taste for my grandmothers’ cooking and only sometimes can reach her height. I’ve discovered I also have a taste for other folks’ grandmothers’ and mothers’ cooking which I’ve tasted over the years and when I made the same dishes in the same way it didn’t taste the same. I thought I was, unknowingly, doing something in my own way and missing their process. It has taken years of experimenting to discover the big difference is in the quality of the ingredients, not in the process.

My daughters when they were little and didn’t know how to cook could make a better cake than those my friends made, who were experienced cooks, but who made their cakes from a ready-mix box. Generally, it takes the same amount of time to make your cake from scratch as it takes to make it from a box mix. AND, stop lying to yourselves, the box mixes are generally all the same. Different marketing, different boxes with prettier or not so pretty labels, but inside the same ingredients – all ready to attack your health and well-being instantly after eating.

We are being chased by all kind of degenerative diseases. Watch the ingredients in everything you eat and be very careful with your diet and you will see an amazing change in your health and feelings of well-being.

If you balk at the cost of the ingredients, – eat less and enjoy it more. The bonus to you is prettier skin, a more svelte figure, improved health and probably a longer life.

ENJOY!

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