New York Cheesecake

Adapted from: Gourmet Magazine

Crumb Crust

• 8 ounces (15 4 3/4 x 2 1/2-inch sheets of graham cracker) finely ground graham crackers or cookies such as chocolate or vanilla wafers
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick or 4 ounces or 113 grams) unsalted butter, melted
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Cheesecake Filling:

• 5 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened (Philadelphia is recommended for cheesecakes but if you’ve had success with other brands, feel free to use them again)
• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
• 1 teaspoon finely grated orange zest
• 5 large eggs
• 2 large egg yolks
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Cherry Topping

• 10 ounces sweet or sour cherries, pitted (they’re not in season here so I used frozen; worked just fine)
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1/4 cup sugar*
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1/2 cup water

Make Crumb Crust: Stir together crust ingredients and press onto bottom and up sides of a buttered 9 1/2-inch springform pan. You can fill it right away but I like to pop it into the freezer so it quickly sets while I prepare the filling.

Make Cheesecake Filling: Preheat oven to 550 degrees. Beat together cream cheese, sugar, flour and zest with an electric mixer until smooth. Add eggs and yolks, one at a time, beating on low speed until each ingredient is incorporated. Scrape bowl down between additions; if you do not, you’ll end up with unmixed stripes of cream cheese.

Put springform pan with crust in a shallow baking pan (to catch drips). Pour filling into crust (springform pan will be completely full) and baking in baking pan in the middle of the oven for 12 minutes or until puffed. Please watch your cake because some ovens will top-brown very quickly and if yours does too fast, turn the oven down as soon as you catch it. Reduce the temperature to 200 degrees and continue baking until cake is mostly firm (center will still be slightly wobbly when pan is gently shaken), about one hour more.

Run a knife around the top edge of the cake to loosen it and cool the cake completely in springform on a rack, then chill it, loosely covered, at least 6 hours.

Make cherry topping (optional): Place all ingredients together in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil. Once it is boiling, cook it for an additional one to two minutes then remove from heat. Cool completely.

Remove side of pan and transfer cake to a plate, you might need to trim the cake flat.
Spread topping (if using) over chilled cheesecake. The original recipe says to bring this to room temperature before serving, but I never have!

Do ahead: Cheesecake keeps, covered and chilled, 2 weeks.