Margarita Cheesecake

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a serious craving for Mexican food all week.  Maybe it’s all of the delicious Cinco de Mayo posts that I see my fellow bloggers posting, or maybe it’s the warmer weather and the thought of getting out the grill and eating on the back deck again.  Either way, I need Mexican food.  Stat.  And what drink goes perfectly with Mexican food?  Margaritas, of course!  In preparation for looks to be another awesome weekend spent hanging out outside, I decided to make a Margarita Cheesecake.  I mean, you can’t have a delicious Mexican food feast without an appropriate dessert, right?  So whether you drink your margarita or eat it (or both), I hope you enjoy this cheesecake!

So I often hear people wondering why their cheesecake cracked.  Has this ever happened to you?  You make this amazing looking cheesecake only to open the oven and see a huge crack right down the center.  Or worse, it looks great out of the oven, but then a crack shows up when it cools.  Well, I’ll share a couple of secret cheesecake tips that I learned a few years ago.

• First, make sure to bake your cheesecake in a water bath.  I simply wrap aluminum foil around the bottom of my springform pan.  Then I set this pan in a cookie sheet in the oven.  Then I quickly fill the cookie sheet with boiling water and shut the door.  (A teapot with a long spout is a great tool for this job.)
• Don’t open the oven to peak at your cheesecake every 5 minutes.  The water you poured into the baking sheet evaporates and creates a very humid environment in the oven.  You want to keep that humidity in the oven.  Every time you open the oven, that moisture escapes.
• Bake the cheesecake until most of it is firm.  Try to leave a small circle (maybe 1″ in diameter) in the middle of the cake where the batter is less firm.  When you remove the cake from the oven, it will continue to bake for a bit longer, and if the cake gets overbaked, then cracks are sure to show up.
• And finally, I like to make my cheesecakes the day before and then freeze them overnight.  Once I pull the pan out of the oven, I let it cool for a few minutes and then wrap it fully (pan and all) in plastic wrap.  (Basically, wrap it as soon as it isn’t too hot to touch!)  Then put the whole thing in the freezer overnight.  The next day, you can easily pop open the springform pan and remove the hard cheesecake.  It’s easy to handle the cheesecake and transfer to a serving plate when it’s frozen, too.  (Just allow yourself an extra couple of hours to let the cheesecake thaw in the refrigerator before serving!