Cheesecake Success!

Wow! I am so thrilled right now!

We decided today that it would be good to make something nice for dessert tomorrow night.  Of course Rob's idea was "chocolate cheesecake", aka the chocolate cheesecake I made a few weeks back for our Thanksmas gathering.  Yes, that was delicious, but it didn't turn out exactly as I had hoped.

Thanksmas cheesecake:

Ugly cheesecake

See, it souffled and fell and cracked and looked all wonky.  I saved it by making a chocolate ganache and covering it all up.  It worked like a charm and I felt very clever.  Did I get a picture of that? Of course not.  But take my word, it looked way prettier with the shiny ganache, and no one was the wiser.

So I tried again this afternoon to make a cheesecake.  I knew that water baths are key with cheesecakes, but I didn't use one last time because I had also read stories of water seeping into the springform pan, even when the pan was lined on the outside with foil.  Still, I wanted to have a crack-less cake, so this time around I was determined to use one...sort of.

I lined the pan with three layers of foil and put it on top of/halfway into a pie pan which I put a little bit of water in - just enough to barely touch the foil on the springform.  I then put that pan concoction into a bigger pyrex pan and filled that about halfway with water.  I put the whole thing in the oven and crossed my fingers.

This is what came out 1 1/2 hours later:

Beautiful crack-free cheesecake!

So nice, I thought I'd show you twice!

I almost cried with joy! How freaking gorgeous is that cheesecake? The only thing I see wrong with it now is the fact that it has some air bubbles, which I know resulted from over-beating.  Live and learn.  But it's so pretty!

I think I'm going to end up making ganache anyway, though.  Don't mess with a good idea, I always say.