Paula's Cheescake

If you've read the Culinary Life List, you'll know that Stuart and I are trying to turn over a new leaf by not eating processed foods.  As you may have guessed, that was more my idea than Stuart's.  As you also may have guessed, that is proving to be a pretty challenging task.  I dare you to open up your pantry/fridge right now and see what percentage of the stuff in there is processed.  It's scary!  And what I mean by processed is having stuff on the label that is not recognizable as food.  Example: Tocopherol in my seemingly-healthy Near East boxed whole grain couscous mix.  What the heck is that?  And don't even get me started on Velveeta.  It's not even cheese!

Anyways, we have begun the process of using up/donating the processed items in our pantry and replacing them with only whole-food items.  This will mean a lot more cooking on our parts, but hopefully a lot healthier bodies in return!

And of course there will be bumps in the road.  Our first bump?  Paula Deen's Chocolate Explosion Cheesecake.  

Whoa.

 It all started while Stu and I were watching the Food Network one Saturday.  The whole day was dedicated to recipes with chocolate in them.  On comes Paula Deen, the queen of fattening recipes.  Well her show that day demonstrated making the Chocolate Explosion Cheesecake.  Stuart and I were transfixed to the television.  The cake had 5 layers.  There was cookie dough, caramel, and ganache involved.  


Fast forward to Valentine's Day.  Stuart came home from work one evening with a Publix paper sack which went straight to the fridge.  He said it was my V-day present and I had to wait to see what it was.  I was immediately suspicious.

Large paper sack to the right

On Valentine's Day before our wonderful dinner at the Wash House, which could be a post in and of itself, I opened the bag.  Ta-daaaa!  It was the cheesecake ingredients for us to cook together!

A few days later we began our cheesecake adventure.  We donned our aprons (matching ones, mind you!) and prepared to bake.  We divided up layers.  I worked on the graham cracker crust while Stuart made the first chocolate layer.  Now, I have to give Stuart credit for the culinary progress he has made!  Before we were married he ate tuna helper and peanut butter (not together) on a regular basis.  I also remember the first dinner he ever made me was chicken nuggets and his grandma's frozen mac and cheese.  I loved it just the same!  But now we both like spending time in the kitchen together, and his cooking skills have grown to prove it!

Anyway, I was at one counter pressing down the crust, and Stuart asked me where the flour was.  I keep flour, sugar, and corn meal on the counter in big unlabeled glass canisters.  I use them a lot and theyre just really handy that way!  I told him it was the 1st jar and kept minding my crust.  A few minutes later, over a steaming double boiler, Stuart asked me to come see if the chocolate looked ready.  I glanced in and noticed it was a little, well, grainy.  I then looked to his right and noticed the jar of cornmeal was open.  Uh ohh...He grabbed the first jar at the other end of the row.

We proceeded on despite the mishap.  On to the next layers of caramel sauce, cookie dough (processed, dang it), and chocolate ganache.

Mistake #2: we cut the cookie dough a bit too thick and didn't have enough to cover the entire cheesecake.  Again, we proceeded on.  When the cake was finally assembled it almost overflowed the pan!  Since the cookie dough layer was only on the periphery there was a big dip in the cake, but we figured it would taste good anyway.  Into the oven it went!

Paula said to bake the cake at 300 degress for an hour.  I thought that seemed kind of low but went with it anyway.  After an hour it was still basically liquid, and it wound up cooking for about an hour and a half.  After 8 agonizing hours of it cooling in the fridge, it was time to taste!

Mistake #3: not greasing the pan enough.  That plus all the layers didn't quite 'adhere' together.  Made for a bit of a messy cut

So, as I'm sure you're dying to know, the cheesecake was delish!  You couldnt even notice the secret ingredient: cornmeal.  However, next time we may try sticking with just 1 or 2 layers instead of 5.  And maybe I should label my jars.