Cheesecake Disaster, Remedied

Here is a cheesecake that Joshua made last week. It was a vanilla cheesecake, similar to this basic cheesecake recipe (for those curious).

Due to various factors (forgetting to grease the sides of the pan, allowing the cheesecake to completely cool in the pan, etc.), the cheesecake ended up with some huge cracks in it. I don't think I've ever seen such a disastrous-looking cheesecake before!!

The good news is that we smothered the top of the cheesecake with some super-flavorful homemade cherry pie filling/topping. I used some of my canned sour cherries. The addition of red food coloring would have made the topping even more attractive, but we knew our guests would rather eat a dark topping than a bright one, if it meant adding food coloring. :)

When the cheesecake was cut, the cracks still weren't even really noticeable. It tasted great! :)

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This happened to me too!

Submitted by amyd on Wed, 2007-03-07 20:43.

When I made the double chocolate Italian cheesecake. I filled in the cracks with the chocolate topping and nobody knew the difference. It was wonderful by the way. The cracks didn't stop anybody from eating it!

I think the natural topping

Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 2007-03-09 03:20.

I think the natural topping looks great! Send me a piece! Love, Lucy x

Ah, yes... the

Submitted by Abutton on Sat, 2007-03-10 15:06.

Ah, yes... the cover-the-cracks-with-topping method works beautifully, doesn't it?! I'm very thankful that all but one of my cheesecake recipes have toppings of some sort... it definitely helps me not stress about cracks. :)

Did you use a water bath?

Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 2007-03-20 19:22.

I believe that when you cook the cheesecake in a water bath, it's supposed to prevent cracking. If I remember correctly, you place the springform pan into a 9x13 pan and add boiling water til it's an inch deep. Then bake it. Sounds like a pain, but it usually works.

I love topping my cheesecake, but it's nice to have it look perfect before topping it.

Now I'm hungry. Tammy, I am really enjoying your site. It's fabulous.

No water bath

Submitted by Joshua on Wed, 2007-03-21 04:06.

No, I didn't use a water bath on this cake. I have before but was trying a new recipe and wanted to see how it worked without. The cake was fine out of the oven... it was the fact I let it sit in the springform without breaking it from the sides. It sat over night and stuck hard enough it pulled itself apart!

oops, I'm not anonymous

Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 2007-03-20 19:25.

I guess I better register.

Cracked cheesecake

Submitted by Tammy on Tue, 2007-03-20 22:13.

Amy, I think it's a fine line between cooking cheesecake just long enough, cooling and removing the outside of the pan at the right time, etc... :) Oh well, can't be perfect at everything, now, can we? :)

Lucy, you have to come get it ;)

Abutton, yes! :D

Jo, no, we didn't use a water bath on this cheesecake. We do on our "fancier" ones though! It is a bother, BUT when we're making a huge chocolate cheesecake, we want it to be the best possible. ;)