New York Style Cheesecake Experiment

Wow, this week we've been eating out way too much. I can't remember when's the last time we had dinner at home (Tuesday?!). Yesterday we met up with our friends at a beachside cafe called Lanai in Semiyak. I'll try to post a review another day along with other interesting food stuff from the week.

With all the eating out and stuff, I did manage to do a bit of baking. On Thursday when we met up with friends from Singapore, we were in persuit of the best cheescake in Bali. Unfortunately, the villa cafe no longer had this cheesecake because the chef left. Boo. It got me even more motivated to try out this New York style cheesecake recipe that I found on the net. This was my very first time trying to make a proper cheesecake, and it turned out ok despite all the physical flaws (mostly the cracks on the top and sight over browning of the crust) and the trouble I went through with the actual assembling (grating my thumb by accident of course, borked oven with NO temperature control, running out of sugar in the middle of assembling, and misbehaving electric hand mixer). I let the cake sat overnight in the fridge after it was done baking and cooled sufficently in the oven and then on the counter.

I ate a piece of it this morning for breakfast. The taste is surprising light with a nice citrus flavor (the trouble with grating of lemon and orange was worth the taste). The crust at the bottom of the cake and most of the sides turned out fine with a nice golden brown color. The taste was quite good too, i.e. not burnt. I still need to figure out how to make the cheesecake more fluffy. I wonder if the slow cooling in the oven helped. Overall, not too bad for my first try...

Totally off topic, but on our way to Ubud, we saw a pink pig that was as large as a cow!! It had balls as big as grapefruits too. Then, in Ubud we met a very friendly golden retreiver. We whistled at him for a bit, and a few minutes later, he approached us and plopped himself down at our feet demanding to be petted. Now we know where our favorite dog Dilgo (half local/half golden retriever) got his personality.