Last weekend I’m sitting on the couch, nursing what I think is a minor sore throat, sailing through tv channels, waiting for America’s Test Kitchen to start, when I breezed past Everyday Italian on The Food Network.
I eyed the TV casually. I don’t dislike this show, but I’m typically not dying to try everything she makes — it’s more like, “huh, that seems like it might be good,” and then I forget about it. On this day, however, she was making…cheesecake. As I continued to watch, Giada De Laurentis — or “little big head” as she’s affectionately called in some circles — casually mentioned, “limoncello” as she rattled of ingredients.
Limoncello? My ears perked up. I just happened to have a bottle of limoncello in the fridge. We had gotten it last year at a Trader Joe’s in California as it looked interesting (and because you can buy hard alcohol at Trader Joe’s in California).
But, hey, what are the odds of this, I thought — I almost have to make this cheesecake, just because the coincidence was too great. She’s making a tasty dessert item with a slightly obscure product that I just happen to have on hand! After the limoncello, all I needed were the biscotti, ricotta, cream cheese and lemons. Because, really, if you already have that one ingredient, what’s going out to get four more?
Exactly!
Here is the recipe as written:
Draining the Ricotta: huh-huh-huh-huh
I used a large mesh strainer over a bowl and just let it sit on the counter for about an hour, getting down to room temperature.
Following the recipe above, I did a couple of things differently. I used a combination of one package 1/3-less fat cream cheese and one package of the regular full-on fat cream cheese. Yeah, I know, but I figured I should at least try. Also, I don’t have a big food processor — I have a cute, little Kitchen Aid Food Chopper. Eyeing all the cheesecake parts on the counter, I figured that there was no way everything would have fit in my mini appliance, so I just processed the ricotta to get the lumps out, then poured that in my stand mixer and used that to combine the rest of the ingredients. It seemed to work fine, but I’m not sure if that made a difference in the finished product.
Speaking of which — The Finished Product:
Oh, I should also probably point out that baking isn’t really my bag, baby. I love cooking and throwing things together tastily in that devil-may-care way, but sometimes baking with all its exact measurements and chemical processes and precise what-not trips me up. I’m sorry, AB, but it’s true.
That disclaimer disclaimed, the above-mentioned finished product was denser than a regular cheesecake and not super sweet — neither of which are bad things. It had a really good flavor and I liked the biscotti crust a lot. I would probably make it again but perhaps a half recipe, as it was a lot of cheesecake for two people to go through.
this was quite tasty and not as heavy as one might expect from a cheesecake. while i am not big on the biscotti (personally, my tastes lie in the oreo-cookie or graham-cracker), nonetheless i enjoyed two squares in one sitting.