Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake

I made this lemon blueberry cheesecake a few weeks ago and have been wanting to post it realllllly badly since then because cheesecake = delicious, but things have been really hectic here. This past weekend was my and Carey’s Cape Cod First We Eat workshop, so I flew in to Burlington (where Carey lives) a few days before and we made a stop at Vermont Creamery to eat cheese and see baby goats (OMGGGG (will talk more about the wonder that is baby goats, along with lots of pictures, in another post)) before driving over to Massachusetts and shooting, cooking, styling, and eating over the long weekend. I always think I can do more during workshops then I end up being able to, and completely thought I’d be able to get this up while I was out of town, but with my hands covered in homemade ricotta (amongst so many other cheeses) and between all the photo activities, it wasn’t able to happen. Then once Carey and I were heading back up to Vermont, I thought I’d be able to work on it in the car, but I got a call from our mail man saying he was delivering our chicks. My mom was going to be at my house all day to be there when they came, the only window of time she was busy was for an appointment she’d set a while ago, and of course that’s when the chicks arrived. So I, of course, promptly freaked out about the chicks just being in a box in the mudroom and my brain started imagining all the terrible things that could happen to them in there. A draft from the window making them too cold, a dexterous neighborhood cat learning to open the door and ripping open the box, the sun beating down on the room and making them too hot, them pecking each other to death, and so on. And with the mailman making me nervous by saying things like “they probably need water” and me replying “I KNOW.” while being 3,000 miles away, it was just buoying the existing anxiety that was already coursing through my veins. In the end, Jeremy just took an early lunch break from work and got them settled in the little brooder we’d made for them and they were fine. But I had been so anxious about it that my brain just wasn’t in a place to write. So. Now that I am finally back home surrounded by the familiar (+ some new chickies!) and back where I belong, I am going to share this delicious, sweet, and creamy recipe with you. Also, thanks for sticking with me through that long-winded, winding paragraph.

I’d been thinking about making cheesecake ever since the cheese episode of our podcast, and after lots of daydreaming about various combinations of cakes + cheese, I decided I wanted to make a layered cheesecake that had a colorful stripe in the center. Since blueberries go incredibly well with all sorts of cheese and cream, I used a combination of freeze dried blueberries that I’d ground to a dust in my blender and fresh crushed blueberries to make the vibrant center stripe. The rest of the cheesecake was flavored with a little lemon zest and juice, and I used mascarpone, cream cheese, and sour cream for the creamy cheesy base.

I really wanted to avoid getting a cheesecake crack with this recipe, so I followed all the tips I could find online. I took care not to over mix it, I tapped the pan on the counter as I added the layers to help pop any air bubbles, I baked it in a bain marie (having water in a dish in the oven to help keep it moist), I turned the oven off and left it there to cool for 2 hours. When I took it out of the oven, I set it on a wire rack and put an upside down bowl on top of it to keep it cooling slowly. But still, the crack happened. I got some tips from my instagram friends afterwards, and I think that if I had left it in the oven with the door closed rather than cracking the door open, it might have been better because even having the oven door open just a little may have made it cool too quickly. But, if you don’t care about the crack, that’s fine. And if you get a crack on it, just dump a bunch of berries on it like I did. No one will ever know! Plus it looks really pretty, and is the easiest garnish ever. Enjoy!