The Cheesecake: a light, American style cheesecake made with cream cheese and Greek yogurt. This is a simple, quick, and adaptable recipe that yields a firm, light, smooth filling with a sweet and slightly savory flavor. The crust is a traditional crumb crust, of medium thickness. DELICIOUS.

The Cheesecake

When we asked Constantin’s mother to help us in our cheesecake adventure, she graciously offered this simple recipe to kick off our blog. As the story goes, Mrs. Koumouzelis discovered this recipe in 1980 in New Jersey when a friend served a slice to her at lunch. It reminded her of a cheesecake she used to eat at the Bay — so she decided to adopt the recipe and adjust it to even more closely resemble the cheesecake she was so fond of. Years later, when we came up with the odd ambition to start this blog, she helped us bake our very first cheesecake.

The Recipe:

• 12 oz cream cheese
• 1/2 pint strained Greek yogurt (full fat, no gelatin or additives) OR sour cream
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• some crushed pineapple OR other flavoring to your liking (e.g. vanilla, lemon, amaretto, etc.)
• 3 tbs butter
• ~9 digestive biscuits OR other cookie

First, prepare the crust.

Melt the butter in a pie dish in the microwave. Crush the cookies in a processor and add the crumbs to the melted butter. The crumbs should hold together with the butter, without being overly wet. Shape the crust by patting the crumbs with a fork, filling in any holes and forming the sides.

Next, prepare the filling.

Crush the pineapple. We crushed some in the food processor and some by hand, to get a bit of texture. With a mixer or by hand, combine the cream cheese, yogurt, sugar, egg, and pineapple until well blended.

Pour the filling into the crust, smoothing with a spatula.

Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. You may need to adjust based on your oven, but the goal is for a slightly golden cheesecake, without cracks.

Let cool, then refrigerate. Slice and serve, with the topping of your choice.

We ate this cheesecake on a warm summer night after an indulgent meal of octopus, mussels, tomato-cucumber salad, and more — while sitting on Mrs. Koumouzelis’ patio with a view of the Greek sea. She served the cheesecake with a topping of her homemade Vyssino, a Greek sour cherry spoon sweet.

Not a bad start to our adventures in cheesecake.

July 30th, 2008 | Tags: American, cream cheese, Greek, Vysinno, yogurt | Category: Recipes | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL