Guest Recipe: Goat's Milk Cheesecake

How do you impress the biggest foodie and wine lover you know?

One of my best friends set out to do this last week with this recipe and a bottle of Ensemble Cellars Blanc de Blanc dry sparkling chardonnay (she gets mad props for tracking down a bottle of this limited release sparkling wine).

Needless to say I think she succeeded. I also had to include this recipe in the blog because two of my favorite things in the whole world are goat cheese and cheesecake.



Original Recipe is from the Abbey Road Farm Bed and Breakfast

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups of sour cream
1 1/4 cups of sugar
2 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
10 honey graham crackers
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
1/3 cup unsalted butter at room temp
two 8 oz packages of cream cheese at room temp
8 oz of soft fresh goat's milk cheese (chevre)
3 large eggs
1 tablespoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice

1) In a small bowl, stir together the sour cream, 1/3 cup of sugar and 1 1/2 tsp of vanilla until the sugar dissolves. Cover and refrigerate

2) Preheat oven to 350 F. Adjust oven rack to center.

3) Place graham crackers in a food processor and process to measure 1 1/2 cups of crumbs. Add 1/4 cup of remaining sugar and cinnamon to the bowl along with the crumbs and pulse until blended. Add the butter and pulse until well mixed and crumbly. (We didn't have a food processor so good ol' "crackers in plastic bag" crush with rolling pin method worked just fine here). Stirring in the butter by hand also worked out just fine.

4) Press the crust mixture into the bottom of a springform pan. Bake for 7-10 minutes or until the crust is lightly browned. Remove from oven and allow to cool while preparing the cheesecake. Reduce oven temp to 300F.

5) Combine the cream cheese and goat cheese in an electric mixture bowl or mix together by hand/with a hand mixer if you don't have one. Beat in the remaining 2/3 cup of sugar. Add eggs one at a time. Finally add lemon juice and vanilla.

6) Pour the batter evenly over the crust in the springform pan and bake for 45 minutes or until the cheesecake is set in the middle. Turn off the oven, prop the door slightly open and let the cake cool for an hour. Spread the sour cream topping over the cake and cool in the fridge overnight.

Top with fresh berries.