Surly Coffee Bender Cheesecake Recipe

How to make it

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• Equipment: Springform Pan 9", small sauce pan 2 quart for beer reduction, stand mixer with paddle attachment.
• Beer Reduction:
• Boil/simmer beer until reduced to 3/4 cup. Set aside to cool. Now I have to admit that this took longer than I thought, also, to make it easier on me, I put in a can and a half so that I would have a little nipper for myself, just inspiration you know See Photo. So all in all I bet I started with 24 ounces of beer, reduced that to 1 1/4 cup over an hour plus. I tasted this a few times along the way, bitter, yeasty, roasted and toasted come to mind.
• Make Crust:
• Combine flour and sugar in mixer with paddle attachment. Cut in butter until the mixture is crumbly. Add Frangelico and reduction. Blend thoroughly. (You might see clumps of butter not thoroughly incorporated, and that is okay.) Preheat oven while chilling the crust. Make a disc of the dough, wrap it in plastic if you must. I grabbed a bowl and set it in the fridge.
• With the oven preheated to 400 degrees, pat 1/3 of the dough on the bottom of the 9 inch spring form pan, sides removed. Now 'pat' might not be the best term here, press the dough out along the bottom disc until evenly spread across the bottom to the edges, the crust will shrink a bit and that is okay. One the reasons you chilled the dough is that your hands will heat up the butter, this way you can work the surface without melting the dough. Take a fork and dance across the top of the dough until an even amount of holes perforate the surface.
• Bake in hot 400 degree oven about 8 minutes until golden brown. Cool. Attach sides to bottom, butter (for non stick help, I have to admit that I have started skipping this step because I know just when to pull the cheesecake, there is enough butter in the crust to help here so it can be skipped, but if you find your crust sticking to the side of the springform you know what to do next time.), pat remaining dough on sides to height of 1 3/4 inches See Photo. I find that I just keep pushing the crust up the side until I run out of dough and the coating is a quarter inch thick just shy of a centimeter.
• Make Filling:
• Let cream cheese stand at room temperature to soften (1 to 1 1/2 hours) if you forgot this, look to your microwave, it might have a setting for softening cream cheese, mine does and it rocks. Beat until creamy using the paddle. (If you don't have a paddle for your stand mixer, then it is time to look for one or get a Kitchen Aid with all the attachments. Seriously.) Mix in sugars, be careful, opportunities for a mess at every step here. Using standard 'large' eggs, usually you need five eggs. No need to premix these eggs, but again, can be messy, I usually crack eggs into measuring cup, (Alton Brown would weigh them,) then add the eggs one at a time while mixing. Gently stir in whipping cream.
• Melt chocolate chips, if you got that microwave with the melt chocolate setting you are loving this step, if not, use a double boiler or some way not to scorch the chocolate, add a 1/4 cup of beer reduction, mix thoroughly, pull off a 1/4 cup of cheesecake batter, mix thoroughly, tweak this with more cheesecake batter and or beer reduction until what you are hoping for, me, I ended up with about a cup of the batter, and 1/3 cup beer reduction added to the 1/2 cup melted chocolate. Taste it. BAMB. too much eh? By the way, I did this whole step in a two cup ramekin, you will see why later.
• Turn the stand mixer back on and incorporate some of the beer reduction into the remaining batter, keep an eye on the color, you do not want this to get too dark. About 1/2 cup reduction.
• Now add the cheesecake batter to the springform pan, leaving room at the top for the chocolate mixture. You might have batter left over, well, I am sure that you will, better that than not enough. Drop dollops (spoonfuls) of chocolate, reduction batter mixture into batter filled pan, using a chopstick work your swirling magic. I find staring out from inside the dollops gives best results See Photo. Too much swirling and you have lost the effect.
• Bake:
• Bake at 450 for 20 minutes reduce heat to 300 and continue baking 55 minutes. Now comes those times when experience is all that you have to go on. The top will jiggle when you rattle the rack, does it look like it is going into tidal wave mode or just a little shimmer? If you pull it out early you will have soup. I like my cheesecake to be a little drier than the average bear. "Hey, hey, Booboo is that a pick-anick basket you got there?"
• All in all, that 55 minutes turned into another 45 minutes and I could have let it go for another ten to fifteen See Photo. This is part where my mother did not always include all the info on a recipe. Nothing wrong with knowing that @ fifty-five minutes you START to check the cheesecake. I laughed when someone tried to steal this recipe, (I would have given it gladly) there are a few steps not written down in the family cookbook, time is one of them, it is assumed you would know what it should look like when it is done. See Photo
• Now that you are sure it is done, I like mine to just begin to crack on the surface, some do not, remove from oven, cool, loosen sides with spatula after 1/2 hour. Remove sides at end of 1 hour. Allow to cool 2 hours longer. I tend to leave the sides on the pan and let it cool on the counter an hour and then into the fridge for an overnight before bringing to someone else's house See Photo. Cheesecake is not allowed a second evening in our house.
• Remember that ramekin of chocolate reduction mixture? You still had some left in that ramekin, I bet. Pour the rest of the cheesecake batter over the chocolate batter and bake alongside or better yet under, the springform in a water bath. Nice thing about this is that the extra water in the oven will help the big brother keep that silky smooth surface. And you get a taste without wrecking the overall masterpiece. See Photo