Autumn Cheesecake

Tom and I decided that in lieu of a traditional wedding cake, we wanted to have a variety of different kinds of cheesecake. Tom and I are both huge fans of cheesecake, and Tom took me to the Cheesecake Factory for one of our first dates. Cheesecake just screams "Jenny and Tom" a bit more than a traditional cake does. Anyways, we've been looking at the prices of a variety of cheesecakes, and basically what we have run into is that cheesecake is not cheap. At $40 a cake, and we would need at least ten cakes... yeah, you get the picture. On top of that, Tom and I both love cooking, and I specifically love baking. My mom asked me one morning if cheesecake was freezable, and handed me a cookbook with several dozen different cheesecake recipes in it. It was about that time that we decided to attempt to DIY our wedding cheesecakes. Since we have so many options to choose from, and willing "guinea pigs" to try various types of cheesecake, I decided to bake one or two a month up for the next 10 or so months before the wedding, waistlines permitting, and then we will choose the five or so flavors that we like best, and bake a bunch of them in the last couple of weeks before the wedding. So, for those of you that read my blog, you will get to see a review of each type of cheesecake.

The first cheesecake I tried was "autumn cheesecake" it is a traditional cheesecake with a cinnamon graham cracker crust, topped with apples, cinnamon sugar, and pecans. I chose this cheesecake to try because we happen to have gone apple picking two weeks ago and still have tons of apples around the house. I also had really high hopes for this cheesecake because our September wedding falls in the heart of apple season, and it would be a nice nod to the season.

The review:
My step-father refused to try it, but he can be picky with desserts. This left me, Tom, and my mother as guinea pigs. Personally, I enjoyed it, but it wasn't what I would call the best cheesecake I ever tasted. I liked the apples, but I thought that the cheesecake layer needed to be thicker, and perhaps flavored with cinnamon to transition to the apple layer a bit better. I also have some issues with the presentation, the apples bake to brownish color and it doesn't have the clean edges I would like to see. I would give this cheesecake a 6 out of 10, because it definitely needs some improvement.

Until next time!