Orange Dream Cheescake

While watching a cooking show with my mom the other day, someone was making cheesecake and of course, we started craving cheesecake. The problem, my mom isn't a huge fan of graham cracker. Since her birthday was coming up, I wanted to make her something delicious.  We found this recipe from another food blog. It is an orange and vanilla cheesecake with a sugar cone crust. That’s right, sugar cones instead of graham crackers. It turned out really delicious and rich. We had to share with others or we could never have eaten it all.

Crust:

1 Twelve-count box of sugar cones

1/3 cup of brown sugar

1 stick (1/2 cup) of melted butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

Crush the sugar cones in a food processor until it is coarse but small pieces. Add in the butter and brown sugar and mix together. Press the mixture into a 10” spring form pan on the bottom and a little up the side. Bake for 12 minutes and let cool.

Filling:

3 pounds Cream Cheese (6, 8oz packages, room temperature)

1 Cup Sugar

2 Tblsp Cornstarch

1 Tblsp plus 1/2 tsp Water

2 tsp Vanilla

Zest of 2 Medium Oranges

Juice of one of the Oranges

2 tsp Orange Extract

4 Eggs

Mix the cream cheese in you stand mixer on low for 10-15 minutes, frequently scraping the sides. Slowly add in the sugar.

In  a separate bowl, mix together everything else except the eggs. Slowly add this mixture into the cream cheese on low speed. Then drop in the eggs one at a time. Mix just until combined to keep it from getting too dense. Now, take half the batter and add some orange food coloring to it and just mix it in. Drop in dollops of the mixture in alternating colors onto the prebaked crust. Once all the batter of both colors in, swirl once or twice with a table knife. Bake at 350 for one hour. There will still  be a little jiggle in the center. Cool for 1 hour.

Sour cream topping:

8 oz Sour Cream

2 Tblsp Sugar

1/4 tsp Vanilla

1 Tblsp Water

Mix together with a fork and spread on the top of the cooled cheesecake. Serve and enjoy.

The topping can help hide any cracked that may have formed.

You can make other flavors by substituting orange zest and juice for other citrus fruits.

The crust can be used to replace the graham cracker crust for any of your favorite cheesecakes.

For some other tips, check out the original post.

http://pastryjane.com/2012/05/20/creamsicle-cheesecake-with-a-sugar-cone-crust/