Big and Tall Cheesecake

A close-up of tall cheesecake with a slice cut out

Kitra: It has been well established that we like cheesecake.

Jordan: And this is quite a beautiful specimen, I must say.

Sometimes, you just want an extremely cheesecake cheesecake (sometimes=almost always).

This one is smooth but not heavy, sweet but not cloying, and gloriously tall. This is a cheesecake that shops in the Big and Tall section, hence the title.

Despite the fact that it is an absolute unit, I frequently cut a slice, ate it and then cut another, which is a rarity for cheesecake since a slice often feels like a meal.

I ate almost all of my leftovers for breakfast straight out of the container, standing at the kitchen counter like the lead in a rom-com.

And I was going the breakfast/lunch/dinner/dessert route with mine because I kind of didn’t want to eat anything else.

Some people don’t like making cheesecake because they think it’s fussy, but we promise it’s not that bad. Kitra is the Queen of Cheesecakes and has learned from all of the mistakes so that the rest of us don’t have to.

I mean, if you pick a good and trustworthy recipe and follow it, there shouldn’t be much room for error. But really, just stick an instant thermometer in your cream cheese to make sure it is actually room temperature. (You don’t have to be prepared either, we usually warm it in the microwave.)

That’s my eternal mistake. If your butter is too cold in a cake, it’ll be fine once you beat it up a little. If your cream cheese is too cold, you’re out of luck. Your cheesecake will be lumpy and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Those lumps are the cockroaches of the cake world: they will outlive us all.

Thanks, I hate that analogy.

You’re welcome. All the more incentive to warm that cheese up to a nice 70ish degrees.

You know what I don’t hate, though? This cheesecake. It’s an Erin McDowell recipe and she adds some sour cream, which gives it a little more lightness and nuance.

All hail Erin.

It’s great with macerated fruit, but it’s also completely, 100% perfect on its own.

A cheesecake with a slice removed and resting on a plate, with blackberries on top.

Four chocolate cupcakes with sour cream topping; one is sliced in half to reveal a cheesecake center

Kitra: It feels like a shower outside, so if I’m turning on my oven it’s going to be for a short time and for something I really want to eat.

Jordan: This is the first cake we’ve made in a while that was just an easy decision. Kitra wanted black bottom cupcakes, and so we made black bottom cupcakes.

If you, like me, really want to eat cheesecake most of the time but don’t have cheesecake-making energy, may I suggest black bottom cupcakes?

These are a mild chocolate cake (think devil’s food cake) with a beautiful center of cheesecake. The name is a little misleading; the chocolate will fully surround the cheesecake center.

Like it’s cheesecake wearing a chocolate skin suit.

Creepy, but I was going to use the word “swaddling,” which is not necessarily better.

[Here we had a long conversation about whether or not one can use a skin suit to swaddle something, which we will mercifully spare you from.]

And because I wanted them to feel even more like cheesecake, we added a sour cream topping which also makes them less sweet.

These are delicious at room temperature, but even better cold. A dessert you can keep in the fridge when it’s a million degrees outside? Perfect!

It’s too hot to eat room-temperature foods.

And keep in mind that because these are cupcakes, they bake quickly and cool quickly. You can go from start to finish in under an hour if you’re efficient.

And you can eat them with your hands. Peak cheesecake efficiency.

Swaddle away, friends.

Four chocolate cupcakes with sour cream topping; one is sliced in half to reveal a cheesecake center, and a hand is reaching to grab one.

Two tall slices of rhubarb-swirled cheesecake on a plate alongside the remaining cake on a cutting board.

Kitra: I saw Erin Clarkson of Cloudy Kitchen post a “coming soon” photo of rhubarb cheesecake, and sent it to Jordan immediately. But soon isn’t ever soon enough for rhubarb cheesecake so we made it up. Sorry, and please go check out Erin’s version when it’s up!

Jordan: I have no doubts that hers will be excellent, given that we shamelessly stole her idea and used her cheesecake base and ours was also excellent, not to brag or anything.

Rhubarb is extremely underrated, so there’s no such thing as too much.

I have questions about why we cultivate it in the first place—the leaves are literal poison?? and the stalks don’t taste great unless you cook them with sugar?—but I’m glad we do, since there’s just something delicious about rhubarb.

And it doesn’t need to be cut with strawberries, or anything else. Rhubarb is GOOD. We had a plant in our front yard growing up and the start of rhubarb season was so exciting.

Rhubarb’s unique flavor really shines when it’s paired with something simple, which makes it a great candidate for a cheesecake topping.

And we love cheesecake. You do too, I assume. Because you should. It’s great.

This, however, is not a normal cheesecake. This is a no-bake cheesecake, which—per Erin’s blog posts—is common in New Zealand but which we had never made. It’s much lighter than a typical dense, rich, egg-based cheesecake.

Plus, it was hot as hell in DC last weekend when we made this, and will be for most of the rest of eternity (thanks climate change, for the sweat) so losing the oven was good. And would be even better for my kitchen where there is no AC.

If you’re not a fan of traditional cheesecake—either making or eating it—this one might be worth a try. My partner, who usually doesn’t like cheesecake, was a fan of it because the filling is so light and fluffy, almost like a cream cheese mousse.

Which also means it’s a way better breakfast/snack/just because cheesecake since you don’t feel like you’ve eaten all your food for the day after a few bites.

Fair warning, though, that it is extremely easy to eat directly out of the container with a fork while standing at your kitchen counter. Not that I have experience with this.

Seconded. Also, can we talk about how thick (thicc even?) it is???

An absolute unit, as the kids say. A chonk.

Yes, we used the wrong size pan and that was a problem, but even in the right size pan it’s a sturdy crust and a nice thick layer of everything. Bless.

I would call this roughly a 2:1 filling-to-crust ratio, which is the right ratio. Crumb crusts are the best crusts and I will die on this hill of graham crackers.

So, with further apologies but also thanks and a lot of credit to Erin, please cheesecake.

A whole cheesecake with rhubarb topping swirled beautifully through the top layer.

A cake with thin layers of chocolate cookie, chocolate cheesecake, and espresso cheesecake

Jordan: Remember how I had a bunch of chocolate wafer cookies left over from our last cake, just waiting to be made into a cheesecake crust? Well, today is the day.

Kitra: Plus I’ve wanted cheesecake for a few weeks, and went ahead and bought 3 bricks of cream cheese figuring I’d make one whether or not Jordan wanted to. Win-win.

Cheesecake is never a bad idea, in my opinion, but my partner dislikes it so I always appreciate having an excuse to make one. And since he also dislikes coffee, I figured I might as well go all-in and suggested Smitten Kitchen’s mocha cheesecake.

Which I’ve been eyeing since she posted it because I love the layers and thought it seemed fun. I figured it’d be the kind of thing I’d make for our mom’s birthday at some point (though Jordan was always the birthday cheesecake member of the family). Instead I just packed up half of it for her so I could still make the big layered one I wanted. Also a win-win.

I, however, had enough cookie-rolling last time to last me a while, so I made a lazy variation of this cake. Which means you get two recipes today! One for a beautiful showstopper of a layered cheesecake, and one for a lovely marbled cheesecake bar that you can make for yourself and not feel overwhelmed.

We really switched roles here. For once I wasn’t just complaining that I cannot possibly eat this much. Jordan made the right choice for the times, for sure. But if you’ve got someone to share this with, the layers are pretty fun and only a little nerve wracking.

I stayed on Google Hangouts with Kitra while she assembled her cake and she barely needed my moral support at all.

Nothing broke! Nothing cracked! The only issues were when I accidentally dropped my knife onto a corner and made a dent, and when I removed some of a layer accidentally with my offset spatula while stacking. Both results of just carelessness, and both totally invisible after stacking.

So choose your own adventure here! Both use the same batter and so will be equally delicious no matter what you do.

Yay Cake Day

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Tag: cheesecake

Big and Tall Cheesecake

Black Bottom Cupcakes

No-Bake Rhubarb Cheesecake Bars

Mocha Cheesecake, Two Ways