Bacon Chocolate Caramel Cheesecake Recipe

Teehee...sometimes I like to think of myself as a cooking-villain. Like just when you commit to having that iceberg lettuce salad for dinner, I swoop in and drop a perfectly grilled Angus beef burger in your lap, zap it to add melted brie, mushrooms, and bacon, and you'll forget all about the leafy, boring culinary mistake you were about to make.

So, what's a villain to do when "Jenny Bakes" of the Daring Bakers challenges her to take a classic cheesecake recipe and make it her own? (Thanks for a wonderful April Daring Bakers Challenge, Jenny!) Cover it in bacon fat, of course! MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!To be honest, the bacon is pretty subtle in this recipe. (Drat!) Every once in awhile you get a definitively meaty bite in the crust or the chocolate candy drizzle, but it just adds a smoky richness to the caramel sauce that tastes nothing like your Sunday bacon n' eggs breakfast.
The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abby's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

Jenny Bakes of the Daring Bakers & BaconConcentrate Present:

Abby's Infamous Cheesecake with a Bacon Crust and Bacon Turtle Topping:

Crust:
2 cups Low-Fat Graham Cracker Crumbs (cookie must be low-fat to avoid soggy crust)
2 Tbs. Butter, melted
2 Tbs. Sugar
1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
1/2 cup extra-crispy Bacon Crumbles
1/2 cup ground Almonds

Cheesecake:
24 oz. Cream Cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup Sugar
3 Large Eggs
1 cup Heavy Cream
1 Tbs. Lemon Juice
1 Tbs. Vanilla Extract
1 Tbs. Bourbon

Bacon Turtle Topping:
1 cup Sugar
1 Tbs. water
3 Tbs. cold Bacon Fat (drained and chilled until solid after cooking the bacon)
1 Tbs. Butter
1/2 cup Heavy Cream
1/2 package of Semi-sweet Chocolate Chips
1/3 cup extra-crispy Bacon Crumbles

Make the Cheesecake:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into the bottom of a 9 inch springform pan. (Use enough of the crust ingredients to make the crust 1/4 inch deep). Hello, lovah!
Tap your crust with an empty drinking glass for an even texture. It should be fairly dry...the bacon will render some fat into the crust as it bakes, and anything else will result in the dreaded soggy-crust. Doesn't my thumb look gross in this picture? I'm a hobbit!
Cover and store the extra crust crumbs in the refrigerator.

3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in a large bowl and cream together with a hand mixer until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.

4. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter to remove air bubbles. If using a springform pan, place the pan into the center of the oven, and place 3 smaller cake pans around and under the cheesecake. Fill the empty cake pans with boiling water. (Ok, ok, or use a true water bath. Hate, hate water baths.) If using a foil baking dish, insert into a larger cake pan and fill the outside, empty pan with boiling water.5. Bake 45 to 55 minutes. The edges will be set, but the center will have alot of jiggle to it and will appear uncooked. Carefully run a knife around the edges to release the cake and avoid cracking. Without removing the cake, close the oven door and turn it off; let the cake rest for one hour. Remove it, cover, and refrigerate overnight.

After the cheesecake has cooled overnight, remove it from the springf orm pan, press the remaining crust crumbs into the sides of the cheesecake, and place on your serving plate. Mr. CheesecakeFace looks on disapprovingly, and says "You should have used a true water bath, E.Lee"Make Bacon Caramel Sauce:

Stir together sugar and 1 tablespoon water in a shallow sauce pan. It should be dry and crumbly. Cook the sugar/water over medium-high heat. Gently stir the grainy sugar mixture into the sugar that is melting in the center of the pan.
Shake the pan rather than stirring after all the sugar has melted, and bring to a boil. Let boil until amber in color. Add the bacon grease and butter. Gratuitous bacon fat picture below, just for Liza Jane and PapayaBlue. Remove from heat and stir in cream. Let the sauce thicken for 20 minutes, then pour over the top of your cheesecake, letting some pool in the middle.

Make Bacon Chocolate Drizzle:

Microwave the chocolate chips in a medium-sized bowl for 1 minute. Stir. Microwave for 30 seconds, and stir until all of the chips are melted. If some pieces remain, microwave for another 30 seconds and stir.

Carefully fill a piping bag with the melted chocolate and decorate your cake. Sprinkle the bacon pieces onto the chocolate immediately. The chocolate will harden into a bacon-candy shell once cooled.

Smoked Tomato Pasta Sauce with Portabellas and Fennel

This recipe started out as an experiment--a quest, if you will--to make an interesting and unique pasta sauce for a recipe contest. My thought process went something like this: "Bacon is smoked meat, and bacon is yummy. Why not smoke vegetables? Then they'll taste like BACON!"

Maybe that's not 100% accurate, but these smoked veggies gave the pasta sauce a definite smokey, almost meaty flavor and a silky texture.

I wanted the herbs to "pop" against the strong smoke flavor, so I used fennel and tarragon. And the ricotta salata cheese has a mild, salty flavor and beautiful white color that's perfect for this flavorful, zesty tomato sauce.

To smoke veggies [for tips on smoking, check out this post]
5 large Tomatoes
1 large can Artichoke Hearts
3 Portabella Mushroom caps, gills removed
1 bulb of Fennel
1 Anaheim Pepper
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Hickory Chips for smoking
Salt and Pepper

For sauce
4 slices Bacon
4 Garlic Cloves, diced
1 cup chopped Onion
¾ cup White Wine
1 Tbs. Balsamic Vinegar
1 ½ cup Water
12 oz. can Tomato Paste
2 tsp. chopped fresh Tarragon
5 oz. Ricotta Salata Cheese
1 Tbs. Sugar

Salt and Pepper to Taste

Prepared Pasta (I used Buitoni Braised Beef and Sausage Ravioli)

Smoke the Vegetables

Cut the bulb of the fennel and the Anaheim Pepper into two large halves, and place in a bowl of water + 1 Tbs. olive oil. Add the artichoke hearts and portabella mushrooms to the water/oil mixture, and soak everything for 1 hour. Score the skins of the tomatoes with a large X, and coat with olive oil, salt, and pepper.
Soak two handfuls of the hickory chips in water for at least 30 minutes. Prepare a charcoal grill so that the hot coals are spread on 2 sides of the grill, with an aluminum pan filled with water in the middle and separating the coals. Place the soaked hickory chips over the hot coals, and replace the grilling surface.

Place the veggies in the center of the grill, and try to avoid putting them over direct heat. (You may have to make smoke the vegetables in batches). Use a metal tray to keep the artichoke hearts from falling through the grate.

Close the lid and smoke the veggies for 30 minutes. Remove the veggies from the grill--they may not be completely cooked, but they'll finish in the sauce.

Make the Sauce

Once the veggies have cooled, chop the pepper and fennel. Cut the portabellas and artichokes into bite-sized pieces.

Chop the bacon, and saute it in a large, heavy-bottomed pot. Once the bacon begins to brown, add the onion and garlic and saute for 5 minutes. Add the fennel, pepper, portabellas, and artichokes and saute until all of the vegetables are soft and the fennel is sweet.

Peel the skin off of the smoked tomatoes, and core and seed them. (I do this by holding the whole tomato over the pot and using my fingers to slide the soft, smoked tomato off of its core. Ewwww.) Add the tomatoes to the pot, and stir until all of the browned bits come off the bottom of the pan.

Stir in the white wine, balsamic, tomato paste, and water. Add salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a vigorous simmer, reduce heat, and simmer for 1 1/2 hours. Add the tarragon, and simmer for 10 more minutes. Taste the sauce--if it is too smoky for you, add the sugar and simmer for 10 more minutes. Right before serving, crumble or shave pieces of the ricotta salata cheese into the sauce, and enjoy!

Go Foie Yourself

No matter where you stand on the foie gras debate, it's always good to open yourself up to dialogue. (I always like to say that "The smartest person knows what she does not not know." But maybe that just comes from dealing with know-it-all idiots a few times too many?)

That said, until I hear something more compelling than what's already out there, I will continue to enjoy the socially-conscious foie gras from Hudson Valley Farms. And oohhhhh will I enjoy it.

I think I'll enjoy its mere existence right now, with a post from Offthebroiler.wordpress.com:

"The “Foie You”, a croissant sandwich prepared especially for our friends at Farm Sanctuary..All profits from the sales of the sandwich will be donated to the Center for Food Action...

Recently, a friend of mine, Christine Nunn, who owns Picnic Caterers in Emerson, NJ, received a threatening letter from Farm Sanctuary, an special interest group which has a focus on protecting the rights of animals in our food supply. Christine received the letter no doubt due to her use of Foie Gras in one of her dishes at the Ultimate Chef Bergen County Finals. It should be noted that due to the fact that since Foie Gras is such an incredibly expensive ingredient, she only finds use for about two lobes total per year for special events and customers that specifically request it, so she shouldn’t be considered a mass consumer of Foie Gras by any stretch of the imagination.

It should be also be noted that Christine only uses Hudson Valley Foie Gras, which is not raised in “intensively confined” environments that foreign Foie Gras producers use and is one of the elements of Farm Sanctuary’s complaints. As to whether the gavage feeding methods to fatten the ducks are “inhumane”, no conclusive scientific evidence has been found to date to support that the ducks being raised for Foie Gras actually feel any discomfort from the process, as they don’t eat in the same way human beings or other animals do and thus may lack a gag reflex.

While Christine and I both believe that our food animals should be treated humanely, it should be a personal choice for chefs and restaurateurs to serve whatever ingredients they want to their customers, not via agendas that are forced down OUR collective throats by special interest groups...Not to be bullied, [we]decided that perhaps it was apropos to create a dish that was representative of our views on this matter.

FOIE YOU."

Jason Perlow's Foie You Croissant Sandwich...with Hudson Valley foie gras, smoked duck breast, thin sliced pears, terrine de foie gras; and blackberry jam.

For more information on the conflict between Farm Sanctuary and Picnic Caterers, or to more tasty foie gras pictures, click on the link above.

Food Imitating Art? Or Art Imitating Food?

This is S.'s creation from our weekend in the Wilderness. It's sort of a collaboration between her and Mr. Luz; he made the fresh blueberry pancakes, and she was inspired to make this painting with the splashes of fuchsia blueberry juice on her paper plate. I would love to blow this up and hang it in our kitchen. There's something very...organic? (ba-dum-ching) about it.

S.'s painting illustrates why I love to prepare and share my food. Her painting is beautiful, but abstract enough to mean something different to everyone. Similarly, food is interactive--by its very nature it elicits a reaction in everyone, and depending on the food that reaction can be highly complex and exciting, or it can be familiar and comfortable.

Like art, food is highly personalized but also communal. I love to share my "creations" with people and watch as they mull over the colors, aromas, textures, and flavors and open themselves up to the experience. I may not have talent for painting, film, or singing, but I am content with what I am able to convey with some fresh veggies, a wooden spoon, and my favorite heavy-bottomed pot.

Shenandoah Crossing: Wish You Were Here

I just wanted to post a few of my favorite pics from this weekend. It was a whirlwind of eating, napping on the deck in the sunshine, Twister, and tetherball. (Yep, tetherball. It's amazing, you should try it sometime.) Also, we drank at least 7 bottles of wine. And I won't tell you how much beer, because you'll judge me.

I may have taken this picture from a moving convertible with my point-and-shoot camera. Our cabin was in an area off to the right, and the lake is down at the bottom of this hill. These pastures just sprawl through the middle of the property--the only way I can describe the overall effect is "majestic."
Mr. Luz's ripe blueberry pancakes, awaiting real maple syrup and whipped cream. My favorite picture of the weekend. The ripe blueberries stained our paper plates in some interesting swipes and spots. S, ever the artist, wanted to capture our impromptu "paintings" with her camera (look for more pictures later!) I want to blow one up and hang it in our kitchen.