Daring Baker Secret Challenge: CHEESECAKE!

So I'm doing this online cooking and baking challenge at TheDaringKitchen.com. (Go there to see some truly beautiful challenge pictures. It's pure, well, cheesecake.) I've felt like I need to experiment more, and this seemed like a fun way to do it. The monthly challenge is issued on one date, and all the Daring Bakers (or Daring Cooks) complete the challenge but don't reveal their results publicly until a specified date. Today is the date for my first REVEAL.

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

Introducing....


The “Cuppa” Cheesecake (or the Teasecake)

Okay, so this is my very first challenge. I went conceptual. I've been interested for a while in using tea in cooking and baking. At first I was going to try a green tea infusion, but because I was about to host a pub night (complete with 4 varieties of pasties), I decided to try a strong black tea.

The Plan:
* Use Yorkshire loose leaf, a nice strong flavor. Steep it in the cream (as in the lavender suggestion in the original challenge), cool and strain. I figured a good deal of liquid would get absorbed by the leaves, so I started with more than the specified amount of cream.
* Bake and serve in tea cups. If the tea taste came though, what could be cuter? I figured the baking time would be shorter, but I didn’t know by how much. I thought I’d bake for 30 min and then start checking.
* Substitute McVitie’s Digestive Biscuits for graham crackers for the crust. A cute no-brainer.

The Unexpected:
* Well, Yorkshire tea sucked up a whole lot more liquid than I expected. Like ALL of it. (Okay, so I used a lot of tea -- a whopping 1/3 cup of those finely cut leaves in about 1-1/2 cup of cream.) The resulting sludge (sorry, no other word to describe the tea-and-cream substance) I tried to put through a fine mesh sieve. I could only extract less than half the liquid I needed, so I topped it off with fresh cream. The balance of sweetness and bitterness was good, but I knew the flavor would have to be even stronger in order to stand up to the cream cheese and lemon. The Yorkshire tea is so fine that I decided to add some of the steeped leaves right into the batter. (A risk, I know, but I’ve always liked those little bits of tea leaves in my cup.) I started off a couple of Tbs at a time, but eventually I added the entire mass of cream soaked tea leaves.
* Because I had to use two different cup types, I knew they likely wouldn’t all be done at the exact same time. I had a hard time telling doneness, and I think I left them in longer than I should have. (40 or 45 minutes... I’m not exactly sure.) I found them a bit drier than I would have wanted them (not a surprise with all those tea leaves), but no cracking at all. As I guessed, the slightly thinner cups were done before the thicker cups.

The Result:
* The bitterness of the tea was a nice offset to the sweetness of the cake. (Did I mention that I love baking but have almost no sweet tooth?) If I concentrated, I could find the taste of a nice cup of strong tea with milk in it, but mostly it tasted like a decent cheesecake with an unusual flavor profile. Some people liked it a lot, others seemed to think it was “fine.” There were no half-eaten cups at the end of the night, at least. (The funniest reaction came from a friend who cannot abide cheese of any kind. She had a most troubled look on her face as she began eating, but when I looked again few minutes later she was polishing off the last bite, somehow having acquired the taste as she ate.)
* The texture of the leaves was not as troubling as I was worried it might be. Like I say, the Yorkshire leaves are cut really fine. Strangely, the graininess of the digestive biscuit crust really made it all work together.

The Verdict:
* I’m awfully glad I tried this experiment, but my partner said it best when he noted that the tea flavor just didn’t meld with the sour notes of the cream cheese and lemon. I think I’d definitely use McVitie’s again, though. I liked the slight graininess. I’d also do cheesecake in teacups again. I just would cut off baking time at 30 minutes to keep the creaminess.

I’m just awfully glad to have a good excuse to experiment with the oven again! It’s been a while since I just tried new things and tried the unknown. Still, the pasties and not the “cuppa” cheesecakes were definitely the stars of the evening. (See the post "Pies Like These" below.)