Spiced Cheesecake – Country Living

———————–SPICED-CHEESECAKE BATTER———————–
4 8-oz packages cream cheese 1/2 ts Grated lemon rind
1 c Whole-milk ricotta 4 Large eggs
1 8-oz container sour cream 4 ts Vanilla extract
1 1/2 c Sugar 2 ts Ground cinnamon
5 tb Cornstarch 1/8 ts Ground allspice

1. Prepare Ginger Crust: In large bowl, combine flour, pecans,
cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and salt. With pastry blender or 2
knives, cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in
1 T water and the vanilla; if necessary add remaining water, 1
teaspoon at a time, until dough holds together. Form into a ball.

2. Heat oven to 350’F. On lightly floured surface, roll out
Ginger-Crust dough to 1/4-inch thickness. With 3-inch- round cookie
cutter, cut out five 3-inch rounds; reserve scraps. Cut each round in
half. Press reserved dough scraps into bottom of 9-inch springform
pan. Arrange half rounds around inside of springform pan with flat
edge against dough in bottom of pan; press to secure half rounds.
Line dough with foil and weigh down with pie weights, dried beans, or
rice. Bake 10 minutes; remove foil and weights and bake 10 minutes
longer or until crust is lightly browned. Cool crust in pan on wire
rack.

3. Prepare Spiced-Cheesecake Batter: Reduce oven temperature to
300’F. In large bowl, with electric mixer, beat cream cheese,
ricotta, sour cream, sugar, 4 T cornstarch, and the lemon rind until
smooth. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until well combined.

4. Remove 1/2 C batter to small bowl; stir in vanilla, the remaining 1
tablespoon cornstarch, the cinnamon, and allspice until smooth. Pour
half of plain cream-cheese batter into pastry-lined pan; spoon half
of spiced batter over top. Gently spoon remaining plain batter over
spiced batter.

5. Spoon remaining spiced batter into pastry bag fitted with
medium-size (1/4 inch opening) round tip. Pipe 4 concentric circles
of spiced batter on top of plain batter. Starting at center of
cheesecake, pull a toothpick through batter to edge of pan to form
lines dividing cake batter into quarters. Starting from the edge and
going toward the center, pull additional lines in opposite direction
between each pair of existing lines to form flower design.

6. Bake cheesecake 1 hour. Turn off oven and let cake stand 1 hour
longer in oven. Cool cake in pan on wire rack to room temperature,
then refrigerate cake until firm-several hours or overnight.

7. To remove cake from pan, place springform pan in roasting pan of
boiling water up to 1/2inch from top of springform pan for 30
seconds; lift pan out of water. Remove side of springform pan. Place
cake, still on pan bottom, on serving plate. To serve, cut into 16
slices; refrigerate leftovers.

Reduced-Fat Cheesecake: Follow directions and ingredients as in Spiced
Cheesecake, but replace the cream cheese with four 8-oz packages light
cream cheeese, replace the sour cream with one 8-oz container non-fat
yogurt or light sour cream, replace the whole-milk ricotta with 1 C
re- duced-fat ricotta cheese, and replace the eggs with 2 large eggs
and 2 large egg whites.