American Dessert
BLUEBERRY CHEESECAKE
INGREDIENTS – CRUST
¼ cup butter
1 ¼ cups graham crackers, usually about 1 package
¼ cup sugar (1 cup and 6 tablespoons more later)
INGREDIENTS – FILLING
4 8-ounce packages of cream cheese
5 eggs
1 cup white sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch (1 tablespoon more later)
¼ teaspoon salt
INGREDIENTS – TOPPING
2½ cups, about a 16 ounce bag, of fresh or frozen blueberries
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1½ cups sour cream
6 tablespoons white sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ cup water
SPECIAL UTENSILS
food processor
9″ * 12″ casserole dish
wire rack
PREPARATION – CRUST
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Use medium heat to melt butter. Turn the graham crackers into crumbs by using food processor. Pour the melted butter, crumbs, and ¼ cup sugar into casserole dish. Mix thoroughly with fork. Press firmly and uniformly on the mixture. Bake at 325 degrees for 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool on a wire.
PREPARATION – FILLING
Place cream cheese, eggs, 1 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons cornstarch, and salt into large mixing bowl. Use electric beater to combine ingredients. Start on lowest setting and gradually increase the speed of the beaters to the highest setting. (Your kitchen walls might resemble modern art if you immediately start with the highest setting.) Add to casserole dish. Bake for 70 minutes at 325 degrees or until cheese center barely moves when casserole dish is moved. Let dish cool down. Chill completely in refrigerator.
PREPARATION – TOPPING
Puree blueberries and 1 tablespoon cornstarch in food processor. Add to medium mixing bowl. Add sour cream, and 6 tablespoons sugar, vanilla extract, and water. Blend with fork or electric beater set at medium. Add this topping to saucepan. Bring to boil using medium-high heat. Stir constantly. Reduce heat to low-medium and simmer for about minutes. Stir constantly. Ladle topping onto cheesecake. Spread evenly with spatula. Refrigerate until chilled.
TIDBITS
1) Barbarian tribes used the cover of winter to repeatedly mount surprise invasions of China. “Let’s pay attention,” said General Hua. “They can’t get past us if we’re ready.” But General Hua got fired for eccentric whistling. The barbarians surprised the successor commander. And so it went.
2) “We need something that never relaxes its guard,” roared Emperor Foo Yung. “Make it so.”
3) A light bulb lit up above the chief ice sculptor’s head. “No one can push his way through a wall of frozen blueberries. Why not fortify our northern border with a line of frozen blueberries?” So, engineers constructed the Great Frozen Blueberry Wall of China (GFBWC.) The winter invasions ceased.
4) The wily barbarians moved their cross-border incursions to summer. For there are measures and counter measures to everything.
5) Disgusted with the failure of the GFBWC, Emperor Wing ordered it to be torn down.
6) Northern riff raff now raided China all year long. “Stop the barbarians,” commanded Wing.
7) A light bulb lit up above the chief food taster’s head. “No one here eats blueberry. No civilized people would climb over blueberries. It’s bad luck. Why not put mounds of blueberries across our northern border? ” So, the Ting Tang Chinese constructed the Great Blueberry Wall of China. (GBWC.)
8) But the Mongols were not civilized. In addition to their incessant fighting, killing, and pillaging, the Mongols loved desserts. But no blueberries grow in their homelands. They could not make Blueberry Cheesecake. The lack of their favorite dessert would make them crabby enough to fight, kill, and pillage blueberry-rich countries.
9) Then one fine day, Lil’ Genghis rode up to his father. “Daddy, the Chinese have built a huge wall made entirely of blueberries! We can make all the Blueberry Cheesecake we want.”
10) The next day, Mongol dessert chefs used up every blueberry in the GBWC to make countless Blueberry Cheesecakes. The way to China lay open. Genghis Khan would take full advantage. The Scourge of the Mongols would paralyze Asia and Europe for over 100 years. But the ice sculptor and the food tester went on to invent hovering light bulbs. So, some good came out of this.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
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