Baked Orange Vanilla (Blended) Cheesecake (tentatively a.k.a. Baked Orange Xtremesicle Cheesecake)—Prototype 1:
 
For some time, I had been dreaming of making a cheesecake with a flavor based on a well-known, frozen, orange-and-vanilla-cream pop, extensively referred to by the trade name of "Creamsicle", but often called "Dreamsicle" as well (an apt reference—after all, as I just mentioned, I had been "dreaming" of a cheesecake with this flavor). So after attempting a couple of vanilla prototypes and updating my orange ones, I felt that the time had finally come for a cheesecake combining these two flavors. Rather than going with two separate flavor layers (as I have done with many other combos, such as chocolate and peanut butter), I chose to blend them together.

The crust's formulation for this prototype is based on Prototype 2 of my vanilla cheesecake, except that regular All-Bran is used instead of Bran Buds (click here for more information on this replacement). The batter's formulation is an even, 50-50 mix derived from that same vanilla prototype (except that the cottage cheese used there is directly replaced with additional yogurt cheese here) and Prototype 5 of my orange cheesecake (proportionally halved from "double-sized" there to match the vanilla's single size here). This is why the amount of granulated sugar indicated for the combination batter is "1 1/2 cups + 2 teaspoons".
 
Yogurt Cheese:
Prepare ahead of time 3 pounds of yogurt cheese, derived from three 32-ounce containers of nonfat yogurt. If the resulting yogurt cheese falls below 48 ounces, add back enough of the whey (that was strained out from the yogurt) to make up the difference.

Crust:
2 oz. melted, white chocolate
8 oz. (1 cup) yogurt cheese (see above)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 oz. All-Bran, ground up

Gently pour this crust mixture into bottom of pan (9 to 9 1/2 inches) and pre-bake without tub at 300 degrees for 10 minutes, then cool enough to comfortably touch at least the pan's upper sidewall.

Batter:
4 tablespoons melted or softened butter
1 1/2 cups + 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
1/4 cup orange juice
2 teaspoons grated orange peel
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons arrowroot
40 oz. (5 cups) yogurt cheese (see above)
4 teaspoons vanilla
4 eggs

Pour the batter over the crust and bake this cheesecake in a tub at 300 degrees for 100 minutes (if using a 9 1/2" pan). Then cool the cheesecake down while still in oven (with this oven shut off) and in tub with door slightly ajar for an hour. Afterwards, remove from oven and tub and continue to cool down at room temperature for another 100 minutes, then remove from pan and refrigerate.

Orange Vanilla Cheesecake—Prototype 1

Where's the Orange? More emphatically, where's the vanilla?? All I got was some tartness, but I suspected that was largely because of the yogurt cultures and hardly because of the orange itself. I thought I had struck a reasonable balance between the cheesecake taste and the orange flavor in an orange cheesecake—and likewise with the vanilla flavor in a vanilla cheesecake. But upon merging those two batters, what went wrong?

Maybe it was because, in this merger, I ended up actually
doubling the "cheese" taste. I certainly did not double the orange or vanilla ones (in the flavor-specific sense).

Nevertheless, this cheesecake fared well among a modest assortment of other sweet treats at Living Hope Church, on a day so hot that services were held in the air-conditioner-equipped fellowship hall rather than the sanctuary (due to that area lacking a cooling system).
 

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