Baked Plain Cheesecake—Prototype 12:
 
It had been a long while since my previous plain-flavored prototype. Although it was terrific back then, I wanted to update it with a few rather minor tweaks, based upon what I had recently done with other cheesecake flavors (in particular, omitting the salt from the batter).
 
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
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 oz. All-Bran, ground up

Place this crust mixture into the bottom of a greased springform pan (9 to 9 1/2 inches), spreading the crust evenly (no pre-baking is needed with this one).

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

Wrap the pan in foil just before adding the batter (to minimize the foil's disturbance and therefore its leakage risk, do not put it on any earlier).

Next, pour the batter over the crust and bake this cheesecake in a hot water 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.

Plain Cheesecake—Prototype 12

I have been making the overwhelming majority of cheesecakes for my church, Living Hope. But this latest cheesecake presented here was one which I prepared especially for a bake sale at The Home Depot, where I have been working lately. This is not, however, the first time I brought any of my cheesecakes to this store. Not long beforehand, I had brought in leftovers from a Living Hope event in which it turned out that the food was primarily meant to be "host provided"—as opposed to the usual "potluck" (i.e., when attendees are encouraged to bring their own items to share) arrangement (see Baked Cherry Cheesecake—Prototype 6 for more information). But this more recent cheesecake marked the first time that I baked anything specifically for a Home Depot event.

This one was provided alongside a modest selection of baked goods. Hot dogs and potato chips were also provided for this fundraiser. There remained one slice of the cheesecake after nearly nine hours (yes, this cheesecake still tasted great after all that time at room temperature, as I ate the next-to-last slice).
 

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