Don’t let cheesecake scare you: start with a recipe easier than monster cookie dough cheesecake

If I had a nickel for every time someone told me they “can’t” make cheesecake, I’d advance my own cookbook and give my debit card to my favorite charities.

Their stories go one of two ways. They’ve either tried once, maybe twice, to make cheesecake and it didn’t turn out as perfectly as they expected, or they’ve never tried to bake cheesecake because they assume it takes special skills.

It is possible that your first cheesecake won’t look like a Food & Wine centerfold. And it does take skills. But no different than basic skills to bake cookies or cake.

1. The patience to bring ingredients to room temperature. Using room temperature ingredients and adding the eggs last, and not overbeating once you add them, are the secrets to making cheesecake. Simple as that.
2. The availability to be at home for a few hours. (But you can run errands while the cheesecake cools to room temp.)

If you have these ordinary skills, you can make cheesecake. So let the big bad scary cheesecake out from under your bed and let’s talk about how you can make extraordinary cheesecake at home. My suggestion is to start with the easiest and work your way up to making a more time-consuming cheesecakes like this monster cookie one. Start with Vanilla Cheesecake with Fresh Berries pictured below.

I know you can do this. In my early days of learning to make cheesecake, I undercooked a cheesecake and brought it to work. I was mortified. So I tried again.

And now I’ve mastered the art of making cheesecake but I’m just a home cook. My field of training is in communications and business, not culinary arts. I flunked art in middle school and the sweatshirt I sewed in home economics was crooked and too long. I once hot-glued wallpaper to cover a section of bedroom wall when I lived in a trailer house. And every once in a while, my cheesecakes have sinkholes, but so what? Did you know that a bad-looking cheesecake still tastes better than any pie or cake ever?

Then Try These

Once you rule the kitchen with vanilla cheesecake, you are ready to make any cheesecake. Because the same basic rules apply—use room temp ingredients and don’t overbeat once you add the eggs to the batter.

Make Key Lime Cheesecake with Patrón Sauce, Andes Mint and Taco Cheesecake. Yes, savory cheesecake is a delicious make-ahead appetizer that will impress your friends.

And then you are ready for Monster Cookie Dough Cheesecake, which is really quite easy, it just takes a little extra time to make the cookie dough balls.

Give one of these a try and then come back and let me know how you did. I’ll be your cheesecake cheerleader! Friends don’t let friends eat store-bought cheesecake.

Sweet wishes,