Addiction thy name is salted caramel cheesecake...
For Thanksgiving, I tried a new recipe for cheesecake. My history with cheesecake is somewhat checkered. I have had tremendous successes (eggnong cheesecake, a cake I saw literally vanish in front of my eyes in 20 minutes, which is pretty impressive for a cheesecake) and some texture/cracked disasters that tasted good but were less that attractive. So when I stumbled across a salted caramel cheesecake recipe on pinterst from The Modern Apron (http://themodernapron.blogspot.com/2011/09/desserts-salted-caramel-cheesecake.html), I decided I needed to try it to redeem my cheesecake history. Man am I glad I did. I am a complete sucker for salted caramel and this delivered it perfectly with great texture. My one trick---instead of the bain marie, boiled some water, put it in a pyrex pie plate and put it in the stove instead of submerging the pan (tricky, heavy and possibly disastrous). The texture came out nice and velvety, super creamy. Definitely use kosher salt---the author really troubleshot the recipe well and the salt amounts. I was a little nervous but followed as written and it was wonderful flavor.
The only bumps on the road were 1) the crust and the 2) caramel.
The crust: Graham cracker crusts are another minor nemesis of mine. This one split, perhaps because I didn't press it in well. I also felt it was a bit overly wet, so more cracker to butter ratio would be better. I'd cut the butter to 6-7 Tbsp next time or add 2-4 more crackers. Tasted good though.
The caramel: Easily the most stressful part of the recipe. The recipe warns that it will look like it failed but it really didn't prepare me for what happened. I made a beautiful caramel initially and added the butter and cream and the caramel wrapped itself in a terrible sticky ball around the wisk---not what I expected at all! I tried not to panic, kept whisking and put over low heat as directed while combing my brain as to where I could buy a caramel sauce since I was pretty sure this was irrevocably F'd up. But miraculously, the caramel relaxed melted after about 10 minutes and turned into a delicious pourable salted caramel. Whew! I will likely make this again to make cookies this Christmas seasons.
There was a tiny crack likely due to overworking the eggs (I used a hand blender as I didn't have the strength to move the stand mixer to use it), but the caramel covered this well. '
All in all, very recommended recipe!