A New Yorker's Real Italian Cheesecake

AZRoxy63's Note:

WARNING: once you eat this you will NEVER be able to eat any other cheesecake as long as you live! But it is so worth it! YUMMY! As I cheesecake lover, I am almost bummed to have eaten this because after tasting it no other cheesecake ever compares to its superior taste!

• Total Time: 4 hrs 45 mins
• Prep Time: 45 mins
• Cook Time: 4 hrs

Ingredients:

Serves: 12

Yield: 12.0 slices

FOR CRUST

• 10 sheets graham crackers , sheets ground in a food processor to texture of fine crumbs (should be a little over 1 cup total)
• 1 1⁄8; tablespoons sugar
• 4 ½ tablespoons melted butter

FOR BATTER

• 24 ounces ricotta cheese
• 16 ounces cream cheese , softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 6 eggs
• 6 tablespoons flour
• 8 ounces sour cream
• 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325°F.
2. Wrap the outside of a 10-inch springform pan with foil to prevent water from seeping in while baking.
3. Mix sugar, crumbs, and melted butter together well to form crust.
4. Press this mixture into the bottom of the springform pan and up the sides until you run out.
5. Bake crust for about 7-10 minutes or until golden brown.
6. Cool on wire rack while preparing the batter.
7. With a mixer, cream together ricotta cheese, cream cheese, flour, and sugar until very smooth.
8. Mix in the eggs one at a time, blend well but DO NOT OVER MIX THE BATTER!
9. Stir in the sour cream and vanilla by hand.
10. Pour mixture into cooled crust.
11. Place cheesecake into a large rectangular pan filled with about 1 1/2 inches of hot water.
12. Make sure foil is high enough around the springform pan so that no water seeps into it while baking.
13. Bake for 90 minutes.
14. After 90 minutes, turn oven off but leave cake in oven for another 60 minutes (DO NOT OPEN OVEN DOOR).
15. Carefully remove cake from water pan and remove foil from springform pan.
16. Cool on wire rack for 1 hour.
17. Cover cake with plastic wrap and chill in refrigerator overnight.
18. Enjoy!

Reviews

[mpanarese]

My son made this cheesecake for me and it was the best cheesecake ever! I think I ate the whole cake by myself (not all in one sitting of course) but one piece lead to another, and another, and before you know it it was all gone! I am now making this cheesecake myself and I hope it comes out as yummy as when my son made it. Great recipe!! Oh, one more thing I forgot to mention was that in the recipe it calls for 6 tablespoons of flour but it does not indicate when to add the flour. I noticed that another reviewer said the same thing, and I did the same thing (I added it to the batter).

[Nichole Beaver]

We really really enjoyed this cheesecake and ate it for breakfast this week. Yum for sure. However, we did kind of wonder when/where the 6 tablespoons of flour were to go. Therefore, we added them into the batter. This cheesecake may take some time, effort, and work but it is so worth it!!