‘I can’t believe my wife made a cheesecake’

Everybody who tried “Passover Lemon Cheesecake with Almond Crust” from the Times Leader test kitchen earlier this week REALLY enjoyed this rich treat.

And, at least one of them was stunned.

“I can’t believe my wife made a cheesecake,” Mark said, looking dazed but happy as we shared a piece. “Something so indulgent. And you didn’t even try to make it healthier, did you?”

“Of course not,” I said. “I wanted to do it right, so I followed all the directions. I even found Philadelphia cream cheese that was labeled “Kosher for Passover.”

(Regular readers may have noticed that Mark and I sometimes try to supply the Times Leader taste testers with dishes that are appropriate for various seasons. Remember my pumpkin cookies in October? Remember his Salad Nicoise on Bastille Day?)

Passover begins at sundown on Friday, and over the years I’ve read various food articles about how desserts can be a challenge during this seven-day festival, because of dietary rules.

One of the most well-known rules is that observant Jewish people would avoid any kind of bread or bread product with leavening in it.

It’s a reminder of the first Passover, when Moses led the ancient Israelites out of captivity in Egypt, and they left so quickly they didn’t have time to wait for bread to rise.

So if you wanted something like, say, a cheesecake to be appropriate for Passover you would keep leavening out of the crust.

I found a cheesecake recipe at food.com, and asked JCC Adult & Cultural Services Director Barbara Sugarman to read it over. She approved it, so I lined up my crust ingredients — almonds (which really smell heavenly when they’re toasting), sugar and matzo.

In the filling there’s plenty of cream cheese, some butter and eggs, plus a little lemon zest and vanilla.

This dessert gave me a chance to use, for the first time, a springform pan that a friend gave me about 10 years ago. (You see what Mark meant when he was amazed that I made a cheesecake. Surely if I made them more frequently, that pan wouldn’t have spent a decade in the back of a closet.)

I searched for the pan over the weekend, made the cheesecake Tuesday morning, chilled it for a few hours and then took it to the newsroom, where I served it with a topping of fresh strawberries that I’d mashed with a potato masher.

So, what did the newsroom taste testers think?

“Delectable. A wonderful surprise,” reporter Jen Learn-Andes said. “ And I think I detected some nuttiness in the crust.”

“It’s delicious,” reporter Ryan Evans said. “And cheesecake is usually my go-to dessert. This tasted like spring; you can tell it was so fresh.”

“The strawberries really add to the freshness,” obit clerk Ashley Bringmann said. “And the cheesecake’s really good, too.”

“It’s a wonderful classic pairing, the cheesecake with the strawberries,” news editor Roger DuPuis said. “I also think I tasted lemon, and it caught me off guard, in a good way. I also think I tasted a hint of almond.”

“Oh, very good, Roger,” page designer Lyndsay Bartos said, impressed that he could name so many ingredients. “It’s a great cheesecake,” she added. “Really refreshing with the lemon and strawberries.”

“I had a small piece, and it was sweet but subtle,” columnist Bill O’Boyle said. “You showed me once again that a dessert doesn’t have to be really sugary to seem like a dessert.”

Below is the recipe, from food.com/. While the filling was beyond delicious, I found that my crust didn’t hold its shape well. Upon more careful reading of the recipe, I realized why. There’s an important line in the instructions that says to take your crust ingredients and “transfer to a bowl and stir in butter until combined well.”

Somehow, I skipped over that part (I guess because the butter wasn’t actually listed among the crust ingredients). So I had a very crumbly crust. Now that I’ve already made that mistake and can warn you, gentle readers, to include a few tablespoons of butter in the crust, your cheesecake will no doubt be fine.

Almond Crust

3/4 cup sliced blanched almond, toasted and cooled

2/3 cup sugar

2/3 cup matzo cake meal

1⁄4 teaspoon salt

Lemon Cheesecake Filling

8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened

3/4 cup sugar

3 large eggs

2 teaspoons grated lemon zest

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Make crust: Preheat oven to 350F with rack in middle. Pulse almonds, sugar, matzo cake meal, and salt in a food processor until finely ground. Transfer to a bowl and stir in butter until combined well. Press onto bottom and 1 inch up side of springform pan. Bake until crust is firm and a shade darker, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool crust completely in pan on a rack.

Make filling and bake cheesecake: Reduce oven temperature to 300°F Beat together cream cheese and sugar in a bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until smooth, 1 to 2 minutes. Reduce speed to low and add eggs 1 at a time, mixing until incorporated. Mix in zest and vanilla.

Put springform pan in a shallow baking pan and pour filling into cooled crust. Bake until filling is set 1 1/2 inches from edge but center is wobbly, 45 to 50 minutes (filling will continue to set as it cools). Transfer cake in pan to a rack and immediately run a knife around edge, then remove side of pan. Cool completely, 2 to 3 hours.