Ok. I said I'd make this thing and tell everyone how it turned out. So first, here's what I did.
I knew I needed to make the cheesecake less thick than usual (that is less filling in the pan), so I made the original recipe for 1 cheesecake to fill a nine inch springform pan. But I cooked it in a ten inch springform pan instead. I reduced the cooking time by fifteen minutes to allow for the thinner filling. I used real, slightly salty butter for the crust which gave it an amazingly buttery flavor. I didn't bother to carefully cool the cheesecake to avoid cracking the top, as another filling was to be spread over it anyway.
When the cheesecake was cooled, I made the filling portion of the Jello breand cheesecake according to package directions. I also used 8 oz. of very heavy whipping cream with Splenda and some very good Mexican vanilla. I folded the whipped cream and Jello cheesecake filling together. I spread that over the baked cheesecake, covered, and placed in the refrigerator for about three hours (just in time for desert after dinner). Oh, and on the baked cheesecake, I used a graham cracker crust, but increased the amount by half to allow enough crust to contain the additional filling.
The body of both cheesecakes was perfect. Due to the reduced cooking time, the baked cheesecake filling was more creamy, without being runny in any way. It was perfect, the best texture I've had in a cheesecake to date. And the combination of jello cheesecake filling and whipped cream created a creamy, and light topping, with a more delicate flavor than would have been attained with just the Jello brand cheesecake filling by itself. So it was very good as well, and the texture was better than either componant by itself.
However, the Jello brand Cheesecake is much sweeter than is the baked cheesecake filling (New York style Cheescake). It tended to overpower the baked cheesecake filling, almost making it sour by comparison. It was still good, but not incredible as I had hoped it would be.
I believe the addition of cherry pie filling, spread over the top of the baked cheesecake, and then topped with the second filling might ballance and tie the two differing fillings together better. Also, if the whipped cream were made without any sweetener, with just vanilla added, I think it would cut the overly sweet Jello Cheesecake better, tame it a bit.
And so, though the experiment was a success, and the result was very good, it could have been better.
So, here's a challenge for all of you cheesecake lovers out there, make your own baked cheesecake, any kind you favor, then put a unique topping on it, something like a key-lime custard, or an orange fluff, something that you've never seen before. Make something amazing. Then report you results, and what was right, and what was wrong with it, and ideas to make it better.
I think my next attempt at this will have a New York style cheesecake, with a second layer of the same, but with wild Michigan blueberries mixed in, and finally topped with a strawberry whipped cream. Maybe I'll enter that into our company's 4rth of July picknic cooking contest, a red white & blue cheesecake. Yup, sounds good to me.
Seeeeeya; Goodweed of the North
