Cherry cheesecake is a popular dessert made with a graham cracker crust, cream cheese filling, and cherry preserves topping. Varieties include fresh cherries or sugar-free options.
Cherry cheesecake is a popular variety of gourmet cheesecake that is sold in restaurants and bakeries and is often made at home for special occasions. Most versions of cherry cheesecake are a classic cream cheese-based cheesecake topped with a graham cracker crust and topped with cherry preserves. Alternative versions of the cheesecake include baking the cherries inside the cream cheese filling, topping the dessert with fresh cherries, or making the cheesecake sugar-free.
Most cherry cheesecakes start with the crust, which is similar to the crusts used for pies, tarts, and other desserts. Typically, chefs use a graham cracker crust for this type of cheesecake. This type of crust is made by crushing regular graham crackers and combining them with melted butter, creating a paste that can be made into a crust. Other versions of this cheesecake use a chocolate crust, which has a darker color and richer flavor.
The base of any cheesecake is a large amount of cream cheese blended with small amounts of white sugar, eggs, cream and butter. While there are both baked and non-baked varieties of cheesecake, most classic cheesecake recipes call for mixing the ingredients and cooking them at a low temperature in a springform pan. Baking gives cheesecake a harder crust with a soft, creamy center and is best suited for gourmet cheesecake varieties such as cherry cheesecake.
The topping separates cherry cheesecake from other specialty cheesecake varieties. Most recipes call for using cherry preserves, which are either made from scratch or purchased. Cherry preserves are whole cherries, pitted and boiled with white sugar and small amounts of flour. The boiling process sweetens the cherries and thickens the cherry juice, creating preserves. Generally, preserves are added on top of a finished cheesecake and chilled in the refrigerator for several hours before serving.
Other cherry cheesecake varieties call for fresh cherries or cherry preserves to be baked into the cheesecake’s cream cheese filling, adding more cherry flavor to the dessert. Some bakeries also sell sugar-free cherry cheesecake. The sugar-free variety uses sugar substitutes in place of white sugar throughout the dessert, including the crust, filling, and cherry filling. While sugar-free cherry cheesecake is a good option for diabetics, the dessert will still have a hefty number of calories and ample amounts of dairy that might upset some sensitive stomachs.
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