I first got this luscious, sinful, lemon cheesecake recipe from a Wellesley College friend, Judy. She was from Jackson, Mississippi and it came from a community cookbook of church ladies. She showed me the way. At that point, I could barely cook at all. Let alone separate all these eggs. We all lived together in a sort of commune in Cambridge – all Wellesley women with MIT boyfriends. The expectation was that the “chicks” did the dishes and cooked, and the “men” did the politics. Yup. That that all changed.
I made this recipe for years. It was my only real standout dessert. I lost the recipe possibly 20 years ago. And I searched for my dog-eared recipe card in bursts of annoyance. Had I loaned it to someone? Thrown it away by mistake? But, thank you Google! Today my search paid off.
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Ingredients
Cream cheese
48 Ounce (6 Packages)
Sugar
1 Cup (16 tbs)
Eggs
6, separated
Flour
1 Tablespoon
Vanilla
1 Tablespoon
Lemon juice
1 Tablespoon
Lemon rind
1/2, grated
Heavy cream
1 Cup (16 tbs)
Directions
Note: I make the crust by grinding one box of the zwieback into fine crumbs in a blender and adding 1 cup of melted butter to the mix. (It probably doesn’t need any additional sugar.) Press it into the spring-form pan into solid crust base. And then freeze it overnight. It probably works just fine if you freeze it for less than overnight, but that’s been my pattern.
Note: You could also make it in two smaller springform pans, if you don’t have a huge one. In fact, given how totally insanely rich it is, that might be a better idea. Freeze the second one.
Cream sugar, flour, and cheese.
Add egg yolks, well beaten; add vanilla, lemon juice and rind.
Add the cream and then fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.
Pour mixture into spring-form cake pan lined with zwieback crust.
Bake one hour in a moderate oven, about 350 degrees.
Turn oven off.
Open oven door and let cool for 1 hour.
Recipe Summary
Cook Time: 60 Minutes
Ready In: 2 hours or best after cooling.