Monday, April 27, 2009

April Daring Bakers: Meyer Lemon-Coconut Cheesecake

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge. We were given total freedom over playing around with flavors, and so I went with Meyer lemon and coconut. These seemed like the perfect flavors for Easter, plus our lemon tree was overflowing with lemons.

Let me tell you, this was one amazing cheesecake! I used crispy lemon cookies in the crust, lemon juice and lemon zest in the filling, and lemon curd spread on top, so the lemon flavor came through really well. The coconut flavor was much more subtle, although I used toasted coconut in the crust and coconut milk in the filling. Nonetheless, I did think that the coconut milk mellowed things out and balanced the filling. I'd like to try an all-coconut cheesecake sometime, as I think all the lemon may have just overpowered the coconut.

Meyer Lemon-Coconut Cheesecake

Crust:
90 g crispy lemon cookies (about 1 cup crumbs)
1 cup toasted unsweetened coconut
1/2 stick butter, melted
2 T sugar
1/2 vanilla bean, scraped

Filling:
3 sticks of cream cheese, 8 oz each (total of 24 oz) room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup coconut milk (shake well before measuring)
3 T Meyer lemon juice
2 T Meyer lemon zest
1/2 vanilla bean, scraped

Topping:
Store-bought or homemade lemon curd

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan (I used a 9-inch springform pan). You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker's choice. Set crust aside.

3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add coconut milk, vanilla, lemon juice, and zest and blend until smooth and creamy.

4. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour hot water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

5. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done - this can be hard to judge, but you're looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don't want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won't crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, top with lemon curd and serve.

Please make sure to check out all the other fantastic cheesecakes at The Daring Kitchen. You can find the original recipe for the cheesecake at Jenny Bakes. Here are a few of my favorites:

Raspberry Chocolate Mini Cheesecakes
Chocolate-Peanut Butter Cheesecake (plus two others)
Cheesecake with Coconut Crust
Pineapple Upside Down Cheesecake
White Chocolate and Blackberry Cheesecake
Fresh Mango Cheesecake
Pear Cardamom Cheesecake
Margarita Cheesecake with Pretzel Crust (plus three others)
Cheesecake made in the food processor
Bulls Eye Cheesecake
Peanut Butter-Chocolate Swirl Cheesecake
Pina Colada Cheesecake
Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream
Savory Camembert and Blue Cheese Cheesecakes

60 comments:

  1. YUM! Lemon! I've never heard of using lemon cookies for the crust. Great idea! I bet that tasted yummy!

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  2. Lemon-coconut sounds delicious pairing:)

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  3. That looks like one fine cheesecake! Lemon and coconut is a great pairing!

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  4. Excellent pairing of flavours and it sounds really delicious.

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  5. It looks wonderful! I love the sunny yellow of the Meyer-lemon curd against the cream of the cheesecake. Beautiful photographs!

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  6. Wow--- I love lemons, especially meyer lemons. Your cake looks amazing. I bet it was so refreshing to eat, and light on the palette, contrary to most cheesecake. Well done!

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  7. Mmmm....Meyer lemon!!! I LOVE Meyer lemons! I was looking for it over here in OR...no luck --- I even wanted to buy a plant and take the risk in the winter! - the plant in the nursery did not have any fruits left! :P Anyway, well done...I can taste summer near by! ;)

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  8. That looks great! I love Meyer lemons!

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  9. THis is what I call a perfect slice! Love the flavor that you chose and meyer lemon is heaven. Well done Sara!
    Cheers,
    elra

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  10. My mouth is puckering just at the thought of meyer lemon cheescake. I love anything lemon! Yours look delicious. Very spring looking :)

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  11. Oh my goodness, that looks absolutely delicious. I love lemon! I wish I could get Meyer lemons here, I'll just have to settle for the regular ones :) Great job.

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  12. Ooh, I'm going to bookmark your flavour combo for future reference! I love Meyer lemons, and we've just started to have them available here.

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  13. I am so jealous of your lemon tree! This cake looks awesome. Love the lemon with the coconut. Someday I'll find me a Meyer lemon.

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  14. Meyer lemon and coconut sound wonderful!

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  15. I love anything lemon, so I know I would love this cheesecake. Great idea to use lemon cookies.

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  16. Mmm, your cheesecake looks wonderful!! The lemon-coconut combo sounds divine!!

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  17. Oooo...I bet coconut is fabulous in a cheesecake! Looks wonderful.

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  18. Coconut-lemon is a great combination. I'm especially partial to coconut. (: This looks delicious!

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  19. The coconut and lemon sounds great together. I'm a sucker for meyer lemons so I know it must have been wonderful.

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  20. Oh wow, that looks YUMMY. I love lemon!

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  21. Graet idea for the crust! I will have to try this.

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  22. Great flavor combination. Sounds so light and fresh and the toasted coconuts in the crust is a nice touch.

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  23. This sounds delicious. I love the use of something on your tree for the challenge. Let me know if you make a super-coconut one, that sounds great too. Thanks for making this challenge your own!

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  24. Meyer lemon and coconut...that sounds like a delicious combo! Perfect flavors for spring. It looks fabulous :)

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  25. So beautiful! I am terribly jealous of your lemon tree, too.

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  26. Sounds like a great combo! I never see meyer lemons here unfortunately.

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  27. Hello Sara,

    this is a very nice cake,
    I like to try these flavours one day
    if I can find Meyer Lemons in this area.

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  28. Mmmmm..lemon and coconut is such a delicious combo, and your cheesecake looks lovely!

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  29. Between the lemon and the coconut I think I'd feel like I were drinking a Pina Colada!

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  30. Except...the cheesecake part would kind of remind me that I wasn't :)

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  31. Oooh, that looks gooooooood. Coconut and lemon are awesome together. Good job!

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  32. P.S. thanks for stopping by my blog :)

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  33. oh I want some cheesecake! this looks so so good! well done !

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  34. wow.. that's one serious citrus hit! Everytime I see a Meyer lemon treat popped up in the blogosphere I always envious. I'm so intrigued by this fruit but it's ashame that I can't get it here in Australia. Oh well, I guess I just have to be satisfied looking at it =)

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  35. Ooo, lemon curd! Wish I would've thought of that! Sweet and tangy ~ yum

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  36. Yay for lemony goodness! Great idea, using lemon cookies in the crust too.

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  37. Pairing of lemon and coconut sounds delish.

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  38. Lemon and coconut are two of my favorite flavors to have together. I'll be right over for a slice of that!

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  39. Wow- you have a meyer lemon tree! I am so jealous! And that sounds like a positively delicious cheesecake sara!!

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  40. You are SO lucky to have a meyer lemon tree!!! I am so envious! Gorgeous flavour combo, sounds absolutely delicious!!

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  41. Lemon cheesecakes are the best aren't they? You are so lucky to have a meyer lemon tree that actually produces lemons, I'm turning green (or should that be citrus yellow) with envy here.

    Thanks for stopping by my blog btw :)

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  42. Yum, what a fantastic flavor combination!

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  43. Looks delish! I love lemon curd - I'll have to try this variation myself!

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  44. You know when I first thought about the cheesecake I thought of making a lemon curd topping ... nice job!

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  45. yum yum.. good idea on using lemon cookies for the crust. Makes it an even more of a citrus hit! Well done

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  46. Mmmm lemon cheesecake. Wow this sounds so good!!
    Great job.

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  47. I love the sound of these flavours, coconut and lemon would be simply spectacular in a cheesecake!

    Thanks for the link too Sara! :D

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  48. Wow! Your cheesecake looks just beautiful! I love the flavorings you used. What a great idea. Well done! :)

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  49. You put the lemon in your coconut....ya ya!!!!! yummy :-)

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  50. You had me at the Meyer lemons and it just gets better from there! Lovely!

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  51. An excellent idea to use lemon cookies for the base!! I wish I could taste your creation and oh! I am envious of your Meyer lemon tree.

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  52. beautiful cheesecake. lemon has to be my favourite cheesecake flavour.

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  53. Your cheesecake looks so pretty and summery. A lot of the time the simplest of flavours make the best tasting desserts. Truly "less is more".

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  54. I added lemon curt to mine too. I thought it was great. I think coconut would have to stand on its own in a future cheesecake

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  55. All that lemon can be pretty assertive, but I bet the coconut does mellow it. Very pretty, too.

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  56. I love the combination of lemon and coconut. Sounds delish and looks pretty, too!

    I have also found that coconut milk can be rather subtle. I like to amplify its flavor by using coconut oil (unrefined, not the deodorized kind). If you substituted some coconut oil for some of the butter in the crust and the lemon curd, you might find that the coconut flavor comes forward more. Just a thought. I like to add coconut oil to my lemon curd because I like the flavor combo so much.

    Thanks for the nice remarks about my cheesecake.

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  57. Oooh, how lovely to have a Mayer lemon tree! Lemon is my favourite cheesecake, I have to say - even better than chocolate! Yours looks delish!

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  58. Woww, I will definitely try this one, it looks perfect!!

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