I just read this Smithsonian Magazine article about Willamette Valley truffle hunting. I’d like to go mushroom hunting and score some nice truffles (or chanterelles, or porcini). Anybody know a fun mycologist?

There was a sale on cream cheese at the mega-mart so, I thought I’d make a cheesecake. I looked around at various recipes and ended up putting this together. It’s just getting ready to come out of the oven now, so I’ll post an update with the final verdict.

Ingredients:

Crust:

• 1 1/4 C. crushed graham crackers
• 8 Tbs. unsalted butter (melted)
• 2 Tbs. sugar
• 1/4 tsp. cinnamon

Filling:

• 16 oz. light cream cheese (softened)
• 1/2 C. sugar
• 1/4 C. plain low fat yogurt
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract

Topping:

• ~1 1/2 C. thinly sliced apples.
• Juice of 1/2 lemon
• Zest of 1/2 lemon.
• 2 Tbs. sugar
• 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
• Reserved 1/4 C. of graham cracker crust mixture

Procedure:

Evenly crush graham crackers and combine with sugar, cinnamon, and melted butter. Reserve about 1/4 C. of crust mixture and press remainder into the bottom of a 10″ springform pan and bake at 350° for 10 minutes. While crust cools, cream sugar and cream cheese in your stand mixer on medium until well blended and creamy. Add yogurt and mix well. Add eggs, one at a time and blend on low until well mixed. Add vanilla. Spoon mixture into pan and bake at 350° for 25-30 minutes. Remove from oven and spread apples on top. Bake for another 20 minutes. Sprinkle remaining graham cracker mixture on top and increase oven temp to 450° for 5 minutes and then switched to broil for about a minute to brown apples. Total oven time was about 55 minutes. Turn off oven, run a knife around the edge of the pan, return to oven and allow to cool slowly then refrigerate overnight.

Update: Apple Crumb Cheesecake turned out really good. Next time I’ll make a double batch in the same pan, since the cheesecake ended up relatively thin. It was good thin, but less cheesecakey and more tort-ish.