Brown sugar cheesecake (recipe).

** Update ** Guess what?! This recipe was featured by Julie over at White Lights on Wednesdays! Go check her out!

I have a confession, I've been known to get a little carried away at Costco. For example, last time I bought 25 pounds of brown sugar (yes, twenty-five; that's 12.5 lbs for each of us). It's okay though, because I love brown sugar (I'm guilty of occasionally eating it by the spoonful), and I am confident I'll somehow manage to use it all up ;)

I received an Amazon gift card for my birthday, and one of the things I picked out for myself was a new set of spring-form pans. As soon as I received the new pans in the mail, I knew I wanted to make cheesecake; the brown sugar adds a subtle warm flavor that I can't get enough of.

The filling in this recipe is adapted from Ina Garten's cheesecake recipe in the Barefoot Contessa: Family Style cookbook. The texture turned out beautifully; it was smooth and creamy in the center, and firm at the edges.  I've loved everything that I've made from this book so far.

Ingredients

Crust:

6 tbs butter

1 cup flour 

1/2 cup brown sugar (packed)

Filling:

2.5 lbs cream cheese (room temperature)

1.5 cups brown sugar (packed)

5 whole eggs (room temperature)

2 egg yolks (room temperature)

1/4 cup sour cream

2 tsp vanilla

Instructions

Crust:

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees f.

2) Brown the butter. Mix butter, flour, and sugar together.

3) Press mixture evenly into your spring-form pan. Bake until golden brown (about 10 minutes).

Filling:

1) Raise the oven temperature to 450 degrees f.

2) Cream together the sugar and cream cheese until light and fluffy (about 5 minutes with a hand mixer). Add the eggs and egg yolks, a few at a time, and continue mixing. Add the sour cream and vanilla, and mix until well blended and smooth. 

3) Pour the mixture into the cooled crust. Bake for 15 minutes at 450 degrees f. Lower the heat to 225 degrees f, and bake for another 75 minutes. Turn the oven off, and allow the cake to sit in the oven for another 30 minutes (the original recipe says to do this with the door open, but I forgot and left it closed).

4) Allow cake to cool completely on the counter before wrapping and refrigerating. Serve cold.

It's delicious by itself, but if you want to get a little fancy...

... you can spoon some strawberries and brown sugar over the top.

Or you can go crazy, and break up some peanut butter fudge sticks on top. I melted the chocolate with my creme brulee torch!

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