Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and cheesecake!

March 30, 2023, marks opening day for the 2023 Major League Baseball season. Whether you are tailgating, watching at home (or surreptitiously at work), or are channelling the outdoor atmosphere and watching on a deck or patio, this cheesecake is sure to add to the ambiance. Just don’t expect it to last beyond the seventh inning stretch! There are a couple of ways to go about this, neither of which is better than the other, but it’s nice to have a fielder’s choice in the kitchen. Take a look!

One approach calls for baking a cheesecake with sour cream icing. If your cheesecake sinks a bit and has a distinctive border (like the one shown left), top it with enough sour cream to cover the border and take it all the way to the pan (like the one shown above). Once it comes out of the fridge, run a knife around the edge before releasing the cake from the springform pan. It helps to warm the knife under some hot running water.

A second approach is to bake a very basic cheesecake and leave it in the springform pan while it cools in the fridge, After the cake has set very firm, take it out and top it with some sweetened whipped cream. Taking this approach, you’ll get a better result if you use a stabilizer to help the whipped cream keep it’s shape, at least through 9 innings.

The characteristic stitching is done with slivers of cherries, fresh or frozen. As you can tell by comparing the two finished cheesecakes, smaller cherries work better than larger cherries. I used a 10″ paper plate to draw some identical curves in the icing (sour cream or whipped cream), then placed the strips of cherry, offsetting them to give a stitched look. If you’re at all like me, the need for a more precise representation is of more import when making than in presenting. Those waiting to eat it will not examine it that closely. Trust me on that.

If you want to knock it over the wall – “go yard”, as they say – make the basic cheesecake and put a layer of whole, pitted cherries on the crust before you put the batter in the pan and cover them. Cherry lovers will thank you.

Time to play ball!!!