Mr. Food Test Kitchen: February 18, 2013 Cheese Cake

Whether you're off today for Presidents Day or you gotta work, we have a dessert that will not only honor our presidents, it's fancy enough to serve at the White House. What is it? Cheesecake. And it goes together like this. We start by beating together some cream cheese with some sugar, a couple of eggs and a little bit of vanilla. And a little Test Kitchen tip: you know, when you make cheesecake, if we bring all the ingredients to room temperature before we mix them, it'll make everything that much smoother. And for the presidential twist to our cheesecake, we add some chopped maraschino cherries and a generous amount of chocolate chips. It's sure a good thing George Washington cut down a cherry tree and not an olive tree. And what we'll do: we'll pour that into a store-bought graham cracker crust. Level it off-before we bake it. Once we remove it from the oven and it cools, we finish it off with some whipped cream, sprinkle on a bit of cocoa powder. That'll make it look extra fancy schmancy. And to get that perfect slice, run your knife under some hot water, and then wipe it dry and watch your knife just glide through for a nice clean cut. And when you serve this cheesecake pie garnished with maraschino cherries, your friends are going to think you ordered it from a fancy schmancy specialty bakery. And when you tell them it's homemade, they're gonna want the recipe.  Look, the recipe for "Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake" is online now as well as loads of extra Test Kitchen tips on how to make the perfect cheesecake. What a patriotic way to salute our presidents. So here's to Washington and Lincoln for all of their ... as we say around here ... all of their ... "OOH IT'S SO GOOD!!"

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