{"id":3641,"date":"2013-02-14T13:50:07","date_gmt":"2013-02-14T10:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hoppinjohns.net\/?p=3641"},"modified":"2013-03-18T12:03:02","modified_gmt":"2013-03-18T09:03:02","slug":"valentines-day-cheesecake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hoppinjohns.net\/?p=3641","title":{"rendered":"Valentine’s Day Cheesecake"},"content":{"rendered":"

February 14, 2013 <\/strong>Mikel is out of town on Valentine’s Day. It seems that we often are apart on holidays and birthdays. I don’t know when I’ve spent my birthday with him. I’ve been weaning myself from Facebook, where I have posted nearly 10,000 photos — much of them food. I browsed through them this morning and came across this cheesecake I made for our wedding anniversary last year. Our anniversary is in April, but Greek strawberries have already begun to appear in the markets here, and the citrus is of course perfect now (I have a refrigerator full of blood oranges!). I see that on Facebook I said, “I had a bunch of ricotta, so I made a cheesecake.”<\/p>\n

Orange Ricotta Cheesecake with Strawberries and Oranges<\/strong><\/p>\n

Make the garnish (recipe follows) first if you are planning to serve this pudding warm.<\/p>\n

Butter<\/p>\n

2 small to medium oranges, well washed\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

2 cups fresh ricotta, drained<\/p>\n

3\/4 cup granulated sugar<\/p>\n

Triple Sec or another orange liqueur<\/p>\n

3 eggs<\/p>\n

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.<\/p>\n

Lightly butter a 9-inch spring-form pan.<\/p>\n

Zest the oranges and place the zest in a large mixing bowl with the ricotta and sugar. Juice the oranges, measuring the juice. Add Triple Sec to make \u00be cup, then add the juice to the bowl.<\/p>\n

Separate the eggs one at a time, and keeping each egg white separate. Add the egg yolks to the bowl and blend all the ingredients well. I use a wooden spoon. You want the mixture perfectly well blended, but you do not want to whip it.<\/p>\n

Add the egg whites, one at a time, mixing well after each.<\/p>\n

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake until lightly gilded on top, about 30 minutes. Serve hot, room temperature, or cold, with fresh strawberries and oranges.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Strawberry-Orange Garnis<\/strong>\"\"<\/a>h for Puddings<\/strong><\/p>\n

I first made a version of this with cranberries to accompany an orange custard, the recipe for which I published in Hoppin\u2019 John\u2019s Charleston, Beaufort & Savannah<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/em>. If you are going to serve the cheesecake hot or warm, you should make this garnish first. If you are going to use cranberries, cut strips of the zest and set aside. Add the cranberries and a teaspoon of grated zest to the juice as it boils. When all of the cranberries have popped and split open and the liquid has reduced by a fourth, remove the pan from the heat and press the mixture through a fine sieve. Set aside at room temperature to cool and add a few raw cranberries, chopped, and the reserved zest to the glaze at the last minute.<\/p>\n

2 cups strawberries, trimmed and sliced or cut up to your liking<\/p>\n

2 large, juicy oranges, well washed<\/p>\n

\u00bd cup sugar<\/p>\n

Place the strawberries in a serving bowl.<\/p>\n

Grate several strips of orange zest and place in a saucepan. Grate a teaspoon of zest and add to the pan. Squeeze the juice from one of the oranges and measure it. You want to add 3\/4 cup of juice to the pan; section the remaining orange and add the sections to the strawberries. Add the sugar to the pan and bring to a boil over high heat, stirring constantly. When the juice has reduced in half, remove from the heat and pour over the strawberries. Set aside at room temperature or in the refrigerator to cool (or not, depending on your fancy).<\/p>\n

6 servings.<\/p>\n

Happy Valentine’s Day, Mikel!!!<\/strong> <\/span><\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

February 14, 2013 Mikel is out of town on Valentine’s Day. It seems that we often are apart on holidays and birthdays. I don’t know when I’ve spent my birthday with him. I’ve been weaning myself from Facebook, where I have posted nearly 10,000 photos — much of them food. I browsed through them this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3643,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1257,1255,1256,1258],"class_list":["post-3641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","tag-cranberry-orange-glaze","tag-orange-ricotta-cheesecake","tag-strawberry-and-orange-glaze","tag-valentines-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoppinjohns.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoppinjohns.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoppinjohns.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoppinjohns.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoppinjohns.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3641"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/hoppinjohns.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3663,"href":"https:\/\/hoppinjohns.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3641\/revisions\/3663"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoppinjohns.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoppinjohns.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoppinjohns.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoppinjohns.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}