Raspberry Cheese Cake

With this recipe, I had enough to make one large cheesecake plus three mini cakes (large serving sized portions)

The Best Cheesecake Recipe
Cake:

6 eggs
1 1/2 C sugar
2 lbs. (four 8 ounce packages) cream cheese-cheapest option is to buy the block from Costco
1 cup sour cream- cheapest at costco
1 cup heavy cream-cheapest at costco
juice of one lemon
1 Tablespoon vanilla
2 heaping Tablespoons flour

Crust:

1 1/2 C crushed vanilla wafers (you can also use crushed graham crackers, or digestive biscuits)
6 Tablespoons melted butter
1/2 C sugar

Preheat oven to to 425°.

Add eggs, sugar, cream cheese, sour cream, heavy cream, lemon juice, vanilla, and flour to mixer. Beat (on low to to low-medium speed) thoroughly, until completely smooth.

While cake mixture is beating, make the crust.

Mix crust ingredients together in small mixing bowl. Pour into 9" spring form pan, pressing into place with your fingers or the back of a spoon. Chill in refrigerator for 15 minutes.

When crust is cool, and cake is thoroughly mixed, pour batter into the pan over the back of a big spoon, so the batter does not disturb the crust. Let it rest for 5 or 10 minutes.

Bake in 425° oven for 15 minutes. Then turn oven down to 275° and bake for 1 hour. Turn off oven. Do not open the oven door for 2 hours! After the 2 hours are up, remove cake and refrigerate overnight.

(When I baked my cake it cracked down the middle. No worries! You are going to cover it up with yummy berries anyways!)

For topping you can use any berry or chocolate topping.

For berry toppings you basically just want to mix sugar with cornstarch to sweeten and thicken the berries, and then bring them to a mild boil. Here I use 24 ounces of berries with 1 cup sugar and 2 T cornstarch. Be sure to mix your cornstarch with the sugar before adding it to the berries. You can add more or less sugar depending on the tartness of your berries(these were very tart berries!)

Let the sauce cool slightly and then pour onto your cake and let set.

It would also be yummy with chocolate fudge sauce instead of or with the berries!

Here is my favorite recipe:

In a small saucepan mix:

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup unsweetened chocolate powder

1/2 butter

1/4 cup milk

let boil one minute stirring often. Remove from heat. (the longer you let it boil, the stiffer it will be when it sets)

Add 1 tsp vanilla

Serve hot as a topping or let cool slightly and pour onto cake.