Cheese Cake Colombani

Cheese Cake Colombani
printable version

Colombani is the name of the person who gave this recipe to my mother.  Since she has several cheese cake recipes I figured that would be a good distinguisher.

I'm making this for our Christmas Day Golla family gathering since other people there besides me will eat cheesecake and I won't eat the whole thing by myself like I did with the Old Fashioned Cream Pie.  On the 23rd I thought I'd make it ahead of time and keep refrigerated...but I soon discovered I didn't have the cream cheese softened.  So I did some prep and will take the cream cheese out early on the 24th an bake it before we go to church in the late afternoon.

1 pkg Sweiback (Crushed with rolling pin)

So I was at HEB and headed straight to the Baby Food aisle...no Sweiback.  I asked Google and discovered Melba Toast was an acceptable substitute.  No telling how big a box of Sweiback was but I think it was 4 or 5 ounces.  The unflavored Melba Toast was 5 oz. so that's what I'm going with.

They are quite thin little toasts wrapped in several packages.  One package, in the middle of the box, was pretty crushed.  I would've been annoyed had I been using them as toast crackers but in this case it was just a head start.

I put them in a ziploc and rolled them with a rolling pin as the recipe card suggested.

They were still pretty chunky and being a crust I felt like they should be more finely powdered. 

So I employed modern technology and put them in my Ninja food processor system.

I did them in two batches, eight pulses each then transferred them to a plastic container with a tight lid.

I went ahead and add 2 TBSP sugar and screwed the lid on and shook it up for a good mix.

2/3 c. soft butter or oleo is the only remaining crust ingredient.  2/3 c. is 11 TBSP so I separated that amount of butter and put it by the cream cheese so I can get it out first thing in the morning.

I went ahead and measured the dry ingredients for the filling too.  When I'm baking for other people I often use lesser-quality ingredients then when I know it will be consumed solely in my house.

3/4 c. Sugar (Great Value granulated bleached, etc.)

2 TBSP flour (King Arthur)
1/2 tsp salt

I put these in another air-tight container and shook them up.  They are both in my pantry, ready to use tomorrow.

I decided not to dirty another container so I took chunks of the soft butter and worked it into the crumbs with a fork, making sure to dig down deep and turn the mixture over. 

After it seemed like it might be too much butter I noticed, despite my efforts, I still wasn't getting down to the bottom. So I poured off the top stuff that was already mixed into the spring form pan and continued mixing the rest. 

Once it was all in the pan I used the fork to blend in the remaining big chunks of butter.

  I used my fingers to mush it into a crust

but soon decided a spoon would make a smoother surface.

I didn't get it as far up the sides as I wanted.  Perhaps more crumbs were needed...the illusive size of the Sweiback box.

FILLING:
2 - 8oz pkg Phildelphia Cream Cheese (I used HEB brand and the 1/3 less fat version)

First I consulted my mixer instruction booklet to see what setting "cream" is.  I keep it tucked in the side pocket of the cover - it's maroon because when I bought it my daughter was attending Texas A&M.

Cut softened cheese into small pieces and cream.  My cheese must've been PRETTY soft because it was more like globs than small pieces.

Add sugar, flour and salt to cheese.  Mix well until blended.
Stir in vanilla.
Add beaten egg yolks to cream mixture.  What mixture?  Okay, so I separated the eggs and beat the yolks and stirred them into 1/2 pint light cream or 1 cup half and half.  (I used half and half because I never see "light" cream.)  Add cream.  Blend.

I hadn't yet poured the pineapple onto the crust because I didn't want it to get soggy.  I popped open the lid and set it upside down in the sink to start draining but not much was coming out.  So I decided to put it in a strainer.  

I set it over the container that I had used for the crumbs and saved the juice for use in a smoothie. 

I wound up mushing it around with a fork and getting A LOT more juice out.

While the Kitchen Aid was running I used a hand mixer to Beat egg whites until stiff.

I took the bowl off the mixer and Fold (egg whites) into cheese mixture until smooth and lumps disappear.

Then I spread the pineapple over the crust.

Once it was smooth

Carefully pour over pineapple into crust.

I should mention I used a 9" spring form pan.  My kids had given me a set of 3 pans many years ago.  This is the mid-size pan.  The filling came WAY over the crust...oh well, I'm sure it will be fine.

Bake at 325 for 1 & 1/2 hours.  Cool and remove sides of pan but not the bottom.  Delicious.

After one hour my cheesecake looked done.  It was a smooth golden brown across the top, didn't jiggle when I pulled the rack out and was pulling away from the sides, looking done down in the crack too.  Just to be sure, I googled how to tell if a cheesecake is done.   The only test I hadn't already noted was the temperature so I checked and it was 150.  I took it out and placed on a cooling rack.  I will not remove the sides until I serve it tomorrow.

During storing in the refrigerator, lightly covered with plastic wrap, a crack formed in the middle and the outer edge completed it's separation.

When I took off the side of the pan, crumbs fell off.  I think the crust just wasn't right - it was very bland.  I also wonder if having more crust (higher on the sides) would have held the cake together better.  Maybe 7 oz. melba toast would've been better and increase the butter to 3/4 cup.  Also, to add a bit more flavor I'd increase the sugar from 2 TBSP to 1/4 c.

I wasn't impressed with the pineapple on the bottom - maybe I drained it too much, it seemed a bit dry and really didn't add anything for my taste.  I do like the cream cheese filling so perhaps it would be worth using this filling in a different crust recipe and omitting the pineapple.  I feel like some cheesecake recipes are complicated but this filling was simple AND tasty.  It is also smooth without much effort.