How to make vanilla bean cheesecake

Please see the supplies tab for the ingredients. This cheesecake involves a crust, cheesecake layer, white chocolate mousse, and whipped cream topping. Assembly can take a few hours.

Begin by placing the sugar and cream cheese in a mixing bowl. It is VERY IMPORTANT that your cream cheese is room temperature. Take it out a few hours ahead of time. Overnight even.

Begin mixing on medium speed. You'll want these two to be nice and creamy. No lumps. Remember to scrape the sides and bottom at least once.

Creamy. See? This can take several minutes. Make the graham cracker crust while waiting for this to happen.

In the next step I explain the crust. For easy removal, I cover the bottom of a springform pan with aluminum foil, and then snap the ring around so the foil hangs out from the bottom.

Preheat your oven to 350 at this point and bake the crust for about 8-10 minutes, just to set it.

In a microwave safe bowl, put the butter & crumbs in the microwave just to melt the butter. The crumbs will help the butter from not splattering all over the place. Blend with a fork and press in pan.

Once the crust is in the oven, turn speed to low and and in the milk. Scrape the sides once all added.

While you dissect your vanilla bean, turn off the mixer. You can find vanilla beans near the other spices and extracts in the store or cheaper online.

Along the wide, flat part of the bean, cut from top to bottom and split it open.

See all those beautiful beans in there?

With your knife, scrape out as much of the meat as possible and add to the batter.

Now, don't go throwing that out!

Add the vanilla bean guts to the batter.

Take those extra bean goodies and soak them in 1/2 cup of whipping cream for later.

Measure out the sour cream. I love this tool for measuring out thick stuff. Add this to the batch and mix. Scrape sides.

Add eggs, which should also be room temperature, one at a time, mixing on low just until they're incorporated.

Sprinkle in the flour. Scrape sides one last time.

Pour into springform pan with crust already set. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 for 45 minutes if using a 10" pan. If using an 8 or 9" pan, bake for 50 minutes.

While the cheesecake bakes, prepare the mousse by assembling a double boiler. Start with a pot with about an inch of water in the bottom.

Place a glass bowl above the pot, creating a tight fit. This will be how we melt the chocolate without burning it.

Place the pot over medium high heat and add the chocolate to the top bowl.

See?

The chocolate will slowly melt. Don't stir too much.

Once melted, remove from the heat. Scrape all the chocolate down from the sides of the bowl. Let cool to room temp, until it doesn't feel warm to the touch.

While that is going on, place 1 cup of heavy whipping cream in a bowl at least 3 times the size of the cream.

Whip with a whisk attachment, starting on low, increasing speed as it thickens. Move the beater around the bowl.

Increase speed as cream thickens.

Whip until stiff peaks form. Don't overwhip or you'll end up with butter.

Once the white chocolate is no longer warm, add to the bowl the 4 oz. of cream cheese and best together until smooth.

White chocolate and cream cheese mixture.

Now it's time to introduce these two to each other.

Slowly fold a bit of the white chocolate mixture into the whipped cream, being careful to not deflate the whipping cream too much.

Until it looks like this. So yummy.

Now it's time to whip the other portion of vanilla whipping cream.

Strain the bean out.

If you want you can rinse it off with hot water and add to sugar for some yummy ...

Vanilla sugar! You can keep adding sugar to the beans, they're pretty powerful.

When the cheesecake reaches the baking time, turn the oven off. Don't check it, don't open the oven door. Let it cool in the oven for about 2 hours.

Once cooled down, add the mousse and smooth over the top of the cake.

You can remove it from the springform pan at this point.

I was taking this to a birthday party, so, I drew some fun decorations with white candy making chocolate.

Remove the foil and transfer to final plate.

If you want to get fancy, you can put the vanilla whipped cream in a pastry bag and make a nice whipped cream border.

Like so.

The final product!