It's currently around 9:36 P.M., and I am on the laggy laptop. Oh, laggy laptop. How I long for the days when you weren't laggy and McAffee didn't constantly try to bombard me with messages about how my subscription has expired and therefore I need to buy things from you. Oh, McAffee. You don't even know.

More importantly, I have not yet eaten dinner, but I am currently working on remedying that (well, honestly, I'm currently typing, but the dinner part is next). I'm trying to make some sort of vaguely Mexican themed omelette (i.e., onions, peppers, garlic, pepper Jack cheese, and some cheddar), and it will probably not end well. It'll be okay, I guess. Worst case, I'll have some scrambled eggs to work with. Whatever, man. It could be worse.

More importantly, even when compared to the previous paragraph (I know- we're just raising the stakes all over the place right now) [OMELETTE UPDATE: The omelette actually came out fairly well. I went overboard on toppings, but I did manage to fold it and get it out of the skillet without it entirely breaking. It tastes pretty good, although some ham or sausage would have really helped it out.], I'm feeling rather like baking tonight. Now, normally it would be a terrible idea for me to start baking this late, but, I mean, I'm going to be up for Novemblog writing anyway, so I might as well kill two birds with one stone by talking about the baking for tonight's post. Furthermore, both The Lady and my roommate are sticking around Charleston for Thanksgiving, so I figure that I should hook them up with something to eat while I'm gone. Having now finished the omelette, I can assure you that this is a terrible idea that will end in tears and recriminations. Let's watch.

But before we get to our regularly scheduled programming, let's take about an hour and a half to talk to the roommate, who is FAR more accepting of baked goods than Bev was. Oh, Bev. Now, in that hour and a half, I did manage to prepare the batter and assemble both cheesecakes for the evening. Did I not mention that? Yeah, I'm making cheesecakes. Both are double-layer pumpkin cheesecakes, with one having regular cheesecake batter and the other having chocolate cheesecake batter. Currently, I'm waiting for the oven to cool down a bit (as I had set it about 125 degrees too high, which would have surely ended poorly) and ruining my pancreas with what's left of the dough and batter. A porter has also been involved, and it is quite powerful and pairs surprisingly well with the batter. That may be the porter talking, though.

Anyway, yes, despite The Lady's protestations (which amounted to, "Hey, it's pretty late. Maybe you should try to get a decent night's sleep for once instead of going all baking crazy." You know, reasonable and logical complaints that I'm going to ignore), I have begun the process of making cheesecakes this evening. It has been at least a year since I recall making a cheesecake, as I've been branching out with things like mousses and crêpe cakes and truffles, all of which have been wonderful. Cheesecakes, however, hold a special place in my heart, because they've been my go-to dessert for so long. Normally with a post like this, I'd take you through the recipe for the cheesecake that I'm making along with my blunders, revisions, and pithy commentary. There would probably also be pictures. The thing is, those were rarely done in real time, because I was using an actual camera and had to transfer the files to my computer to get them to work. Since my current camera is my phone (which is a superlative camera), I don't really upload those pictures, because there isn't a good way to add in pictures using the Blogger app on my phone. Well, maybe there is, but I haven't found it yet.

But, yes. Cheesecakes. For cheesecakes, you really need two basic things: the crust and the filling. Yeah, I know. Really complicated. You'd be surprised. Honestly, I usually buy the crust, because my one experience making the crust from scratch led to the C'thulhu cheesecake, and I would prefer to not add to the nightly dreamscape horrors. The storebought crusts are usually pretty decent, but they are not particularly solid. If you're using a spoon to spread the filling (more on that later, I'd imagine), it may tap the crust, and suddenly you're missing an edge (well, arc, I suppose). Should you decide to make your own crust, there are plenty of recipes out there, and may God have mercy on your soul, because it's going to be hellish.

Difficulties of the crust aside, the basic filling is pretty simple (in theory). For an average cheesecake, you'll need about two 8 oz. packs of cream cheese (some recipes call for three, and even though they're heathens, it's okay). For every two packs of cream cheese, you'll use (roughly) a half a cup of sugar and probably 10 shakes of vanilla. Yes, some recipes will call for discrete measurements of vanilla that will probably be around half a teaspoon, but those recipes fear adventure and have not seen the light shone upon us by vanilla. They, too, are heathens, but unlike the previous sort of heathen, these are not okay. They are impinging on our freedoms, and I though this was America. Is this not America? I'm sorry. I thought this was America. It must not be America though, what with all these folks treading on me. Oh, you'll also need an egg for each pack of cream cheese (i.e., wo eggs for two packs). Some folks like to throw in some lemon zest, which is probably fine for a plain cheesecake, but I've never been big on throwing in sour flavors for my cheesecakes.

There was a time when I would mix all of these ingredients by hand, and there are times when I long for such simpler days. However, you can also use an electric mixer, which, as I discovered tonight, makes things immensely easier. This is unfortunately the first step where you can really screw things up. See, an ideal cheesecake is smooth, right? You don't want any cracks. If you overbeat your batter though, you're going to get cracks. Having never used an electric mixer before, we'll see if I overbeat the batter. Usually you're fine if you just go until things are smooth (and they get pretty darned smooth with an electric mixer, I tell you what).

Having properly mixed the batter, you're on to the next big question- do you dare to dream? As I said above, some people like to toss in a bit of lemon zest, because they, like the housewife sitting with her 2 o'clock chardonnay before the kids get home, don't act on their dreams. Cheesecakes are wonderful things because they are versatile. You can add fruits, you can add other flavors, you can make layers, you can do almost anything with a cheesecake. I'll walk you through the steps on some of my basic iterations of cheesecake.

Fruit Cheesecakes (or A Berry Unberryable Set of Puns)- For fruit cheesecakes, I tend to slice the fruit appropriately (very thin for strawberries, maybe in half for blueberries and raspberries) and set some aside to make a coulis (possibly with the addition of a bit of confectioner's sugar if it's too tart). You intersperse the berries if you are so inclined and you add a nice swirl of coulis halfway through the cheesecake and then again on the top. That way, you've got some good berry flavor in any given part of the cheesecake.

Chocolate Cheesecakes (or The Dark Side of the Cheesecake)- Chocolate cheesecakes, I think, are by far the easiest of the cheesecakes to work with. Lots of recipes advise that you melt some chocolate chips(or other chocolate of your desired cocoa percentage) and fold  it into the basic batter. Personally, I tend towards a much richer Dutch chocolate feel, which is achieved by adding straight cocoa powder to the batter. When you first add it, yes, it's going to be really powdery. As you work it in, though, it will turn towards a very deep brown. The other advantage of the cocoa powder approach is that you can easily tune the flavor. If you've added too much cocoa, add a bit of granulated sugar to offset the bitterness. If you haven't added enough cocoa, ADD SOME MORE COCOA. This isn't rocket science.

Spiced Cheesecakes (or The Cinnamon Must Flow)- These are what I view as the hardest cheesecakes to get just right, mostly because it tends to be a pretty narrow window of the various spices. These include gingerbread cheesecakes and pumpkin cheesecakes, which I think are the most popular of this group. I'm sure that you could do others, but I don't know what they would be off the top of my head. The reason these can be so difficult is twofold. One, they rely on what tend to be pretty delicate base flavors (especially pumpkin). Most recipes for pumpkin cheesecake will advise that you use half of a cup of pumpkin pie filling. They are lying to you, because you need at least two thirds of a cup to really get the flavor out there. Once you've added enough of the base, it's time to tune it with the appropriate spices (almost invariably cinnamon and nutmeg with the occasional cloves and ginger, depending on the recipe). At this point, it pretty much becomes guesswork and repeated tasting, but the good news is that once you find the right mix, you will know it. The flavors will become much more intense, and it will just taste right.

Once you've got the batter ready, you're all set to put it into the crust. The tricky part with this can be with the thicker batters (especially the chocolate ones). You need to be careful on spreading, because as I said, the crust is delicate. If you're trying to layer multiple flavors, you just need to go one at a time and make sure that each layer is reasonably flat and smooth. With the cheesecake assembled, it's time to bake it. Usually they go with a somewhat low heat (around 325 or so) to keep the cake from drying out and cracking. There are those out there who like to use water baths to keep the oven humid and prevent such a thing. I'm not one of those people. It's an aesthetic thing, which is important, but I've often felt that a water bath is more trouble than it's worth for a cheesecake. After 30-45 minutes, the cheesecake should look pretty set. That is, it will look less moist on the top and will appear to have firm and set edges. At this point, turn the oven off. No. Stop that. Stop reaching for the oven mitt.

For cheesecakes, I like to use a trick that I learned back in organic chemistry. If you're trying to crystallize something (i.e., have something precipitate out of a supersaturated solution with a well defined crystal structure), you want to work slowly. You turn off the heat, but you leave it on the heat for a little while. Once it's cooled enough there, you move it to a surface that isn't quite as cold as the benchtop. After a while, you move it to the benchtop. And so on and so on until you've moved it into an ice bath. That way, you won't have things come crashing out of solution all willy nilly. The same principle applies to cheesecake, except that overly rapid cooling here leads to cracking (which is again a purely aesthetic issue and not the most important thing ever). My usual strategy is to cut the oven off but leave the cheesecake in the closed oven. After a few minutes, I open the oven door. On the one hand, this ensures that everything really did get cooked, so you shouldn't get salmonella or any other nasty bugs from potentially undercooked eggs. However, the oven is warm and dry, so you might get some cracking anyway (but it won't be nearly as noticeable as if you just move the cheesecake straight to the refrigerator). Once the oven has cooled with the door open, I move the cheesecake to the counter. At this point, I use the plastic that came with the crust as a makeshift lid to keep it from drying out too much and to protect it from any bugs that may be wandering around.

Once I get around to it, I move the cheesecake to the fridge. I like to leave them in there overnight, because a.) I like my cheesecake like I like my luggage for a quick getaway- all set, and b.) because I do what I want.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have dishes to take care of so that I don't use the rest of the batter to obliterate my pancreas.