"Vox Humana" wrote in message
...

"Darrin and Andrea Gerson" wrote in message
t...
Hello there. I have a couple of cheesecake questions that I hope
somebody
on here could answer.

1) I'd like to bake the cheesecake in a water bath (of the few I've
made,
this seems to work the best), but the recipe I have (Banana Nut
Cheesecake)
does not call for a water bath. Do I need to change the temperature?
the
cooking time? by how much? etc...

2) The only recipes I could find on recipesource.com (the granddaddy of
recipe sites) for Banana Nut Cheesecake (aside: the family has been
begging
for this...not my cup of tea), calls for using margerine to make the
crust.
I typically like using butter rather than margerine (tastes better and
I'm
sort of creeped out by the idea of whipped oil). Question is, can I
simply
replace? same amount?

Oh, and if somebody has a recipe for Banana Nut Cheesecake that they
swear
by, PLEASE let me know. Thanks in advance.


It's sort of hard to tell someone if they should change the temperature
when
they don't list the temperature. In general, cheesecakes are baked at a
rather low temperature. The water bath assures that the temperature
around
the cake will not rise above 212F regardless of the temperature of the
oven.
The risk of baking at too high a temperature while using a water bath is
that the top will brown too much or set too early. My general advice
would
be to leave the temperature alone and monitor the top for browning.

Margarine is not a monolithic product. Most items that people think of as
"margarine" are actually "spreads." If you are truly using margarine
which
should be 80% fat, then you can easily substitute butter. In any case, I
would just use butter. You are only making a thin crust and it will make
very little difference what fat you use in a crumb crust. I like to make
a
sponge layer under my cheesecake.

I don't have a recipe for banana nut cheesecake but if you have a
cheesecake
that you like, I would recommend that you just add a cup of mashed banana
pulp to the batter. If that doesn't make the flavor strong enough, you
might
consider using some banana extract and/or substituting some of the liquid
in
the recipe with banana liquor. The addition of the nuts should make very
little difference no matter what recipe you use as they are just suspended
in the batter.

If you don't want to experiment with your favorite recipe, you might check
out this search for banana cheesecakes. If you won't nuts, just add some.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...pe&btnG=Search



Thanks for the response! The recipe I have calls for 350 for 40 minutes.

Darrin