Daisy Cheesecake

I want to compliment Hungry Happening for this wonderful recipe (Beth, please don't give up blogging. You have so many great ideas about baking). Not only was it a pretty design which my kids love so much but also a yummy cheesecake. This was my 1st time trying out graham crackers for cheesecake to see if the taste was as good as digestive biscuits but I still prefer digestive biscuits. It was indeed a good idea to use squeeze bottles for the colored batter, more control of the piping. Overall, I am happy with the final bakes.

You can check out Hungry Happening (see link below) for the detailed instructions. 

I would like to share some points which I did it my way:

1) I did not have a springform pan, I used a normal round pan and lined with 2 long stripes of baking papers (see below picture) so I could easily lift it up.

2) I have difficulty moulding the graham crackers up to the sides of the pan and I added more melted butter and I found it a little wet after refrigerated. I feel 80g of butter should be good enough to do the job.

3) The plain batter was too much to fill up to the edge of graham crackers, I had to pour some into cupcake fillers (without the graham crackers base).

4) I did not follow the quantity as specified for the color batter and I landed with quite a bit of batter left so I piped into cupcake (without the graham crackers base). I have estimated the quantity in my recipe and hope it will be the right amount.

Recipe adapted from Hungry Happening (with modifications)

Ingredients

1 pkt/200g graham crackers (crushed)
80g butter (melted)
3 blocks of cream cheese
225g sugar
3 eggs
250g sour cream
1 tsp vanilla essence
Food coloring - pink, yellow
1 tbsp cocoa powder

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 170 Deg C
2. Combine graham cracker crumbs and melted butter, stirring until it looks like sand. Press the mixture into the baking pan (*below) and up the sides of the pan. Bake for 10-12 mins until fragrant and the edges begin to brown. Allow to cool completely.
3. Prepare water bath pan (*below) and place in the hot oven until ready to bake the cheesecake.
4. Beat 3 blocks of cream cheese until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl. Make sure there are no lumps in the mixture. 
5. Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time and beat until creamy. Add sour cream and vanilla till well combined.
6. Pour 60g of batter into a small bowl, color it pink and pour into squeeze bottle. Color 30g of batter yellow and color 30g of batter with cocoa powder and pour them into squeeze bottles respectively.
7. Pour the plain cheesecake batter into the baked graham crackers.
8. Pipe the outline using the cocoa batter, follow by yellow batter into the center circle and add pink into the petals. Pipe on a smiley face.
9. Carefully carry your cheesecake to the oven and place on top of the water bath pan. Bake for 45-50mins. The top will still jiggle but look shiny and set.
10. Remove from water bath, set on a cooling rack and cool at room temperature for 1 hour. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours and remove from baking pan.

Cut 2 long stripes of baking paper 

and placed it cross as in the picture

so I can lift the cheesecake up after 

refrigerated. 

Place cheesecake on top of a pan
of water so it cover 1/4 way up the
sides of the baking pan