Become a Great Baker #2: Cheesecake Extravaganza

"Cheesecake Extravaganza" is a very broad course, which covers many delicious and beautiful cheesecakes and stunning cheesecake desserts, in multiple flavors and presentations. In this lecture Irit presents a broad overview of this course, including all the recipes and decoration skills that it covers. She also explains how the techniques you’ll learn help to transform the classic cheesecake into a modern edible creation, and how you can also apply them to other baking projects.

In this lecture we take a bit of time to plan our project. Specifically, you'll learn how to make important decisions that impact the cakes & desserts you'll make. Irit explains how to choose the presentation and size of the cakes based on the occasion and other considerations. She also presents the CakeNuvo “principal of balance”, that helps you to transform any cake or dessert into a complete culinary experience. Irit demonstrates how these principals are applied in each of the cheesecake designs, using contrasting flavors and colors as well as balanced textures and compositions.

The cake crust is one of the two primary recipes of the cheesecake. It’s usually quite chewy, and adds a nice contrast to the smooth and silky cake filling. In this lecture Irit goes over a quick and easy recipe for making the perfect crust, and explains how to make it unique by flavoring it.

In this lecture Irit walks you through the main recipe of the cake, which is the cream cheese filling. Irit’s recipe is unique since it’s lighter and has quite a bit less calories. However it retains the familiar taste and texture of a traditional New -York style baked cheesecake. This recipe is fast and simple to make, yet the cake you get is extremely delicious and creamy.

Fruit sauces are traditionally added to many cakes and desserts, and are a staple in most commercial pastry kitchens. They complement almost any dessert really well because of their sweet yet tangy flavors and beautiful vibrant colors. As you’ll see, adding fruit sauces to the cheesecake makes a lot of culinary sense: it’s extremely delicious and also makes the cake prettier. In this lecture we go over two of the three different types of sauces you’ll use in this course. Specifically, Irit guides you through making cherry and raspberry sauces, using fruit purees as well as fresh fruits. You'll also discover how easy it is to use the same techniques to make other fruit sauces as well.

Watch this lecture to learn how to make a fantastic passion fruit sauce. You'll use this sauce later to infuse the cake's filling and get a wonderful refreshing flavor.

Explore the process of assembling the cheesecakes in various cake and dessert rings, in order to make large 8” cakes as well as personal cheesecake desserts. Discover how to flavor the base filling using fruits and spices, and learn how to mix fruit sauces, such as cherry, raspberry and passion fruit, into the filling. Learn a great technique to infuse the cheesecake with spices such as vanilla. Using these techniques you’ll even be able to come up with new and unique cheesecake flavors on your own.

Getting a soft, creamy and smooth cake each and every time you bake it is a bit tricky, so in this lecture we focus on the secrets of baking. Irit demonstrates important tips and tricks to determine exactly when the cake is ready, so you always get perfect results.

Learn how to give the the cake an extra touch using delicious cake topping. Make a quick & easy recipe for tasty cheesecake topping and learn a cool technique for decorating it with impressive patterns using fruit sauces. Then explore baking the cake for the second time and find out how to check when it’s ready.

Flaky and crispy filo elements are great addition to many cakes and desserts, since they balance their soft textures really well. Discover the secrets of working with filo dough to create unique and extremely impressive decorations for the cheesecakes, and learn how to make crispy filo wraps to cover the sides of the cake.

Extend your knowledge of working with filo and learn how to make stunning filo objects such as rings and waves to decorate your cheesecakes. The techniques you’ll master in this lecture will help you to to create other kinds of filo elements, which is very likely to come handy in other baking projects as well.

Explore the fine art of creating stunning colorful sugar decorations using Isomalt! Discover how to color the isomalt and how to properly heat it, and make gorgeous sugar sheets with cool bubble effects. Use these amazing decorations to add height and wow factor to many cakes and desserts.

In this lecture you’re going to learn how to create gorgeous edible flowers using fruits. These flowers are really cute, and add a nice touch to many cakes and desserts. Discover how to use thin slices of plums to create delicate and elegant roses, and use exact same techniques for making edible flowers using other kinds of fruits such as peaches, nectarines, and mango.

Fondant flowers bring a fresh and beautiful feel to many cakes and desserts. In this lecture Irit covers quick and easy techniques for creating beautiful fondant flowers, and explains how to customize their colors and size as well as their shape.

This lecture is an overview of four amazing plated cheesecake desserts you’re going to work on. Each of these edible creations has unique flavors and distinct presentation, which you can adopt as is. However you can also use these fantastic designs as inspiration, and come up with your own ideas for new presentations.

Learn how to plate the Cherry Ring design, which is a personal cherry-flavored cheesecake dessert, with an amazing filo ring decoration. 

Learn how to plate the Passion Fruit design, which is a personal passion fruit-flavored cheesecake dessert, with an adorable edible rose and unique isomalt decoration. 

Learn how to plate the Vanilla Brulee design, which is a personal vanilla-flavored cheesecake dessert. This caramelized creation is extremely delicious and quite addictive!

Learn how to plate the Raspberry Wave design, which is a personal raspberry-flavored cheesecake dessert, with a stunning filo wave decoration. 

In this lecture irit discusses the benefits of making large cakes vs individual desserts, and explains when it's best to make and serve them. She presents three unique designs for the cakes that are relatively simple but very impressive and beautiful: the Flower Design, the Modern Design and the Tropical design. To decorate the large cakes we’ll use mainly fruits, and you'll discover how it's possible to customize the design based on seasonality and your preferences.

Learn how to decorate a large 8" cheesecake by creating a stunning flower-like pattern on its top, using slices of strawberry. Augment the presentation using leaf-shaped kiwis and fondant flowers. 

Decorate a large 8" cheesecake in a clean and modern fashion, using symmetrical and clean pattern that's made of pomegranate seeds and persimmon slices.

Create an exotic and vibrant design for this large 8" cheesecake, using passion fruit, strawberries, kiwis, pomegranate and large isomalt decoration.

Before she says goodbye Irit takes a moment to review and summarize what you learned and accomplished in this course. First and foremost you learned how to transform the traditional twice-baked New York style cheesecake into a sophisticated, modern and exciting culinary creation! You learned how to flavor your cheesecakes in many unique ways, how to create many kinds of decorations for them, and how to serve them as impressive large cakes or stunning plated desserts.

Here you can download all course materials for "Cheesecake Extravaganza":

1. Class Companion - 16 pages eBook with all recipes, additional important info, tips and tricks
2. Project Timeline - Cakes - a bird's-eye view of the preparation process for the large cake designs 
3. Project Timeline - Desserts - a bird's-eye view of the preparation process for the dessert designs
4. Fillo Wave Template - used in the course to make the fillow wave decoration
5. Metric Conversion Guides - US/EU metric conversion tables
6. Fahrenheit to Celsius conversion table
7. Food Cost Calculator - Large Cheesecake - Flower Design
8. Food Cost Calculator - Large Cheesecake - Modern Design
9. Food Cost Calculator - Large Cheesecake - Tropical Design
10. Food Cost Calculator - Cheesecake Dessert - Cherry Ring Design
11. Food Cost Calculator - Cheesecake Dessert - Passion Fruit Rose Design
12. Food Cost Calculator - Cheesecake Dessert - Raspberry Wave Design
13. Food Cost Calculator - Cheesecake Dessert - Vanilla Brulee Design
14. Tools & Ingredients - a PDF document that lists most tools and materials used in this course