Lemon-Blackberry Cheescake

Decided to attempt, and I use that word like a loosy goosy, a fabulous and fairly easy Lemon-Blackberry Cheesecake.

The pictures were just too tempting...Hey, I'm a visual person. 

I had pinned it a while back and it just looked to awesome not to try, I mean c'mon, just look at it!

(via Pinterest ~ allisonf) 

All the schtuff you will need:
3 tbsp butter, softened
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
2 pounds cream cheese (yeah, you read that right, pounds)
1 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup of milk
1 cup sour cream
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1/1/2 pints blackberries
4 eggs
Zest and Juice of 1 lemon


Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9-inch springform pan with 1 tbsp of the butter. Mix the cracker crumbs with the remaining 2 tbsp butter in a medium bowl.Press onto the bottom and halfway up the sides of the pan.

2. In a large bowl, use a handheld mixer to combinethe cream cheese with the sugar until smooth. BLend in the milk, then beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing just enough to incorporate. Mix in the sour cream, flour, and vanilla till smooth. Divide the mixture between two bowls.

3. In a food processor or blender, puree 1 pint of the blueberries with the zest and lemon juice. Pour the puree into one bowl of the cheese mixture along with the remaining 1/2 pint of whole berries and mix well.

4. Pour the blackberry filling on top of the prepared crust. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and pour the remaining filling over the top. Return to the oven to bake for 1 hour, till the topping is set. Chill in the fridge until ready to serve.

So everything was going rather smoothly, which I was pleasantly surprised about, because I can easily make everything difficult. That is, until I went to fill the pan. hmmm.... It was slightly to the rim as pictured below.

But me, being all pshhh..whatevs...cheesecake don't rise fool...I'm a wanna be PTA mom....psych, I do NOT...

Hey, at least it just went up and not over, and we could use a little height around here. And check it out, no friggin cracks! Holla (the one on the side does NOT count, the side just got a tad weighted down, and I broke it off and ate it, so technically no visible crackattacks)

Soooo, this is where I started to mess up... 

I had let it cool, for a good little while, well over an hour and popped it in the fridge (like mentioned above) after I took the springy thingy off the pan, hence mistake #1. Should of left it on longer. It was runny...

Pulled it out of the fridge after dinner thinking it should be close to ready. uh yeah...no where close

It SO pulled one of these... (my, evidently, Asian lumber jack)

But tasted so stinkin good, like basically amazing, because I am awesome...you should of seen me taking the spring form pan apart, then you would know what awesomeness is... 

Put it back in the fridge then we cut it before bedtime, it was even better and had started to firm up, more like a cheesecake and less like Chunky Soup. Had it again the next afternoon and the tartness had toned down and it was a perfect cheesecake, texture, flavor, etc.

All that being said, this definitely wasn't the cheapest thing I have made. I grabbed 4 boxes of cream cheese to make the 18 pounds (pshhh) and 4 containers of blackberries @ 3.99 per box, ouch. And I'm thinking that the recipe that I took this from might have used a whipped topping if you look at the pic, but I couldn't find anything about it. 

But, it was well worth it, and I think where I am dropping it off of at couldn't agree more, yummo...