Making A Toffee Crunch Cheese Cake

I decided to make my first real NY style cheese cake, actually my first of any cheesecakes.The NY style is where you cook it in a water bath. It wasn't too hard as I had anticipated.Please follow the link to my flickr page to see the steps I took to make this tasty treat. http://www.flickr.com/photos/sparethread/4500684232/

First things first , this will probably be the most unhealthy cake you ever eat. However it will be totally worth it.

First you must make the ginger snap crust. This a few cups of ginger snap cookies blended up, with 5 table spoons of melted butter. Mix together ,then press into spring pan. I used a 9.5 inch pan.Also you must cover the outside of the pan with 3 layer is foil. This will help seal the pan from the water getting in.(You'll see why).

The cheese cake portion calls for 4 packages of cream cheese ,so I decided to use light cream cheese as to lessen my guilt.Then you add 5 eggs and a cup up packed brown sugar. Blend and pour into the spring pan that already has you ginger snap crust in it. Make sure you grease the sides of the pan.

The oven will be preheated to 350. Put the cake pan into roasting pan and fill the roaster with water until the water in half way up the cake pan. Put the lid on the roaster and place in oven. Bake for 1 hr and 10 minutes, or until the middle is a little jiggly ,but not too jiggly. I baked for exactly 1 hr and 10 minutes.

The topping is where I had a little mishap. Combine white sugar, water and lemon juice in sauce pan. Heat on low until mixture is clear and then turn up heat and bring to boil. Boil until mixture is an amber colour and do not stir while the mixture is boiling just swirl the pan a few times. Once the mixture has changed to an amber colour add in the heavy cream. This the point where the mishap happened. Please note that when you add the cream the mixture will react and bubble up a lot. So either use a deep pot or add the cream very slowly.Cleaning my stove after this was not fun. You can see pictures on my flicker.Once this has boiled for another 10 minutes remove from heat and cool in the fridge for about 30 minutes.You want the topping to be cool but not solid as you will be spooning this onto the cake.

When the cheese cake is cooked and cooled start to spoon the cooled topping onto the cake and don't let it run over the side like I did. This won't ruin anything it just looks better. You will need to cut up some score bars and sprinkle them around the edge and this will help to keep the topping from running down the sides.

Chill the cake (still in the pan) for 2 to 6 hrs.Once chilled place on serving dish and pop open the cake pan and that is it. Keep this cake chilled so the topping doesn't run off the cake.

Enjoy!
Here is the flickr link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sparethread/4500684232/

Here is the actual recipe :
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Toffee-Crunch-Caramel-Cheesecake-231417