Lemon Cheesecake

You know I'm always on the lookout for new cheesecake recipes. I made this one for Jeff's homecoming. Its a slightly changed Bon Appetite recipe.

Crust
2-3 cups crushed gingersnaps
4 Tbs melted butter

Filling
3 8oz packages neufatchel cheese
3 eggs
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 Tbs lemon zest
3/4 cup sugar

Directions
Crust-
Make sure your gingersnaps are fairly finely crushed (use whatever method you desire) and mix them in a bowl with your melted butter. Pat mixture into a 9 inch springform pan (edges at least 2 3/4" high). The crust should only come slightly up the side if you use two cups of crumbs and higher if you use three. Bake in oven on 350 for about 10 minutes. Take out of oven and let cool while you mix up the filling (but leave the oven on). After pan is cool enough to touch wrap aluminum foil around the bottom/sides.

Filling-
Mix neufatchel cheese and cheese with electric mixer until cream cheese blended and smooth. Add eggs one at a time, mixing after each addition. Add lemon juice and zest and mix one final time. Pour mixture into springform pan. Put the springform pan in a large roasting dish. Pour hot/boiling water into the baking dish till it is about 1/2 an inch thick. Basically pour the water as high as it will go without letting it raise higher that the aluminum foil goes on your springform pan 9the aluminum foil keeps the water out of your pan). Place this pan in your oven and bake the cheesecake about 40 minutes. The cake is done when the edges are puffy, but not really cracked or brown, and the middle is glossy and set looking.
Remove from oven, remove from water bath, remove aluminum foil. Let cake sit on counter for about 20 minutes and then put in the fridge and have it sit overnight.

Comments:
This cheesecake was very good. It has a wonderful lemon flavor and is also very smooth. It is a good idea to use the water bath to cook the cake since it is a more forgivable method (I overcooked mine a little bit and it wasn't noticeable at all) and really lends that smooth rather than baked texture. If you are going to make it though make sure you have lots of people to eat it, we still have some in the fridge.