Cranberries. I think berries are such great finger fruits. Wash and pop ‘em in your mouth. But cranberries are different. I got my first eye popping taste of the tart-ish sour-ish bitter-ish tasting fresh cranberries when hubby bought a bag of them. We were discussing the benefits of cranberries for women - especially women - the night before. So with this in mind, it was no surprise that he bought a bag when he came across it while picking up some groceries. Unless I wanted the berries to rot in the bag, I had to find something I could use them for. A quick search of the web and Cookie Pie had the answer to my quest although I made a few tweaks of my own.

Ingredients:

Cranberry Sauce
6oz fresh cranberry - washed
1cup water
1/6 cup sugar

Crust
9 graham crackers - pulsed in a blender to resemble fine breadcrumbs
1 tbsp sugar
5 tbsp unsalted butter - melted

Cheesecake
12 oz Philadelphia Cream Cheese - at room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
1 large egg + 1 yolk- at room temperature
6 tbsp sour cream- at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla essence

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Combine ingredients for crust

   

   then mix with a fork until well blended.

   

3. Bake for 6-8 minutes. Cool before using.
4. In a pan, combine cranberry and water. When the cranberry makes popping sounds and the water starts to reduce, remove from heat and stir in the sugar.



5. Pour the mixture into a blender and puree. Sieve the puree in a coarse sieve. Set aside the sauce.



6. Beat the cream cheese until smooth.
   



7. Add the sugar and continue beating until fluffy.



8. Add the eggs, one at a time, until well incorporated.



9. Add the sour cream and vanilla.
   



10. Beat to combine. Scrape the sides and beat for 1 more minute.



11. Wrap the bottom half of the springform pan with cling wrap. Over the cling wrap, use aluminium foil to cover the outside of the pan.
    



12. Pour half of the cream cheese filling onto the crust.
13. Place 1/2 tbsp dollops of the cranberry sauce in 5 spots. Use a spatula to make swirling patterns with the cranberry sauce into the cream cheese filling. Try to spread out the sauce as much as you can without touching the edges. Be careful not to scrape the crust.



14. Pour the remaining half of the cream cheese filling. Repeat the cranberry dollops and swirls. Keep the swirls simple and pretty.
    



15. Place the springform pan into a rimmed baking tray.



16. Pour hot water into the baking tray. There should be enough water to reach slightly less than half of the height of the springform pan.
17. Place in the oven - medium rack and bake for 30 minutes. The sides should have set but the middle should still be slightly wobbly.



18. Leave it to cool. When cool, cover loosely and place in the refrigerator overnight.
19. Serve with cranberries and remaining cranberry sauce. Or by its heavenly self.