Best Cheesecake Recipe- easy to make. You can do it!

My son Jake loves cheesecake. He's perfectly happy with The jello-no bake kind, but he tasted this and said it was the best he'd ever had. I tend to agree!

The first thing I do is to make the crust. Crush graham crackers to make about 1 1/2 cups crumbs. If you want to get creative, you can use almost anything crumbly. I have used oatmeal, gingersnap cookies, pecan sandie cookies, and shortbread cookies. Add 1/4 cup melted butter (or margarine) and 3 tablespoons sugar. Mix in a bowl until everything is coated with butter. Place mixture in a 9 inch springform pan, and press firmly on bottom and slightly up sides of pan. I use a glass or a measuring cup weighted with coins to press. Bake in 325* oven for 10 minutes. While your crust is baking, you can do your filling.

Filling

5 eggs
4 packages cream cheese (8 oz each) softened
1 cup sour cream
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Sounds easy enough, right? It really is. OK- in a large bowl, blend the sour cream by itself. This coats your blender blades and the sides of the bowl so that the cream cheese doesn't stick. Add the cream cheese and sugar, and blend until smooth. Add eggs, vanilla, and lemon juice. Blend until smooth, and then scrape down the sides. Blend again until smooth- make sure there are no "chunks" stuck to the sides of the bowl that will end up in your cake. (Seems trivial, but very important. This will be the difference between "pretty good", and "best I've ever had" cheesecake.) If there are chunks, scrape the sides again and blend until smooth.

By now your crust should be done. Pour filling over crust in springform pan. Reduce oven temp to 300* and bake for 1 hour. After baking 1 hour, run a knife around the edge of your cake to loosen it from the pan. Turn your oven off, but leave the cake in the oven with the door ajar until cool. After cake is cool, remove rim of springform pan and refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving.

Top as desired! Personally, I won't eat cheesecake without cherry topping, so I put it over the whole cake. You can use cherries, raspberries, blueberries, chocolate sauce, chocolate curls, or really whatever suits your fancy. Feel free to experiment! The basic recipe is the same. Good luck, and most of all, have fun!