Green Tea Cheesecake

So, one day my mom comes home and tells me, "you should make a green tea cheesecake" and I thought about it and was like, "sure why not" since it's not something you could typically find in your local grocery store.

I went to a Japanese supermarket and bought a bag of green tea powder determined to make this cheesecake without an actual recipe. So after doing a bit of research, I came up with the recipe below.

I'm still working on improvements for this recipe so I may update it later on but for now, it's good enough that's worth a try.

For the crust:

1 package (10 large crackers) graham crackers crushed
1 tbsp granulated sugar
3 tbsp butter melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9in spring form pan. Line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper.

Place graham crackers in a ziplock bag and seal. Use a rolling pin (any thing else heavy will do) and smash the graham crackers until crushed. (Alternative: you can also purchase graham cracker crumbs but they cost a lot more) Place the the crushed graham crackers, sugar and melted butter into a small mixing bowl and combine.

Pour the crust mix into the prepared pan and compress the mix onto the bottom of the pan so that it becomes hard. Place the crust into the oven and bake for 15 minutes until golden brown.

For the filling:

4 - 8oz boxes of cream cheese
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 tbsp green tea powder + extra for dusting
4 eggs

Place the cream cheese in an electric mixer and beat on medium high until smooth and creamy. Next, add the sugar and green tea powder and beat until smooth on medium. Add the eggs one at a time and beat until creamy.

Wrap the bottom of the prepared pan with foil, to cover the bottom and the sides. Place the pan in a roasting pan. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Add boiling water about 1inch up the sides of the roasting pan. Place the pan into the oven and bake for 40 minutes, until the top turns a golden brown.

Take the cheesecake out of the oven and cool for an hour and place in the refrigerator to chill for at least 4 hours. It's best to chill overnight. When ready to serve, take a paring knife in the sides to loosen the cheesecake out of the spring form pan. Remove the cake from the parchment paper and place on a serving plate.

For garnish (not shown above):

1 cup frozen raspberries
1/4 cup granulated sugar

Place raspberries and sugar into a small saucepan and bring to a simmer on low heat. Stir occasionally until mixture becomes a sauce. Pour the sauce into a strainer to remove seeds from raspberries. Let cool and refrigerate. Drizzle over cheesecake to garnish.

Raspberry syrup may be prepared ahead of time.