Necessity is the Mother of Invention
Yesterday afternoon, I set out to make a cheesecake. It was my husband’s birthday and he requested my world famous strawberry cheesecake (and by world famous I mean famous among the five of us and a few friends).
The only problem was, I couldn’t find the bottom of my springform pan. We searched everywhere — the cupboard where it was supposed to be (and where the main part of the pan was), drawers, other cupboards, the insides of other baking pans — it was nowhere to be found. We’re a full 24 hours past and we still can’t figure out where on earth it walked off to.
Anyway, I did not want to head out to buy another pan since I really needed to get the cheesecake made and into the oven if it was going to have time to sit in the fridge for a few hours (and I was miffed about needing another one in the first place. I’ll show you, missing pan!).
I considered making little cupcake cheesecakes, I considered putting it in a different pan, but in the end I decided to experiment.
Basically all I needed was something on the inside of the springform to keep the cheesecake from running out the bottom. I considered foil and remembered I had a whole roll of that new parchment foil sitting in my pantry that I used over the holidays to make fudge.
It looks really goofy, but it totally worked! The edges were a little wavy-looking but no one cared. I didn’t attempt to move the cheesecake off the foil after it was ready — I released the springform and then just trimmed the foil and moved it to my cake holder.
I still don’t want to buy another pan *hmph*