The Premier's Cheesecake (Community Facilitator Cheesecake Included)

 


Ingredients:

Whipped Cream:

  • 3 packs Dream Whip (can substitute with alternative brands)
  • 1 & 1/2 cups milk
Crust:
  • 2 400 g boxes graham cracker crumbs
  • 1/2 brick (1 cup) butter
  • 1 cup sugar
Filling:
  • 3 8 oz packages of cream cheese, softened
  • 1 cup icing sugar
Topping:
  • 2 540 ml cans cherry pie filling (can substitute blueberries)
Instructions:

  1. Add 3 packs Dream Whip and 1 & 1/2 cups milk to bowl
  2. With hand mixer, blend until peaks form
  3. Put 3 packages (24 oz) cream cheese in microwave for 1 min to soften
  4. In pot, combine 2 boxes (800 g) graham cracker crumbs, 1 cup butter, 1 cup sugar
  5. Preheat oven to 350 F
  6. With hand mixer, blend cream cheese and 1 cup icing sugar into whipped cream mixture until smooth. Place in fridge to cool
  7. Press graham cracker mixture onto bottom and a third of the way up the sides of a 9-inch pan. Bake 20 min
  8. Remove from oven. Cool 15 min
  9. Add cheesecake filling to crust
  10. Add 2 cans of cherry filling as topping
Yield: A big pan of cheesecake


Description:

Near the beginning of the pandemic, the Premier of Ontario Doug Ford released a cooking video of his mother's cheesecake recipe as part of what would be fated to be the only installation of the food vlog "Cooking With Doug". This was done as a way of protecting the mental health of Ontarians as they struggled to cope with the lockdown by suggesting some fun recreation that could be done indoors. Some people criticized him for being tonedeaf, but I think that making a cheesecake video is probably the most positive contribution he's made in the course of his career.

I'm titling this as "The Premier's Cheesecake" since that's what he called it. It's a little bold of him to use his title and not his name, but I don't think we'll have another Premier put forward a cheesecake recipe anytime soon, so I'll honour it.

Cheesecake is not my favourite dessert by a wide margin, so it's kind of weird that I made it.

The instructions in Ford's video are a little unorthodox. Instead of specific measurements, he sometimes favours "bricks", "packs" and "boxes". When he does use traditional measurements, it's a mix of metric and imperial. The worst confusion came from the fact that on the ingredients list, it says "3 packs Dream Whip" and "1/2 cup milk". Later on it says to mix the Dream Whip and milk, so that would mean "mix 3 packs Dream Whip with 1/2 cup milk" right?

I did this on my first attempt and the filling turned out very dense. Almost like straight cream cheese. Very overwhelming, especially for someone like me who's a little weirded out by cream cheese to begin with.

However, if you listen to the video instead of just reading the instructions (the instructions show up on title cards as he performs the steps), then you'll hear him say as he combines the Dream Whip mixture "That's three packs, so that's a cup and a half..."

So he actually uses three times as much milk as he listed in the ingredients! With this in mind, the filling was much lighter and fluffier on the second attempt.

Who ever could have guessed that Doug Ford was bad at communication?

He also said to use 3 8 oz bricks of cream cheese, but where I live, the bricks are a bit larger than that. The little plastic tubs come closer.

For some reason, he says "half a brick" of butter instead of 1 cup.

On both attempts, the graham cracker crust was excessively thick. We had to use a steak knife to cut through it. This wasn't such an issue for me, because I loved the crust, but I'll admit it does get in the way of eating elegantly. If you're serving guests, you probably want to be able to break through the crust with a fork. Maybe just ease up with the quantity of the graham cracker crumbs. Maybe half it.

I stuck with cherry filling with this. Ford says you can substitute with blueberries, which I honestly would likely have preferred, but I wanted to be authentic with this update.

Honestly, while the instructions were confusing, if you manage to follow them correctly (and I hope I have offered clearer ones in this update) the result is pretty good. I might not love cheesecake or cherry pie filling, but I could see the merit of the recipe. The graham cracker crust is pretty thick, which I personally don't have a problem with, but it's pretty excessive compared to most other cheesecakes.

The Community Facilitator Cheesecake




I've experimented a little with the recipe and believe I have improved it. Since Ford used his career to title his dish, I am doing likewise. He stated that he makes the best cheesecake in Ontario, but I believe I have bested him all three metrics, those being: crust, filling and topping. With a thinner crust, you can actually break it apart with a fork, some vanilla extract improves the flavour of the filling a bit, and I believe a homemade topping beats canned. For my take on the recipe, do as follows:

  • Reduce crust ingredients by half (So, 400 g graham cracker crumbs, 1/4 cup butter, 1/3 cup sugar)
  • Melt the butter (not specified in Ford's recipe, just makes it easier to blend)
  • Add 1/2 tbsp vanilla extract to cheese filling
  • Use this recipe for the topping, doubling the ingredients ( So, 6 cups blueberries, 1 cup sugar, 4 tbsp cornstarch, 4 tbsp lemon juice):  Blueberry Tarts (gryphood.blogspot.com)

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