I wanted to make my husband a special anniversary dinner and one of his favorite things in the whole world is cheesecake. Good cheesecake, not loaded up with anything, so I went rummaging around and decided to make him a New York style cheesecake.

I will give you the basic recipe. Mine is slightly bigger than this recipe because my spring form pan is a little bigger. But if I try to explain how I increased it incrementally, it will get too confusing for people who are just trying to follow a recipe. For those who really want to know, I didn’t increase the filling. It was just that I also had more graham crackers and no place to use them so it was an additional half cup or so of graham cracker crumbs, so I added half a stick more of melted unsalted butter.

I originally found this recipe on the Aldi tab on Instacart. Instacart has these little recipes that they put in next to the different stores that they deliver, and this one looked fairly simple and it was. I did tweak it a little to suit me. I increased the vanilla extract, I increased the sugar slightly, and I added cinnamon and a dash of cardamom. I also substituted cinnamon graham crackers for regular graham crackers. I make my own crumbs in other words and it’s not very scientific. I put them in a plastic bag and I beat them with a kitchen mallet until they’re crumbs.

Full ingredient list

• 2 cups cinnamon sugar graham cracker crumbs
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 4 (8 oz) packages cream cheese, softened
• 1 1/3 cups granulated sugar (I say a generous 1/3 of a cup. )
• 2 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 4 large eggs
• 1/3 cup sour cream
• 1/3 cup heavy cream
• Cinnamon
• Dash cardomom

Preparation:
1 Preheat oven to 350°F.

2 In a bowl, mix graham cracker crumbs, about a teaspoon of cinnamon, a dash of cardamom, and melted butter until well combined. Press mixture onto the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan.

3 In a large bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla extract until smooth. Add about four dashes of cinnamon.

4. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

5. Stir in sour cream and heavy cream.

6. Pour mixture over the crust and smooth the top with a spatula. Dust the top with a few dashes of cinnamon. 

7. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until the center is almost set. *Bake with a Bain Marie or pan of hot water* on shelf below shelf you place cheesecake to bake on in the oven* I will also note that I put my springform pan on a lined cookie sheet before putting it into the oven because I have had pans like this leak before in the oven. in the case of a cheesecake. I think it helps. Keep it level as well. The original Aldi recipe does not call for these additional steps and apparently you can bake this cake without a Bain Marie.

8. Turn off the oven and let the cheesecake cool inside for 30 minutes.

9. Remove from the oven and run a knife around the edges of the pan to loosen the cheesecake.

10. Let it cool completely at room temperature before refrigerating for at least 4 hours or overnight.

11.Serve chilled and enjoy!