Old-Fashioned Cheesecake

This is the grand dame of cheesecakes– big, rich almost indescribably delicious.

Ingredients:

Butter Crust, see below

5 (8 oz.) pkgs. cream cheese, room temperature
1-1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup all- purpose flour
2 teaspoon grated lemon peel
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
6 eggs
1/2 cup heavy cream or whipping cream
Sour Cream Topping, see below
1 quart fresh strawberries, hulled, cut in half

Butter Crust:

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoon sugar
2/3 cup cold butter or margarine
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Sour Cream Topping

1-1/2 cups dairy sour cream beat
3 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon brandy

Procedure: 

Prepare Butter Crust; set aside. Reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees. In a large bowl, beat cream cheese by hand or with electricmixer on medium speed until smooth and fluffy. In a small bowl, stir sugar, flour, lemon peel, salt and nutmeg to combine. Gradually blend flour mixture into beaten cream cheese. Blend vanilla and eggs in a small bowl. Slowly beat egg mixture into cheese mixture until just blended. Stir in cream until just blended. Pour evenly into prepared Butter Crust. Smooth top with the back of a spoon. Bake 1-1/4 hours in preheated oven until a knife inserted halfway between center and edge comes out clean. While cheesecake bakes, prepare Sour Cream Topping. Remove cheesecake from oven. Turn off heat. Spread tooping over cheesecake. Leaving oven door ajar several inches, return cheesecaken to oven for 1 hour to slowly cool. Place on a rack on counter to cool 15 minutes. Use the blade of a thin knife to loosen crust from side of pan. Do not remove side of pan. Cover and refrigerate until chilled, about 1 hour. Remove pan side. Return to refrigarator until served. To serve, spoon strawberries over cheesecake. Makes 18 to 20 servings.

Butter Crust:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine flour and sugar in a small bowl. With a pastry blender or 2 knives, cut in butter or margarine until crumbs are the size of small peas. In a second bowl, beat egg and vanilla. Stir into flour mixture until a smooth ball forms. Press half of pastry over bottom of a 9- inch springform pan. Bake bottom crust 8 minutes in preheated oven.Cool on a rack 10 minutes. Grease side of springform pan. Fasten in place. Press remaining pastry around side of pan, touching baked bottom crust.

Sour Cream Topping:

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl.