This super easy lemon cheesecake recipe gives you a rich smooth cheesecake. It takes a while to bake but there’s nothing particularly tricky about making it. You can buy a graham cracker crust or just crush up enough crackers and make your own easily enough. The recipe is from Mom’s Big Book of Baking, one of my favorite baking books.

Take the cream cheese and eggs out of the refrigerator while you’re making the crust so they can get closer to room temperature. You need the cream cheese to be softened so you can mix it up with the sugar.

You should bake it in a springform pan, where the sides come away after you’re done baking.

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Lemony Cheesecake

A delicious lemony cheesecake with a graham cracker crust.

Ingredients

Graham Cracker Crust

cooking spray
1 sleeve of graham crackers about 1 1/3 cup crumbs
5 Tablespoons butter melted
2 Tablespoons sugar

Cheesecake filling

32 ounces cream cheese at room temperature
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 Tablespoons flour
4 large eggs at room temperature
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

For the crust

Spray the inside of a 9 inch springform pan with cooking spray. Crush the graham crackers in a food processor or put them in a bag and roll over them with a rolling pin until they are in crumbs. Mix the sugar and melted butter in with the crumbs. Put the graham cracker crumbs into your pan and press around the pan up the sides. Set the pan on a cookie sheet and put it aside until the filling is ready.

For the filling

Preheat the oven to 500F.
Use a mixer to stir together the cream cheese, sugar and flour until it is very smooth. You’ll likely need to scrape down the mixer bowl a few times.
Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing each one in completely before adding the next. Stir in the lemon zest and vanilla extract.
Pour the filling into the pan on top of the graham cracker crust, spreading it flat with a spatula.
Put the cookie sheet with the springform pan on it into the oven on the middle rack. After ten minutes, turn the heat down to 200F without opening the door. Cook for another hour and ten minutes. Take the cheesecake out of the oven and put it on a wire cooling rack.
Run a butter knife around the sides of the pan so it doesn’t pull away and crack as it cools. Let it cool completely, then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate

Super Easy Lemon Cheesecake