Cheese Cake

This is an easy recipe. It was one of Grandpa's favorites. Anne recently made it for a birthday party at IKEA.

Serves 10-12 unlike the 2 ton cake pictured above.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Crust:

• 1 stick butter
• 1 wrapper of graham crackers... about 10 double crackers

Filling:

• 3 packages of cream cheese (8 oz bricks - let sit out of fridge for a half hour or so to soften)
• 1/2 c sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 4 eggs

Topping:

• 2 pints of strawberries
• 1/2 cup of strawberry jam or jelly

Melt butter, crush crackers by putting in a plastic bag and rolling flat. Mix together and press into a 10" spring form pan.

Using a mixer, mix the cream cheese until soft and fluffy, add the sugar and vanilla and mix, add the eggs one at a time and mix until fluffy - use a rubber spatula to get mixture into bowl if stuck to the sides. Pour into crust using spatula to get all the filling.

Bake for 1 hour. Test at 50 minutes. Filling is done when slightly golden brown and knife inserted in center comes out clean.

Cool - do not remove side of pan. Wash strawberries and let dry while cake cools. Reserve largest strawberry with green stem intact. Remove stems from the other berries. Melt jam on low heat in sauce pan.

Starting at center put largest strawberry on it's side. Stand all the other strawberries up pushing into cake slightly with their points facing up. Start with the largest ones and use smaller ones as you get to the edge. Using a brush or spoon, glaze a little of the jam onto the berries. Drip the rest of the jam onto the bare spots on the cake. You can heat more jam if there is not enough.

Refrigerate. When ready to serve, slide a knife around the edge to loosen and remove spring form side. Leave bottom of pan in place and put on cake dish. Sides will be brown and a little crumbly looking. That's ok. Refrigerate leftovers.