For the crust:
In a food processor, pulse almonds until ground. Add wafer cookies and pulse to a fine ground texture. Add the butter, sugar, almond extract, and salt and pulse until well combined. Transfer to a 9-inch springform pan. Press evenly into the bottom and to about 1 inch up the sides of the pan. Bake in a 350ºF oven for 10 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.
For the topping:
In a small bowl, sprinkle gelatin over water and let stand for about 1 minute.
In a heavy saucepan, bring cherries, sugar and lemon juice to a boil, stirring frequently. Remove pan from heat and reserve 1/2 cup of the juice. Set the 1/2 cup of juice aside. Then add the gelatin, and almond extract into the remaining mixture and stir until gelatin is dissolved. Pour the gelatin mixture into a bowl and refrigerate until ready to use.
For the filling:
In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and the sugar until smooth. Beat in the flour, and then add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Beat in the sour cream and vanilla.
Now it’s time to add the reserved cherry juice. The recipe calls for adding it all into the filling mixture at this time. Beat the filling and cherry juice together until well combined.
Pour the filling into the crust and bake at 350ºF for 50 minutes. The cheesecake will still look jiggly in the center but will cook a bit more as it cools. Cool completely on a wire rack. Then chill for 1 hour. Remove the sides of the pan and transfer to a plate. Refrigerate for another hour.
Top with the refrigerated cherry mixture. And then chill for another hour or more before serving. Enjoy!
Recipe adapted from Gourmet.
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frommysweetheart on 7.10.2011
I tried the original recipe and found with the chocolate wafer cookies, the crust was too dry. So adding more butter worked for me. And my rule of thumb is never use canned pie filling in a recipe especially when the fruit is a major component. I just find them too gummy. I am glad you were able to correct it to your personal liking. Hope it works out better for you next time!
jhawkwife on 5.2.2011
I made this recipe this weekend. Overall, it turned out well. However, here are some notes that I hope might be helpful: the original recipe from epicurious.com calls for 1/2 stick of butter in the crust (one whole stick was too much). The cherries did not look appealing – I ended up using a light cherry pie filling as a topping. I also could not find chocolate thin wafer cookies anywhere in the state or on the internet, so I used 20 Oreos (scrapped the filling out of the wafers and simply used the wafers). This seemed to work out well. I’m going to make again using the information above and I think this will be just about perfect!!! I’m glad the recipe was available to try.