This post is dedicated to my friend Deb. She first made her famous bourbon (Maker’s Mark) pecan cheesecake using her Traeger pellet grill several years ago. I was one of the fortunate ones to be able to actually eat a piece at the NEPAS Smoke Out before Rick moved south. To say it was outstanding would still be an understatement.
My original intent was to cook the whole cheesecake on my MAK. I only got as far as smoking the pecans using my A-MAZE-N tube smoker with some cherry flavored pellets. Believe it or not, I couldn’t find my pecan flavored pellets. Here they are on some parchment paper.
At this point I had not fired up my MAK. After pulling the smoked pecans, I plugged my MAK into the outlet and turned it on to 350. A short while later, the smoke was really rolling out of any and all available outlets. The temp said it was at 350. I shouldn’t be seeing any smoke at this point, unless, of course, I had forgotten to “
clean” the grill after my last big cook. That is exactly what happened! Time to shift gears and go to plan “B”. Back into the kitchen and turn on the stove. I was going to have to do this without my MAK. While the stove was getting settled in, I took a picture of the players for the cheesecake. Since I did not have any Maker’s Mark in the house, I used what was available, some Knob Creek.
After taking the Oreo cookies and running them through my food processor and adding melted butter to them, I pressed the dough into the bottom of my springform pan.
All the cream cheese, corn starch, sugar, vanilla, Knob Creek, eggs, and heavy cream were mixed together in my mixer.
All happy and into the pan.
Some smoked pecans onto the top and we are just about ready to get into the pool in the oven. Cheesecakes must be cooked in a pan of hot water. I had to wrap the pan in foil to keep it waterproof while cooking. The finished product!
I still have to make the pecan caramel bourbon sauce to pour over each piece when it is served. I’ll do that just before we go to a Derby Day Party this weekend. The Knob Creek Cheesecake is going into the refrigerator until then. I’ll have to report back later on how it really tasted. It sure smells good right now.
I have another cheesecake that I want to make for the KOA Gathering. I will clean my grill and cook it on the MAK. If this one turns out well, I may even make one for the Fall Gathering.
Art
