The Great Cheesecake Disaster

Anyone who cooks or bakes at all is well aware of this simple fact: There will be a food disaster sooner or later.

If you try making new and different things from time to time, sometimes they just don't turn out. But when you cook an item from a tried and true recipe you kind of expect it to be O.K. Obviously...not always.

I have baked this "secret" cheesecake recipe many times. It is much more than the everyday Jello no-bake deal. It takes a while...there are several stages...and it tastes pretty darn good. In fact, I have a couple of orders from people wanting to pay me to make them one. But I did something (actually two somethings) last night that led to The Great Cheesecake Disaster. First and foremost, I left out an ingredient...a fact that I didn't realize until after surveying the sad outcome. Second, I took some advice from a separate recipe "master" and applied it to this recipe. Voila! "You idiot! Gawd!"
That little "tip" I got from another "master" simply involved removing the springform pan soon after it comes out of the oven, presumebly avoiding the surfacing cracking that often happens when baked cheesecakes "set up". This technique may indeed work...if you don't forget to leave out the cornstarch! I'm pretty much assuming that this ingredient omission was the major fatal screw up on my part.I don't believe I will try that early springform pan removal again in future cheesecake baking attempts...with or without cornstarch.

By the way...it did make a nice pudding.