New York Style Cheesecake

I made a cheesecake for dessert for Mother's Day. I like my topping to be caramel or chocolate, but our guests prefer strawberry so I made a strawberry sauce to top the cheesecake. I mushed most of the strawberries up to be less chunky, but you can have your strawberries as large or small as you'd prefer.

Crust:
15 graham crackers, crushed
2 tablespoons butter, melted

Cheesecake:
4 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese
1 1/2 cups white sugar
3/4 cup milk
4 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease a 9 inch springform pan.

In a medium bowl, mix graham cracker crumbs with melted butter. Press onto bottom of springform pan.

In a large bowl, mix cream cheese with sugar until smooth. (Do not over beat or your cheesecake will crack.... only use mixer for this part and use a wooden spoon for the rest).

Blend in milk, and then mix in the eggs one at a time, mixing just enough to incorporate. Mix in sour cream, vanilla and flour until smooth. Pour filling into prepared crust.

Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour. Turn the oven off, and let cake cool in oven with the door closed for 5 to 6 hours; this prevents cracking. Chill in refrigerator until serving.

Strawberry Topping:

1 pint strawberries, cleaned, stemmed and diced
1/3 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

DIRECTIONS
In a saucepan over medium high heat, combine sugar, vanilla and about 1/3 of the strawberries. Cook, stirring frequently, until sauce thickens, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Pour mixture into a blender and puree. Combine the puree to the remaining strawberries in a bowl. Store in refrigerator until ready to use.

I drizzled (okay, globbed...) both caramel and chocolate on mine. It was almost sinful to eat. Almost.