Lemon Meringue Cheesecake - Instant Pot

                   Lemon Meringue Cheesecake -Instant Pot Recipe
Ingredients:
Crust:
5.5 ounce vanilla wafers-half bag
¼ cup white sugar
¼ brown sugar
6 tablespoons butter- melted
Pinch of salt
Cheesecake Filling:
24 ounce cream cheese- room temperature
¾ cup sugar
Zest of one lemon
1 tablespoon vanilla-I highly recommend using vanilla bean paste!
3 eggs
Lemon Topping:
8 egg yolks
Juice and zest of 2 lemons
4 tablespoons butter
½ cup sugar
Meringue Topping:
4 egg whites
½ cup sugar
½ teaspoon corn starch
½ teaspoon vanilla-I highly recommend using vanilla bean paste!

Directions
Make the crust:
Combine all crust ingredients in a blender and blend until mixture becomes the consistency of damp sand

Pour crust ingredients into a 7 inch springform pan. Be sure to pat down the crust using a spatula or spoonula. The crust should cover the entire bottom of the pan and about an inch of the side of the pan.

Make the cheesecake filling:
Clean out your blender. You're going to use it again. 🙂
Combine all cheesecake filling ingredients in a blenderand blend just until fully combined. Do not over mix. The more you mix the cheesecake filling, the more add that will get added. The more air, the fluffier the cheesecake will be. I was looking for a denser cheesecake so I made sure to only blend until combined. If you have added too much air to the cheesecake, tap the filled pan on the counter to eliminate some of the extra air.

Bake the cheesecake:
Place trivet into pressure cooker along with 2 cups of water.
Place springform pan into your pressure cooker sling. I use the OXO Good Grips Slingand it works perfectly. If you don't have a sling, you can make one by folding strips of foil and cradling your pan in and out of the pressure cooker.

• Gently place slinginto pressure cooker onto of trivet.
• Close pressure cooker lid and cook on high pressure for 40 minutes.
• Once timer beeps, let pressure natural release for 25 minutes.
• Release remaining steam and open lid.
• Gently remove sling and cheesecake from pressure cooker.
• Using a knife, gently relate cheesecake from edge of pan. You just want to make sure that it doesn't stick once it's cooled.
• Cool on counter for about an hour and then place in refrigerator. Cool cheesecake for at least 2 hours.
Make lemon curd:
• While you can do the lemon and meringue step in the pressure cooker, I found that it's quicker and easier to just do it on the stove while the cheesecake is cooking and cooling.
• Combine all lemon curd ingredients in a sauce pan over medium heat on the stove. Be sure to set aside the egg whites as you will use them for the meringue.
• Stir continuously until the lemon curd thickens to a pudding like consistency- abut 170 degrees if measured by a thermometer. Be sure to scrape the bottom of the pan with a whisk constantly. The lemon curd should take about 10 minutes to thicken. Once thickened to the proper consistency, remove from the heat.
• There are 2 options for this next step. A) Place lemon curd in the refrigerator to cool completely. B)Pour hot lemon curd on top of cooled cheesecake. I prefer to chill the lemon curd completely and then pour on the chilled cheesecake. I envisioned a melty mess when I thought of pouring the lemon curd on while it was still hot. But, the pros would be that the lemon curd would incorporate into the cheesecake a little bit more.
Make the meringue topping:
• Combine meringue ingredients in a stand mixerbowl. Using the whiskattachment, whisk ingredients together on high until stiff peaks form. This should take about 5 minutes.
Assemble Lemon Meringue Cheesecake:
• Pour lemon curd on top of cheesecake and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
• Remove cheesecake from springform pan.
• Using a piping bag and tip, pipe meringue liberally on top of lemon curd topping. If you don't have a piping bag, you can spread meringue on top with a spatula or a knife.
• Brown the meringue with a kitchen torchor in your oven's broiler. If you broil, be sure to watch it. It should only take a couple of minutes. You want the peaks to turn a golden brown.
• It's time to enjoy your wonderful, beautiful, lemon meringue cheesecake!!

Notes 

Tips for making Lemon Meringue Cheesecake:

1. Leave cream cheese, butter and eggs on the counter so that they are room temperature when you begin to make your cheesecake.  If you use cold ingredients, your cheesecake will be lumpy.

2. Mix your ingredients in a blender and not a mixer.  I have always used a mixer and found that regardless of the temperature of the ingredients, I ended up with lumps.  Through trial and error, I have found that it is much, much, much easier to combine the ingredients in a blender.

3. Buy yourself some vanilla bean paste. It's like vanilla extract but so much better! It's a glorious combination of vanilla beans and vanilla extract. It's the consistency of maple syrup and has all of the flavor and appearance (those little black dots) as you get when you use vanilla beans but without the steep price of buying vanilla beans. I try to use it for everything because I just love it so much! And no, I'm not sponsored by any vanilla bean pastecompanies. I just really LOVE vanilla bean paste!