Eggnog Marble Cheesecake

Four hours of daylight. December is two days away and Alaska has already surrendered to winter — snow on the ground since last week, the roads gleaming with ice, the air so cold it hurts to breathe. Negative five this morning. My car made a sound when I started it that I can only describe as mechanical reluctance, and I sympathized, because I too would prefer not to exist at 6 AM in negative five.

The ER is busy in the way that winter makes it busy — frostbite, car accidents on icy roads, the seasonal depression cases that arrive like clockwork, quiet people in quiet crisis. I handled three shifts this week without cracking. The new boundaries hold, even in the dark, even in the cold, even when the patients' despair mirrors something I recognize in myself. I hold their hands. I chart their vitals. I leave the building. The leaving is the discipline. The cooking is the reward.

I made bibingka this week — Filipino rice cake, the holiday version, baked in clay pots lined with banana leaves. Traditional bibingka is sold outside churches in the Philippines during the Simbang Gabi — the nine-day novena of dawn masses leading up to Christmas. Lourdes talks about Simbang Gabi in Iloilo with the reverent nostalgia of a woman describing a religious experience that was also a food festival, because in the Philippines, church and kitchen are not separate institutions.

I don't have a clay pot. I used a cake pan lined with banana leaves from the Asian grocery — frozen, thawed, wiped clean, their green fading to olive but still fragrant. The batter is glutinous rice flour, coconut milk, sugar, eggs — poured over the leaves, topped with sliced salted duck egg and grated coconut. Baked until the top is golden and slightly charred at the edges. The result smells like coconut and banana leaf and something smoky-sweet that I associate with Lourdes's kitchen in December, when the Mountain View house became a factory of holiday baking and the radio played "Pasko Na Naman" on repeat.

I brought bibingka to the ER break room. Sarah ate a piece and closed her eyes and said, "What IS this?" I said, "Filipino Christmas cake." She said, "Every week should be Filipino Christmas." Pete had two pieces. Dr. Martinez asked for the recipe. The bibingka lasted twenty minutes. In the ER, twenty minutes of pleasure between twelve-hour shifts is not nothing. It's a small miracle. It's banana leaf and coconut and the warmth of a kitchen that travels in Tupperware.

The bibingka lasted twenty minutes in that break room, and for a week after, Sarah kept asking when I was making it again — and that kind of request is its own reward. But bibingka is a production: banana leaves sourced and thawed, salted duck eggs tracked down, the whole ritual of a dish that belongs to a specific season and a specific memory of Lourdes’s kitchen. For the next Friday, I wanted something equally festive and unapologetically rich, something that still said December and celebration and I made this for you — but that I could pull together after a double shift without searching three grocery stores. This eggnog marble cheesecake is that thing: it tastes like the holidays, it travels beautifully in a cake carrier, and when you set it on a break room table at 7 AM, people stop moving and just stare at it for a second, which is exactly the kind of small miracle the ER runs on.

Prep Time: 25 minutes | Cook Time: 1 hour 10 minutes | Total Time: 5 hours 35 minutes (includes chilling) | Servings: 12

Ingredients

Crust:
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
Cheesecake Filling:
3 (8 oz) packages cream cheese, softened to room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs, room temperature
3/4 cup eggnog
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Chocolate Marble:
3 oz semi-sweet chocolate, melted and slightly cooled
2 tablespoons heavy cream

Instructions

Prepare the pan. Preheat oven to 325°F. Wrap the outside of a 9-inch springform pan tightly with two layers of heavy-duty aluminum foil to prevent water from seeping in during the water bath. Lightly grease the inside of the pan.
Make the crust. In a medium bowl, stir together graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and nutmeg. Pour in melted butter and mix until all crumbs are evenly moistened. Press the mixture firmly and evenly into the bottom of the prepared springform pan. Bake for 8 minutes, then set aside to cool while you prepare the filling.
Beat the cream cheese. In a large bowl using a hand mixer or stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat softened cream cheese on medium speed for 2–3 minutes until completely smooth and fluffy, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. There should be no lumps.
Add sugar and eggs. Add the granulated sugar and beat on medium speed until combined, about 1 minute. Add eggs one at a time, mixing on low speed after each addition just until incorporated. Do not overmix once the eggs go in.
Add eggnog and spices. Pour in the eggnog, vanilla extract, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Mix on low speed until just combined and smooth. The batter will be pourable.
Create the marble. In a small bowl, stir together the melted chocolate and heavy cream until smooth. Pour the cheesecake batter over the cooled crust. Drop spoonfuls of the chocolate mixture over the surface of the batter. Use a thin knife or skewer to swirl the chocolate into the batter in long, sweeping figure-eight motions, creating a marble pattern. Do not over-swirl or the two layers will muddy together.
Water bath bake. Place the foil-wrapped springform pan inside a larger roasting pan. Pour enough hot water into the roasting pan to reach 1 inch up the sides of the springform pan. Carefully transfer to the oven and bake at 325°F for 60–70 minutes, until the edges are set but the center still jiggles slightly (like Jell-O, not liquid) when you gently shake the pan.
Cool gradually. Turn off the oven, crack the oven door open about 1 inch, and allow the cheesecake to cool inside the oven for 1 hour. This slow cooling prevents cracks. Remove from the water bath, discard the foil, and let the cheesecake cool completely on a wire rack at room temperature, about 1 more hour.
Chill and serve. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, or overnight. Run a thin knife around the edge of the pan before releasing the springform clasp. Slice with a sharp knife wiped clean between cuts. Dust with a pinch of extra nutmeg before serving if desired.

Nutrition (per serving)

Eggnog Marble Cheesecake — When You Can’t Bring the Philippines to Alaska, You Bring the Warmth Anyway