Ina Garten's First Step For Fabulous Cheesecake: Buy It From The Store

If you're planning to bake a fabulous New York-style cheesecake, hear Ina Garten out: The Barefoot Contessa wants to liberate you from toiling in the kitchen and baking a fresh cheesecake from scratch. As she instructed in a snippet of the "Tamron Hall Show" shared on Instagram, just buy the cheesecake from a bakery. "I mean that's like the hardest thing to make in a raspberry cheesecake," Garten explained, gushing about her "ultimate hotrod dessert."

Garten advocated that you simply make an easy sauce, like her fresh raspberry sauce, and use it to top your store-bought cheesecake. The result is a beautiful raspberry dessert. As Garten stated, "No one will know you didn't make the cheesecake." The resulting treat ranks high as one of Ina Garten's best comfort food dishes. To make her fruity sauce, all you need are just four ingredients: fresh raspberries, sugar, raspberry jelly or jam, and framboise liqueur. 

Once the sauce is ready, you pour it over fresh raspberries and spoon that glistening mixture over the cake. Let the sauce "drizzle down the front," as Garten suggested. "I love that it looks a little homemade and real ... there's an exuberance about it," she told Hall.

Now that you're in on Ina Garten's cheesecake secret, imagine all the dessert possibilities you've unlocked in your kitchen. Her raspberry sauce is just the beginning. Say you're a big blueberry fan; you can make a blueberry sauce to top your store-bought cheesecake. Or consider other berries and fruits like strawberries and cherries.

If you're thinking of a route other than fruit, there are plenty of other gourmet toppings to give store-bought cheesecake an upgrade. Think of delicious and decadent sauces like hot fudge and caramel. Or, if you're a fan of creme brûlée, cover the cheesecake with granulated sugar and give the exterior a good torching. 

Finally, consider something entirely outside of the box. Wrap the store-bought cheesecake in mochi. It'll be a fun Asian-inspired dessert with a chewy texture. Best of all, you change up the store-bought cheesecake just like Garten promised; no one has to know it wasn't homemade.