Bull's-Eye! A master baker's inspired cheesecake recipe.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

They say genius is part inspiration, part perspiration, and therein lies the story of Maida Heatter's Bull's Eye Cheesecake, a cool, creamy, eyeful of a dessert that's easier to make than you'd think and harder to resist than you can imagine.

"I was driving along one day and I had a sensation that something tapped me on the shoulder and said, `Cheesecake, oatmeal, two colors.' The idea just came to me," says Heatter, who lives in Miami Beach and devised the recipe some years ago for one of her dozen dessert cookbooks.

But after many failed attempts, she gave up on making a two-toned, two-textured cheesecake and mailed the cookbook manuscript to her editor.

"On the way home from the post office I thought, `I'm going to try it without the oatmeal,' and it worked …