I've read many cheesecake recipes before and been intimidated by the idea of water baths, over-cooking, and various stories of woe, so it was only after much thought and trepidation, I finally made the leap and tried to make my very first cheesecake.
I followed Nigella Lawson's New York cheesecake recipe from How to be a Domestic Goddess, combined with the Joy of Baking recipe. I whisked the egg whites as per Nigella's recipe, but the resulting cheesecake, while OK, was a bit too light and moussy for my liking (see above). I was looking for the wonderfully rich and dense texture of real New York cheesecake, so next time I think I'll try the Joy of Baking recipe which calls for whole eggs (i.e. without whisked whites).
The sides also stuck to the pan, and it was hard to get the cake out of the Springform tin. Nigella's recipe doesn't tell you to grease the pan, but I've seen others that do. I'm going to try greasing the pan next time.
I need to dredge up a former coworker's cheesecake recipe. It called for something like 6 sticks of butter, 12 eggs, 8 packs of cream cheese, etc. The finished cake weighed about 20 pounds and you couldn't eat more than a few bites before getting full.
ReplyDeleteYeah it is quite frightening to see how much stuff goes into the cheesecake. I used 3 packs of Philly for this cake, which I thought was a lot already, but 8 packs? Wow..
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