Light and Airy Cheesecake

Cheesecake – a divine cake – how many times have I reminisced over, thought about, and made cheesecake - at least 5 documented here on this blog.  I love cheesecake and I am always willing to try a new version of cheesecake for different flavor profiles to textures.  This time I wanted a light and airy cheesecake that was tall, creamy and so light that it defied its principal ingredient, cream cheese.  This cheesecake not only met my requirements but exceeded them.  It is light and airy but maintains the classic flavor of cheesecake.

If light and creamy doesn't inspire, you may be interested in my other versions of cheesecake:

   Marble Cheesecake

   Manhattan Cheesecake   

   Pumpkin Cheesecake  

   Cheesecake Bars

Light and Creamy Cream Cheese Cheesecake

16 servings,

Crust

1 3/4 cups graham cracker crumbs

3 tablespoons sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

½ stick (4 tablespoons) butter, melted

Butter a 9-inch spring form pan and wrap the bottom of the pan in a double layer of aluminum foil.

Stir the crumbs, sugar and salt together in a medium bowl (I crush in the food processor).

Pour over the melted butter and stir until all of the dry ingredients are uniformly moist. Empty the ingredients into the buttered spring form pan and pat an even layer of crumbs along the bottom of the pan using a flat bottomed measuring cup going about halfway up the sides.

Put the pan in the freezer while you preheat the oven.

Center a rack in the oven, preheat the oven to 350°F and place the spring form on a baking sheet.

Bake for 10 minutes.

Set the crust aside to cool on a rack while you make the cheesecake.

Reduce the oven temperature to 325°F.

Cheesecake

2 pounds (four 8-ounce boxes) cream cheese, at room temperature

1 1/3 cups sugar

½ teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

4 large eggs, at room temperature

1 1/3 cups heavy cream

Put a kettle of water on to boil.

Working in a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese at medium speed until it is soft and creamy about 4 minutes.

With the mixer running, add the sugar and salt and continue to beat another 4 minutes or so, until the cream cheese is light.

Beat in the vanilla.

Add the eggs one by one, beating for a full minute after each addition to aerate batter. Reduce the mixer speed to low and stir in the heavy cream.

Put the foil-wrapped spring form pan in a roaster pan.

Give the batter a few stirs with a rubber spatula, just to make sure that nothing has been left unmixed at the bottom of the bowl, and scrape the batter into the spring form pan. The batter will reach the brim of the pan.

Put the roasting pan in the oven and pour enough boiling water into the roaster to come halfway up the sides of the spring form pan.

Bake the cheesecake for 1 hour and 30 minutes, at which point the top will be browned (and perhaps cracked) and may have risen just a little above the rim of the pan. Turn off the oven's heat and prop the oven door open with a wooden spoon.

Let the cheesecake stand in the water bath for another hour.

Remove pan from oven without upsetting water too much.

Remove foil carefully.

Place cheesecake on wire rack until at room temperature.

Cover the top loosely with foil or plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 5 hours.

Adapted from Dorie Greenspan,

Basic Cheesecake

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

I love cheesecake! It is one of my favorite desserts. I have waxed on about cheesecake in a previous post and my Aunt Julie but it is her cheesecake recipe that reminds me of this one. Aunt Julie (really my great aunt) was born in the U.S. but her parents were immigrants from Italy. She married my Slovakian grandmother's brother and she brought her cheesecake recipe into the family. It was a real treat to have Aunt Julie's cheesecake. Her recipe called for 1 pound of cream cheese and 1 pound of ricotta cheese, 5 eggs, 1/4 pound of butter and 1 pint of sour cream - talk about a cheesecake with some heft! Certainly the recipe came about before we knew the dangers of cholesterol! The trick was to bake it for the appointed time and don't open the oven door until morning!!! Of course, it was topped with canned cherry pie filling!

This cheesecake came together in a snap. Thank you Jenny for a lovely challenge. I used David Lebovitz's Speculoos recipe for the crust.  This cake was super creamy! I recommend this recipe.

I topped mine with a chocolate ganache.

Speculoos Crust

2 tablespoons softened butter

3 tablespoons packed brown sugar (light or dark)

1 large egg yolk

½ cup flour

¼ teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground allspice

Beat together butter and brown sugar until to smooth. Stir in the molasses and egg yolk.

In a separate bowl, mix dry ingredients and add to butter mixture until smooth. Pat batter onto parchment or silpat into 5 inch rounds. Bake for 18 minutes. Process in the food processor with 1 stick of butter and 2 Tbs of sugar. Pat firmly into springform pan.

Cheesecake

3 sticks of cream cheese,

8 oz each (total of 24 oz) room temperature

1 cup / 210 g sugar

3 large eggs

1 cup / 8 oz heavy cream

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 tablespoon vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (Gas Mark 4 = 180C = Moderate heat). 

Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker's choice. Double wrap springform pan with foil to make waterproof.

Set crust aside.

Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.

Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan.

If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done - this can be hard to judge, but you're looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don't want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won't crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve.