Tuesday, April 17, 2018

The Journey to Perfecting Japanese Cheesecake

Hello All!

I can't believe its already 2018! Sorry for the inconsistent blog posts...

but here's another! XD

If you have been following my blog you would know I've had had few struggles with baking Japanese Cheesecake. They would either not rise, have cracks or just look ugly!

My friend introduced me to a recipe and it's been AWESOME! I have baked this a number of times and each time the cake has been light and fluffy! So just wanted to share the recipe with you all. I'm still working out how to minimise the cracks on top but nothing that a bit of icing sugar doesn't fix =p

You can find the original recipe by Craft Passion here. They have really good tips for what ingredients and equipment to use. They also have a handy video!

Hope you give it a go :D


Japanese Cheesecake
 
Recipe adapted from Craft Passion

Ingredients

Cream cheese batter
250g block cream cheese, cut into cubes
6 egg yolks
70g caster sugar
60g unsalted butter
100ml milk
1 tbs lemon juice
2 tsp lemon zest
60g cake flour (I replaced this with 50g plain flour + 10g corn flour)
20g corn flour
1/4 tsp salt

Meringue
6 egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar (I didn't have this so replaced with the same of lemon juice)
70g caster sugar

1. Pre-heat oven to 200oC (Although the original recipe says no fan force... I don't have that option! Still turned out ok).
2. Grease 20cm x 8cm round cake pan with butter, line bottom with baking paper. (It is best to use a one piece cake tin i.e. one that the bottom does not come out)
3. To make cream cheese batter, whisk cream cheese until melted and smooth over a warm water bath.
4. Add egg yolks and whisk.
5. Add sugar and whisk.
6. Warm milk and butter in microwave/stove and fold into mixture.
7. Add salt, lemon juice, lemon zest and whisk.
8. Remove from water bath, sift in cake flour and corn starch. Fold into mixture.
9. Whisk egg whites in a separate bowl at low speed until foamy.
10. Add cream of tartar (or lemon juice) and beat at high speed till bubbles become very small but still visible.
11. Gradually add the caster sugar and beat till soft peaks.
12. Fold whites into batter a third at a time.
13. Pour into cake pan (make sure to leave around 2cm from the rim) and tap the pan on the counter to release air bubbles.
14. Place a tea towel in a large roasting tin then place cake pan on top (to protect bottom of cake pan from direct heat). Form water bath by pouring hot water into roasting tin (~1.5cm high) and place into oven.
15. Bake for 18 minutes then lower temperature to 140 degrees and bake for further 30 minutes. Turn off oven and leave cake in the closed oven for another 30 minutes. Remove water bath but leave cake in the oven with the oven slightly open for another 30 minutes to cool.
16. Unmold cake. Allow to cook before placing in fridge.
17. Decorate cooled cake by dusting icing sugar on top.

look at that height!!
light and flufffyyy