Ingredient

Cheesecake

There are two entirely different desserts under this name. A baked cheesecake is a custard held together by egg; a set cheesecake is cream and cheese stiffened by gelatine or by nothing but chilling. They fail in completely different ways.

The two kinds

Baked

Cream cheese, eggs, sugar, often soured cream. Set by egg protein in a low oven. Dense, rich, and it cracks if you let it.

Set (no-bake)

Cream cheese and whipped cream, with gelatine or with enough cheese to hold. Lighter, mousse-like, and it collapses if under-set.

Base

Crushed biscuit and melted butter, pressed and chilled. The same for both, and the same failure — too little butter and it crumbles, too much and it sets like concrete.

Cheese

Full-fat cream cheese, at room temperature. Low-fat versions hold too much water and weep.

A baked cheesecake without cracks

Cracks come from the filling setting too fast at the edges and shrinking away from a middle that is still liquid.

1. Bring everything to room temperature. Cold cream cheese beats into lumps that never disappear.
2. Beat the cheese and sugar smooth first, then add eggs one at a time on the lowest speed. Beating air into the mixture is what makes it rise and then crack as it falls.
3. Wrap the tin in foil and bake it in a water bath, or put a tray of hot water on the shelf below. Gentle, humid heat is what prevents cracking.
4. Bake low — 150°C or so — and take it out while the middle third still wobbles as one piece.
5. Turn the oven off, open the door a crack, and leave it there for an hour. Sudden cooling shrinks the surface and tears it.
6. Then chill it, uncovered at first, for at least six hours and ideally overnight.

A set cheesecake that holds

1. Press the biscuit base firmly and chill it hard while you make the filling.
2. Beat the cream cheese smooth with the sugar before anything else goes in.
3. Whip the cream separately to soft peaks and fold it through. Whipping it in the same bowl over-works the cheese and can split it.
4. If using gelatine, bloom it in cold water, melt it gently, then temper it into a little of the mixture before folding it through everything. Adding hot gelatine straight to cold cream gives rubbery strings.
5. Chill for at least six hours. Four is not enough and this is the commonest reason a no-bake cheesecake slumps.

What goes wrong

• Cracked top — too hot, too fast, or cooled too quickly. It is entirely cosmetic; soured cream or fruit over the top hides it.
• Soggy base — the water bath leaked, or the base was not chilled. Wrap the tin properly and consider baking the base blind for ten minutes first.
• Lumpy filling — cold cream cheese. There is no recovery once the eggs are in.
• Weeping and grainy — overbaked. The egg has curdled and squeezed out water.
• Will not set (no-bake) — not enough chilling, too little gelatine, or low-fat cheese.

Common questions