New York Baked Cheesecake (Eggless)
- Prashansa Ranjan
- Jul 5, 2020
- 4 min read
"Life tastes better after a slice of cheesecake"- said Jason Shaw. Cheesecakes are my favorite desserts. If you are having a bad day, have a cheesecake. Too worked up- take a bite of cheesecake. Or if its simply a movie night with your loved one, no better dessert than a cheesecake. (Science fact: Cheesecake is overloaded with sugar which instantly shoots the happiness hormone- dopamine, hence making you delightful). So read on to make some elegant, classic New York Baked Cheesecake- that too, eggless!!
Ingredients:
A cup of cream cheese.
A cup of heavy cream.
A cup of sour cream. (These three items, either you can buy it from market or can make it at home too.)
15-20 Nutrichoice Biscuits or any other no cream, no flavor biscuit.
A Teaspoon of Vanilla Essence.
A Teaspoon of Lemon Juice.
Half Cup of melted butter.
A cup of sugar. (Granulated or powder, both work fine).
Two tablespoons of All-Purpose Flour or Cornflour.
For the baking: Cheesecake Mould, Water Bath, Convection Oven.
How to Prepare:
If you have store-bought heavy cream, sour cream, and cream cheese, then directly jump to step 5. Or else, read on to know how to make all of this at home. It's very easy and the best part- no chemicals.
To make a cup of cream cheese, simply take 1-liter full-fat milk, full cream milk, and bring it to boil. As it starts to boil, pour lemon drops in it. You shall see that the milk shall start to curdle up. Let the entire milk settle down to form the paneer (or chenna). Then, strain this using a sieve and run it under some cold water. Keep the liquid whey. Make sure not to squeeze it on the sieve. Let the water drain out naturally. Once this is done, and the paneer has strained completely, take this in a bowl and put 1/2 teaspoon of salt in it and mix well. Go gentle on hands while mixing. Once done, simply take a food processor jar and run this while adding some amount of whey in constant intervals. In 1 cup of paneer, you would require no more than 1/4th cup of whey. Keep running the processor till you get a creamy texture. This forms your cream cheese.
To make heavy cream, you would need to gather cream on top of the milk for almost a week. When you boil the full-fat milk, after it cools down, it gathers cream on top. Gather this cream till you have 2 cups of it. Once done, simply run this cream in a food processor for 2-3 minutes with occasionally adding some cold milk to it. This shall give you heavy cream. Make sure to not overdo the processing or else you shall end up having white butter.
To make the sour cream, take 1.5 cups of curd and hang it using a cotton cloth. This shall help in releasing all the water from the curd and leave you with a cup of it. (Also called as hung curd). Gather this hung curd in a bowl, add 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of sugar to it and mix well. This shall give you sour cream.
Now we have sour cream, heavy cream, and cream cheese ready. The next steps are very easy. Take all the biscuits in a grinder and powder them. I prefer to keep a few chunks of biscuits to give my cheesecake, a crunchy touch. Pour this mix in a bowl and add butter to it and mix well. Here it should look like wet sand. Now take a cheesecake mould and press this mix on all the sides of the mould to form the base.
Keep this biscuit base in the refrigerator till we prepare the cheese filling. For the cheese filling, pour cream cheese, heavy cream, sour cream in a bowl, and fold well. Go gentle on mixing. Next, add the sugar and the lemon juice. To make it tastier, you can also add some lemon zest to it.
The next step is to add our flour into it. Whether you choose all-purpose flour or cornflour, all work the same here. Take this into a cup, put two tablespoons of either, and mix in a tablespoon of water. This shall give you a paste. Add this to the cheese filling made above.
Next, add the vanilla essence. At this step, you can experiment with adding dry fruits into this.
Now bring the biscuit base outside from the refrigerator and pour this cheese filling into it. Tap slowly but well to release any air bubbles from it. Let it settle down. Till then, preheat the oven at 220 degrees.
Now we shall bake the cheesecake. To bake the cheesecake, take the filled cheesecake mould, wrap it with foil on all the sides. Take an ovenproof plate. Pour some water into it, and let the cheesecake mould rest on it. This is your water bath needed to bake the cheesecake. It will avoid the cracks in the cheesecake once baked.
To bake the cheesecake, run it in 200 degrees in convection bake mode for an hour.
Once done, open the oven door slightly and let the cheesecake cool. Do this for another 30 minutes. By this time, your cheesecake would have cooled down a bit.
Bring it out from the oven and chill it in the refrigerator for at least 6-7 hours. Make sure to keep temperature optimum, so as not to frost it.
Once done, carefully and slowly run a knife through the corner of the mould to release the cheesecake. Then you can unlock it and slide it to find your perfectly done cheesecake ready to savor.
Few people love to put caramel atop their cheesecakes. To prepare the caramel, take a bowl of sugar in a saucepan and add 2-4 tablespoons of water to it. Constantly keep stirring. Then add 2 tablespoons of butter to it. Your caramel is ready. If you are topping the cheesecake with caramel, then reduce the sugar in cheese filling by half so as to balance the sugar.
This indulgence takes patience to be baked perfectly. But, rightly said, that "because you don't live near a bakery does not mean that you have to go without cheesecake."
So, bake and Happy Cheesecake-ing!
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