Cheesecake (New York-Style)

Variations

• New York cheesecake: Extra sour cream and heavy cream for a richer, taller cake.
• Basque cheesecake: Crustless and baked hot until the top is burnished dark.
• No-bake cheesecake: Set with gelatin instead of baking — lighter and airy.
• Berry topping: Spoon over blueberry or strawberry sauce for tang.

Tips

• The water bath is not about moisture or steam; it is a temperature cap. Cooking eggs gives the number the whole cake turns on: above 80°C egg proteins "contract hard and squeeze water out — dry curds sitting in liquid". A 160°C oven drives the outside of a 600g filling well past that long before the middle has set, and water around the tin cannot go above 100°C. The cracks and the wept liquid on an overbaked cheesecake are that contraction, which is also why the cure is a lower temperature rather than a shorter time.
• The optional tablespoon of cornstarch is the same insurance by another route. Starch granules swollen at 60-75°C get between the egg proteins and lift the setting temperature by tens of degrees. Basque cheesecake is built on it — two tablespoons of flour let a custard survive a 220°C oven with no water bath at all — and it is why clafoutis does not curdle in a bare oven either. With the starch in, the water bath is a second line of defence rather than the only one.
• A jiggling centre is not underbaked. Set edges mean the outside is already at temperature while the middle is still climbing; taken out then, carryover heat finishes it. Wait for the middle to go firm in the oven and the edge is well past 80°C. The hour with the oven off and the door ajar applies the same idea to cooling — a cheesecake cracks as it contracts, and it contracts fastest in a cold draught.
• Mixing gently, because nothing in the batter can support a bubble. There is no gluten and no raising agent. Air beaten in expands in the oven and then has nothing to hold it on the way down, so the surface tears and the middle sinks. Basque cheesecake accepts the same fact and keeps the result: there "the sink is the shape".
• Room temperature is about the fat, not about mixing time. Cold cream cheese is firm fat that will not smooth out, and a lump that survives step 2 is still a lump in the baked cake. Beating harder to remove it puts in the air step 2 exists to keep out.
• What sets this is egg and heat, and the site sets things several ways. Key lime pie states the pair: cheesecake "sets because egg coagulates with heat; this sets because acid coagulates at room temperature." The tablespoon of lemon juice here is flavour and a little help; the no-bake version in the variations replaces the mechanism outright with gelatine.
• A pressed crumb base is a way round pastry, not a kind of pastry. Butter chilled hard is the only thing holding it together, which is why it is pressed firmly and refrigerated instead of baked, and why there is no blind bake. Apple pie meets the same wet-filling problem with starch in the fruit; here the filling gives up no free water at all unless it is overbaked — the weeping described in the water-bath tip above is exactly that failure.
• Bring everything to room temperature — cold ingredients give a lumpy batter.
• Mix low and gentle to limit air, which reduces cracks and sinking.
• A water bath is the key to crack-free baking — it cooks gently and evenly.
• It's done when the center still jiggles slightly — overbaking makes it dry.
• Chill it thoroughly (overnight is best) for clean slices and set flavor.