Recipe of the Week: Japanese Cotton Cheesecake

Making this cake is truly a labor of love, which is what made it so appropriate for our grand anniversary dinner last week ...

There are so many things you need to prepare beforehand. You need to grease your 8-inch spring form pan (any smaller and you'll end up with a mushroom-shaped cake like mine!), cut a perfect 8-inch circle of parchment paper and put that on the bottom of the pan, and wrap the exterior of the entire set-up in aluminum foil. You also have to measure out most of the ingredients in metric. And whip egg whites into soft peaks. And have hot water ready for the water bath. And have a double boiler (I don't. If you don't either, just improvise!). And oh, you also have to be prepared to not use your oven for the next 4 hours or so. Deterred yet? Well don't be. This heavenly tasting, light and fluffy cheesecake is actually worth all the trouble. The only downside of making this cake is the number of requests you'll get to make more!

(I adapted this recipe from here, in case you want to check it out)

Ingredients
140gm granulated sugar
50gm butter
1 8oz package of cream cheese
6 eggs, separated
100ml whole milk
1 tbsp lemon juice
60gm cake flour
20gm cornstarch
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 tsp salt

Directions
Preheat oven to 325°F.
Sift together cake flour and cornstarch in a large mixing bowl.
Fold in gently beaten egg yolks, lemon juice, and salt.

In a double boiler, combine cream cheese, butter and milk until you get a smooth mixture. Set aside to cool.

my makeshift double boiler is a pyrex bowl on top of a saucepan!

In the meantime, whisk egg yolks with cream of tartar and sugar until soft peaks form.

When cream cheese mixture has cooled sufficiently, pour it into the flour mixture and stir to combine.

To this mixture, gently fold in the whisked egg whites.
Pour into 8-inch spring form pan, then set it in a deep roasting pan.
Fill roasting pan with at least an inch of hot water.
Bake at 325°F for 1hr 10 mins.

Leave your cake in the oven for at least an hour after it is done. If you take it out immediately, the extreme drop in temperature will make your cake sink.

Enjoy!


p.s. if you read the anniversary post and are interested in the crab and asparagus risotto recipe, we're sharing that next weekend! Stay tuned!