Creamy Cheesecake

On the last day of the school term, my colleagues & I went for  tea at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. We wanted to reward ourselves for all the hard work we had put in.... Oh boy....we sure rewarded ourselves! Each of us ordered a different type of cheesecake.... so, between us, we ate four different types of cheesecake in one sitting! 

We all agreed that the Tiramisu cake was not that fantastic. Two of them were actually variations of  its Chicago Cheesecake. And yes... the Chicago Cheesecake is to die for....!! It's creamy, smooth, velvety & slightly fluffy. It's just PERFECT! 

Funny thing is, that was not my first time eating the sinfully delicious cheesecake, but the experience on that day felt different.... Must be the combination of good things on that day.... the last day of school, the company &, of course, the 4 different types of cheesecake! Haha....

After that day, I started itching to bake a cheesecake, hoping to duplicate the Chicago Cheesecake from Coffee Bean.... So, after looking through some recipes on the internet & some books,  last Thursday, I baked one using the recipe from Baking: From My Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan. Well, it didn't turn out as good as expected in terms of the texture... it was smooth & velvety but it wasn't as fluffy. Taste wise, I would give it a 9 out of 10! The only minus point is, since I used Greek yogurt instead of sour cream or heavy cream, the cake was too tangy to my taste.  Not sure if the yogurt was the cause...  Anyway, I'm planning to bake it again using the same recipe but with some tweaking. That's coming up, hopefully, soon..

What changes I made when making this cheesecake:

1. Instead of using a 9-inch round springform pan, I used a 9-inch square pan, the one with a removable base.
2. I only used half of the cheesecake recipe because I did not want my cheesecake to be too tall. (By the way, the original name of this cake is Tall & Creamy Cheesecake.) I still used the whole recipe for the crust.
3. Since my cheesecake is not as tall, I only baked for about 1 hour.
4. Oh yes, I replaced the sour cream / heavy cream with greek yogurt because I didn't want to buy the big tub of sour cream sold in the supermarket.

Creamy Cheesecake
Recipe by Dorie Greenspan from Baking: From My Home To Yours.

For the crust:
1 3/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
3 tablespoons sugar
Pinch of salt
1/2 stick (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted

For the cheesecake:
2 pounds (four 8-ounce boxes) cream cheese, at room temperature
1 1/3 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/3 cups sour cream or heavy cream, or a combination of the two

To make the crust:

1. Butter a 9-inch springform pan—choose one that has sides that are 2 3/4 inches high (if the sides are lower, you will have cheesecake batter leftover)—and wrap the bottom of the pan in a double layer of aluminum foil; put the pan on a baking sheet.
2. Stir the crumbs, sugar and salt together in a medium bowl. Pour over the melted butter and stir until all of the dry ingredients are uniformly moist. (I do this with my fingers.) Turn the ingredients into the buttered springform pan and use your fingers to pat an even layer of crumbs along the bottom of the pan and about halfway up the sides. Don't worry if the sides are not perfectly even or if the crumbs reach above or below the midway mark on the sides—this doesn't have to be a precision job. Put the pan in the freezer while you preheat the oven.
3. Center a rack in the oven, preheat the oven to 350°F and place the springform on a baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes. Set the crust aside to cool on a rack while you make the cheesecake.
4. Reduce the oven temperature to 325°F.

To make the cheesecake:

1. Put a kettle of water on to boil.
2. Working in a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the cream cheese at medium speed until it is soft and lives up to the creamy part of its name, about 4 minutes. With the mixer running, add the sugar and salt and continue to beat another 4 minutes or so, until the cream cheese is light. Beat in the vanilla. Add the eggs one by one, beating for a full minute after each addition—you want a well-aerated batter. Reduce the mixer speed to low and stir in the sour cream and/or heavy cream.
3. Put the foil-wrapped springform pan in the roaster pan.
4. Give the batter a few stirs with a rubber spatula, just to make sure that nothing has been left unmixed at the bottom of the bowl, and scrape the batter into the springform pan. The batter will reach the brim of the pan. (If you have a pan with lower sides and have leftover batter, you can bake the batter in a buttered ramekin or small soufflé mold.) Put the roasting pan in the oven and pour enough boiling water into the roaster to come halfway up the sides of the springform pan.
5. Bake the cheesecake for 1 hour and 30 minutes, at which point the top will be browned (and perhaps cracked) and may have risen just a little above the rim of the pan. Turn off the oven's heat and prop the oven door open with a wooden spoon. Allow the cheesecake to luxuriate in its water bath for another hour.
6. After 1 hour, carefully pull the setup out of the oven, lift the springform pan out of the roaster—be careful, there may be some hot water in the aluminum foil—remove the foil. Let the cheesecake come to room temperature on a cooling rack.
7. When the cake is cool, cover the top lightly and chill the cake for at least 4 hours, although overnight would be better.