More cheese, less cake, and nothing to be seen

CK, this one’s for you, my dear.

Preheat your oven at 180 degrees Centigrade.

For the base:
100 grammes of flour
50 grammes of butter / margarine
3 tablespoons vanilla sugar or regular sugar plus some vanilla
1 pinch of salt

Knead the ingredients into a dough. Grease an 11″ springform tin and line the bottom with either baking parchment cut to fit or baking tin foil (not regular tin foil). Press in / roll out the dough for the base evenly and pierce several times throughout with a fork. Bake the base for ten minutes, then remove from the oven and let it cool for a bit.

In the meantime, prepare the filling:
800 grammes of low-fat creamcheese (I used a 0.2% fat on this one; you can of course use full fat if that’s your preference, just be aware that your cheesecake will be extremely rich then.)
200 grammes of whipping cream
200 grammes of caster sugar
3 tablespoons of starch
plenty of vanilla; this is especially important if you use low-fat cream cheese as fat reinforces flavours.
3 tablespoons of lemon juice
lemon zest of one untreated lemon or lemon flavour
1 pinch of salt
3 large eggs

First mix all the ingredients but the eggs, then whisk in the eggs, one at a time for 1 minute each.

Use a pastry brush or kitchen paper to lightly grease the frame of the springform again. (Regardless of what manufacturers and ignorant cookery book writers may tell you, your budget will rather consider a cheesecake that’s 3 millimitres smaller in diametre than a scratched baking tin.)

Fill the cheesecake mass into the tin, spread evenly if need be and return the tin to the oven. After about 50 minutes, the surface of the cake should be lightly browned, dry to the touch and not sticky anymore. If it’s still sticky, grant the cake another ten minutes and check again. Depending on your oven, a tall cheesecake like this can take up to 70 minutes. If you’re concerned the top might get to dark, cover the tin with tin foil after 40 minutes but be careful not to burn yourself.

If that’s the only thing you’re baking and your oven is operated with ground gas, letting the cake cool in the switched-off oven will reduce the risk of cracking (though that’s nothing I’d get a headache over).