New York Cheesecake

Smooth, tasty and skyscraper-high. My treasured method for making New York cheesecake throws the old, laborious cheesecake rules out of the skyscraper window, with a little help from thermodynamics.

A proper baked cheesecake has that special, ruffling, creamy texture and nuanced tang that makes it worth switching the oven on. I’ve made hundreds of cheesecakes in my career and made all of the classic mistakes along the way. I ran with all of the basic ‘rules’ of cheesecake-making, everything from fussy hot water-baths to tempering your ingredients the day before. After a while you begin to question these annoying rules and whether they still necessary. So I streamlined a method with the Occam’s razor that throws all of those unnecessary, fussy rules and rituals out of the window (and let it be a skyscraper window at that). It still produces an outstanding cheesecake that many have declared they’ve eaten. I am going to walk you through this straightforward, foolproof cheesecake recipe and I’ll explain why it works as we go. It’s no joke though: it requires a colossal 3lbs of cream cheese and a long rest after baking, but your hands will be busy for just 15 minutes. All I can say: I wish this was the recipe somebody gave me many years ago. So, now, here it is for you. You got it here first. Let’s go!