I'm baking another Japanese cheesecake for our 4th Bake-Along anniversary with Joyce from Kitchen Flavours and Lena from Frozen wings. And this time, I'm baking a fail proof Japanese Soufflé Cheese Cake.
Fail Proof? Absolutely! NO Joke! Yay that I don't have to be lucky to bake this cheesecake!!!
Remember that I was having lots of problems baking another Japanese cheesecake at here. Great that I have manged to resolve my Japanese cheesecake baking problem and have learned a lot from my previous failures. Today, I'm going to use my new baking method to bake this recipe from Happy Home Baking. HHB said that this recipe is quite a fool proof recipe and I feel the same too. Before proceeding on, here are my Japanese cheesecake baking tips to share:
One: The recipe
Looking at my previous Japanese cheesecake failures closely, I have noticed that the Japanese cheesecake with lesser amount of flour / cornflour or higher amount of egg whites are really difficult to bake but this Happy Home Baking recipe and the previous one that I baked have never failed me. If you are not a confident Japanese cheesecake baker like me, please remember to choose the recipe wisely!
Two: The size of your eggs
Different eggs can weigh differently. Although the difference of each egg can be minor, I noticed that the accumulative difference in more than 5 eggs can cause detrimental failures in some fussy recipes like French macarons or Japanese cheesecakes. Nevertheless, it is always better to weigh your eggs if you are baking a fussy cake.
Three: The oven
Do NOT bake your Japanese cheesecake with fan forced function. Here are a few baking strategies that you can try:
1) According to ieatishootipost, you can bake your Japanese cheesecake in a preheated moderately hot (200ºC) oven with top and bottom heat plus steam bake for the first 18 minutes, lower the temperature to slow (160ºC) and bake for the next 12 minutes and turn off the oven and leave cake in the closed oven for 30 minutes. Open the door of the oven slightly at the end of the baking for 10 minutes for cake to cool.
2) According to HHB, you can bake your Japanese cheesecake in a preheated slow (150ºC) oven with top and bottom heat plus steam bake for 60 minutes.
3) According to me, you can bake your Japanese cheesecake in a preheated very slow (140ºC) oven with top heat with NO steam bake for 75 minutes. To avoid the top part of the cake to be over-heated, I have placed the baking rack in its lowest position and placed an empty tray on the highest position as a heat shield for the cake. For a nice browning top, I removed the empty tray at the highest position at the last 5 mins of the bake.
Having said that, I like to strongly emphasize that all oven can work differently! Please feel free to adjust your temperature setting and timing according to the optimal condition of your oven.
Four: Steam baking
I hate steam baking!!! ... because the different amount of water used for steam baking can create a lot of differences in the overall oven temperature. I have tried baking my Japanese cheesecakes with NO bottom heating and NO steam baking and it works! In this case, no worries for me!
Five: Cooling the cake
To minimize any shrinkage or collapsing of the Japanese cheesecake, I have adapted the cake dropping method which is also used by HHB to treat this cake and it works alright for this recipe!
Although the cake did shrink quite minimally, I'm not going to conceal the fact that the cake can look a little wrinkly after cooling. Hey, I did said that the cake is 不会失败 (meaning fail proof in Chinese) but didn't say that the cake is 不会缩小 (meaning shrink proof in Chinese)... LOL! Despite its wrinkly top, it did shrunk well enough into a reasonable look!
This lighter kind of fluffy cheesecake is quite different from the one that I have baked previously. This Japanese cheesecake is like a hybrid of sponge cake and cheesecake whereas the other one is slightly denser and creamier with a touch of fluffiness and slightly stronger milky and cream cheese taste. Which is better? I think the preference can be very subjective. I think both are equally good in their own way but my little boy said that this lighter one is his kind of cheesecake.
It is true! This is a fail-proof Japanese cheesecake recipe.
Instead of lining the entire cake pan with baking paper, I have greased the cake pan with Alfa One rice bran oil spray and line its bottom only with baking paper.
I have to separate 5 eggs to bake this cake. Clearly, this is an easy job for my Tovolo yolk out :)
Want to know how this Tovolo yolk out works?Click this
To start, I have to do this.
Allow the mixture to cool slightly before doing this...
I have included this sieving step to ensure a 100% non-lumpy texture.
Meanwhile, combine egg whites and lemon juice and beat until frothy.
While beating, add sugar gradually until the mixture reached its soft peak stage.
Do NOT use fan forced to bake Japanese cheesecake! This is the setting that I have used.
And, this is how I positioned my cake in the oven.
It looked really good when it is still warm but became wrinkly later.
Happy Birthday Bake Along!
It has been wonderful baking along with friends like Joyce, Lena and you?
Happy that this cake is fail proof and YUMMY too!
Here's the recipe that I have mostly adapted from Happy Home Baking
Makes one 8 inches or 20 cm round cake
A125g cream cheese, cut into cubes
60g unsalted butter, cut into cubes
B
5 egg yolks, 15g each125g milk
1 tsp lemon juice
75g cake flour (with 8% protein), sifted
35g corn flour, sifted
C
5 egg whites, 40g each1/2 tsp lemon juice
120g caster sugar
Using an oil spray, lightly grease the sides and the bottom of round removable-bottom or spring-form cake pan and line its bottom only with baking paper. Wrap the outside bottom of the pan with a piece of foil.
Place cream cheese and butter (ingredients A) in a large mixing heat proof bowl. Place the mixing bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and make sure the mixing bowl is big enough to sit on the top of the saucepan. While heating, keep stirring the cream cheese mixture until it looks soften. At this stage, it is ok if the mixture looks curdy. Remove mixture from the heat and set it aside to cool slightly (5-10 mins).
Whisk ingredients B into the cream cheese mixture one at a time according to the order of the ingredients list. Mix until mixture is just combined. Do not over mix. Pour mixture through a sieve to avoid having lumpy batter.Using an electric mixer with a whisk attachment, whisk egg whites and lemon juice (ingredients C) with a low medium speed until foamy. Increase the whisking speed to medium. While whisking, add sugar in 3-4 batches and gradually and continue to whisk at medium speed until soft peaks form. Please use medium and not the high speed as it forms smoother and smaller bubbles. Decrease the whisking speed to low speed and beat for another 1 to 2 mins which helps to stabilise the air bubbles.
Add the egg whites to the cheese mixture and fold well. Pour into the prepared cake pan and tap the cake pan gently a few times on your table top to remove excessive bubbles.
To bake, you can use either one of these options:
Baking Option 1:
If you have an oven that has top and bottom heating, you can preheat the oven at 150°C. Place the cake on a tray of boiling water and bake the cake with steam baking for 60 mins.Baking Option 2:
If you have an oven like mine that has fan forced or top heating options only, please do not use the fan forced option! Besides placing a rack at the lowest position of the oven, place another rack with a baking tray at the highest position of the oven. Preheat oven at 140ºC with top heat and bake the cake for 70 mins with NO steam bake. Remove the baking rack and the baking tray at the highest position of the oven and increase the temperature to 150ºC. Continue to bake for another 5-10 mins or until the top of the cheesecake turn golden brown in colour.Remove cake from oven and immediately drop the cake with the pan on at a height of about 30 cm onto the table top. This helps to prevent the cake from shrinking upon cooling.
Unmould the cake immediately after removing it from the oven. Place the cake on a wire rack to allow it to cool completely. Please be careful that the cake can be very hot when you do this.
Slice and serve the cake when it is completely cooled.
Happy BakingHere are our friends that have joined us for this bake-along. Please visit their blogs for more of their cheesecake baking.
Please submit your details if you wish to link your post with this bake-along. This linking tool is open from 7 to 16 May 2015.
An InLinkz Link-up
For our next bake-along, we are baking Mother-in-law's Madeira Cake Recipe: Domestic Goddess, pg 5 or here which is to be posted on 21 May 2015. Please bake-along with us! All you need to do is to bake this recipe and blog hop with us for the next 10 days.To blog hop with us, simply copy and paste this linky HTML code into your blog post where you want the blog hop list to appear. Make sure you are in HTML view/mode when you paste in the code. get the InLinkz code
Before using this linky tool, please make sure that: (1) Your post must be a current post. (2) Please mention Bake-Along in your post and link back to any of our hosts' Bake-Along post, (Joyce, Lena or Zoe). (3) Appreciate if you can display the Bake-Along badge in your post when linking up with us. Cheers!
Don't forget that I'm giving away this book, ABC Delicious Bake by Valli Little. This giveaway is open to ALL international readers and the submission ends on 19 May 2015. Good Luck!
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