Basic Baked Cheesecake Recipe
I swear these autoimmune conditions are in my life just to disturb the peace. These last few days I have been feeling a little anxious and a little deflated. For no apparent reason, so I have to blame it on my thryoid. Nothing like a cheesecake to lift my spirits. This makes quite a big cheesecake so I shared some with my neighbour and I had enough for a few days. So here goes my Basic Baked Cheesecake Recipe.
This is a rich and creamy cheesecake. I have another very similar recipe, given to me by a friend from a very popular restaurant. It is super delicious and I wish I could the share the recipe but unfortunately I can’t. So this is the closest you will get. I am not going to lie about it not being rich, but the great thing is that you don’t need a huge piece to feel totally satisfied and therefore it’s enough to feed a crowd.
It is a Basic Baked Cheesecake Recipe because you can add just about any topping to it. I often drizzle caramel on top, my family’s favourite topping. Today I just added the berries on top just for prettiness. You can add some berry coulis or fresh berries, chocolate, lemon curd, there are so many options to customize this cheesecake just the way you like it. It’s why I love this recipe so much.
Baking a cheesecake can be tricky. I always struggle getting it out of the pan and making it look blog worthy. Today I tried lining my pan with parchment paper, all around, usually I only line the bottom of the pan. It seems to have worked wonders. So here I am presenting to you a beautiful Baked Cheesecake. No disasters today and yes it does look blog worthy and it’s absolutely tantalizing.
When working with cream cheese and mascarpone it must be at room temperature. It is harder to beat cold cream cheese and it won’t be smooth. So be sure to take your cheese out the refrigerator at least an hour before using it.
Whenever I tried baked cheesecake recipes it never called for flour but I started adding a little flour to my recipes. I found that when I add the flour it actually prevents my cheesecake from sinking after it’s cooled down. I am no scientist but it’s just my observation. Everytime I baked one without flour it always sank once it was cool.
They say baking it in a water bath always helps with the sinking but I disagree as it’s never worked for me. However, I still bake mine in a water bath because this helps with the even baking of the cheesecake and prevents it from cracking. I always bake my cheesecake at a lower temperature because the cheeescake needs to bake slowly and evenly and you don’t want the top turning brown.
Basic Baked Cheesecake Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 x 200 gram digestive biscuits or tennis biscuits
- 85 gram melted butter
Filling
- 500 gram cream cheese
- 250 gram mascarpone cheese
- 1/4 cup castor sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 385 gram condensed milk
- 1 tsp vanilla paste
- 3 tbsp cake wheat flour or all purpose flour
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius. Place the biscuits into a food processor and process until it resembles fine breadcrumbs
- Mix in the melted butter
- Line a 22cm springform pan, bottom and sides of the pan, with parchment paper
- Press the biscuits into the base using the back of a measuring cup, swril the cup around a little to get some of the biscuit to the side of the pan. Ensure that the biscuit crumbs are pressed firmly into the pan
- You can refrigerate whilst you make the filling
- In a large bowl beat the cream cheese until smooth, add the castor sugar and beat until it's well incorporated. Mix in the mascarpone together with the vanilla paste. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, just a few seconds each. Mix in the condensed milk and flour. Do not over mix
- Pour the filling into the biscuit base and bake at 160 degrees Celsius in a water bath for 45 minutes or until cooked. The center will be slightly jiggly and the cheesecake will be a little brown. Remove the cheesecake from the water bath and leave it to cool in the oven with the door slightly ajar. You can place a wooden spoon to keep the oven door open.
- Refrigerate for 4 hours. Loosen the pan and gently remove the cake off the base using the overhanging paper. Slide cheesecake off the paper
- Drizzle some caramel over or decorate as desired
Notes
- Not everyone agrees you need a water bath when baking a cheesecake, when baking little ones I don't use one. But if I am baking a large cheesecake I don't want to take any chances so I use one anyway. All you need is a large baking pan, filled halfway with warm water. Wrap the cheesecake pan in foil and then place in the water bath and bake.
- If your biscuit base feels a little crumbly add a little more melted butter. If you want the base to go all the way around the cheesecake you can use more biscuit
- I know it sounds like a lot of sweetness because of the added sugar but trust me for the amount of cream cheese and mascarpone you do need that extra sugar but it's not overly sweet
- If you don't have vanilla paste you can use a tablespoon of vanilla essence
- Although I topped my cheesecake with caramel you can use sour cream, berries or a berry coulis, or even chocolate. Whatever you prefer
- When lining my pan I have a little piece of the parchment paper hanging over, it's easier to remove from the pan. After lining the base I place it into the springform pan. I then place the little strips on the side of the pan so it slots into the little gap between the base and the wall of the pan and then tighten the pan
Hi There. Firstly, thank you for your amazing blog. Really super helpful stuff on here. With this particular recipe, I wanted to find out if one could use it as a building block for any flavour (i.e. strawberry or lemon in particular)? Any tips on that?
Hi Lesedi! Thank you so much. Yes it is a basic cheesecake so you can add lemon to it or you can make a strawberry or berry coulis and drizzle it over. You can try caramel or chocolate drip. The possibilities are endless. Enjoy:-)