New York Style Cheesecake
I have baked a lot of things so it’s hard to imagine that I have never made a New York Style Cheesecake! I have made a full size pumpkin cheesecake and several flavors of mini cheesecakes, but never the staple of the cheesecake world! Which brings me to a couple questions that Aubrey had: Why is it called NY style and what makes it NY style rather than a “plain” cheesecake?
Well, there’s a worm hole to go down. I started looking for answers to those questions and an hour later I have found a gagillion cheesecake recipes that I want to try! There are a couple links below that have some “need to try” recipes.
https://www.epicurious.com/recipes-menus/12-excuses-to-bake-a-cheesecake-gallery
Back to the questions. The New York moniker is easy enough. That’s where this style of cheesecake originated. The difference between a plain cheesecake and NY one was also fairly easy to find. One site stated it this way: “What makes a New York cheesecake official is its dense texture, which feels so smooth and rich you can’t eat more than a small-to-medium slice without regretting it later. Because it’s heavy.”
Taste of Home says, “Almost all cheesecakes are rich and decadent, but New York cheesecake takes it to the next level! This ultra-indulgent version relies on lots of cream cheese, heavy whipping cream and eggs to achieve that signature silky-smooth taste. All of these ingredients also make New York cheesecake so tall. Standard cheesecake recipes are maybe an inch or two thick, but New York-style is often double that.”
For this recipe, we used two different recipes because we wanted a graham cracker crust rather than a cookie dough crust. For the filling we used “Lindy’s New York Cheesecake” recipe from one of my favorite cook books, Mom’s Best Desserts by Andrea Chesman & Fran Raboff. It is my go to for classic recipes and we will go back to this book later this year for other classic baked treats. The apple pie and strawberry rhubarb pies are family favorites! For the crust, we used the “New York-style Cheesecake” recipe from the Bake From Scratch cookbook by Brian Hart Hoffman.
One other note before getting into the thick of it. I knew this day would come so I want to point out again that we are not “baking bloggers” in the sense that our goal is not to provide you with a recipe that has been tested by us several times until it is perfect with perfect photos. This blog is about our experience baking things that we have never tried before and sometimes they aren’t going to be as pretty as we would wish them to be. There’s only one shot at a first time! We actually learn a lot from those that don’t live up to our expectations. So, having said that, this bake turned out delicious even if it didn’t look as appealing as we wanted.
Ingredients
For the Crust:
- 1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
- 1 T sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
For the Filling:
- 5 packages (8 ounces each) cream cheese, softened
- 1-3/4 cups sugar
- 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
- 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
- 5 large eggs
- 2 large egg yolks
Method
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
- For Crust: Using a pastry brush, brush 1 T melted butter on bottom and sides of a 9-inch spring form pan.
- In a medium bowl, stir together graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and salt. Add butter, stirring to combine. Press mixture into bottom of prepared pan. Place pan on a rimmed baking sheet, and bake for 12 minutes. Remove from oven, and let cool for 15 minutes.
- For Filling: To make the filling, beat the batter by hand. If you use an electric mixer, avoid beating on very high speed because this incorporates too much air into the cheesecake and causes it to rise (and fall) like a soufflé. Use a large mixing bowl and beat the cream cheese until it is creamy and smooth. Combine the sugar and flour and beat into the cream cheese. Add the lemon zest, lemon juice, and vanilla. Beat in the eggs and egg yolks, one at a time. Mix well after each addition. Beat in the cream, mixing until smooth. Pour the cheese mixture into the crust lined pan and smooth the surface.
- Bake the cake for 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes, until the center appears set but not firm.
- Set the cake in a draft-free location until completely cooled; the cake will become firm as it cools.
- Gently run a sharp knife around the edge of the pan. Refrigerate until thoroughly chilled. Remove the sides of the pan and serve.
Our Experience
First, for our substitutions. We like to use whole grains in our baking whenever possible. Last year, while looking for a sugar free, “whole wheat” pre-made graham cracker, we learned something we had never known before. Graham flour is whole wheat flour!! It has a very interesting history that you might enjoy reading (I know I enjoyed finding it out last year). Sylvester Graham was ahead of his time in realizing that taking the healthy parts out of flour would lead to unhealthy people! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_flour
Our other substitutions included using Philadelphia 1/3 less fat cream cheese and a mixture of sugar substitutes (allulose, xylitol, sucralose). As stated in previous posts, we like to mix the sugar substitutes because the “negatives” of each are less noticeable or offset by the positives of the other substitutes.
First item of business was to get graham cracker crumbs…which means graham crackers and a food processor.
times to make crumbs. We wanted them pretty fine.
Next, we added the sugar and salt to the crumbs, melted the butter, then combined everything.
We used a flat bottom glass to press the crumb mixture in the pan. We didn’t butter the sides and bottom as directed in the recipe; we used Pam butter spray instead. The Mom’s Best recipe called for pressing the crumbs up the sides but the recipe we used for the crust did not, so, we weren’t sure if we’d have enough and decided not to press it up the sides.
other than the browned edges, so only one photo needed.
While the crust cooled, we started the filling. By the time we were done with the filling the crust would be cooled enough to pour it right into the pan and start baking. First step was beating the cream cheese. The 1/3 less fat cream cheese doesn’t seem as solid as the regular version which makes it pretty easy to get it nice and smooth. We chose to use the KitchenAid and made sure not to use a high speed. There was so much cream cheese; the bowl was pretty full.
the lemon juice, zest, and vanilla in the smallest bowl.
Look how full that bowl is!! You can barely see the attachment.
Once the batter was ready, we poured it into the pan with the cooled crust and then tapped the pan on the counter to get any big air bubbles out.
We noticed within about 8 minutes that the cheesecake top was cracked quite a bit, but, since we didn’t do a water bath, we almost expected that to happen. In the past, the pumpkin cheesecake I made was a little under baked because I wasn’t sure how “wobbly” it should be before taking it out of the oven. That experience probably influenced how long we kept this one in the oven. We didn’t want a raw cheesecake (better overdone than underdone). The crack didn’t get much bigger as it baked but it was like the Grand Canyon to us even though we knew it would shrink and fall back down as it cooled, we weren’t impressed!
golden brown color was another feature of a NY style cheesecake.
The cheesecake was pretty brown and Paul Hollywood would tell us it was
overbaked. Most of the NY cheesecake blogs we read beforehand mentioned
that it should be brown, but this was probably too brown.
texture of the filling was exactly what we were looking for, thick and creamy.
What we liked.
This cheesecake got mixed reviews, not because it wasn’t good, because it was delicious, but because it wasn’t the “flavor” that some expected. Since it had lemon zest and juice, there was undoubtedly a lemon flavor in the filling. I loved the subtle lemon flavor, 3 thought it was OK just would have liked less, and 1 absolutely hated the lemon and refused to eat more than one bite. As for the texture and the crust, the cheesecake got 5 thumbs up. The filling was thick, creamy, rich and decadent while the crust was buttery and cookie like. The reduced fat cream cheese had virtually no affect on the creaminess. The sugar substitutes didn’t crystalize (which is always a concern) and I, personally, couldn’t taste them at all. All told, 5 out of 5 agreed that it would be a “keeper” as long as there was no lemon flavor (of course, I would have kept as is).
What we would change.
Aside from the lemon issue, the baking method would probably be what we would change. Many cheesecake recipes call for baking them in a water bath or a bain-marie. Other recipes like ours, did not call for one. The water helps to keep them from baking unevenly and from cracking. We knew about the water bath before we started and we (stupidly) chose not to use one. When we make another cheesecake, the water bath will be a necessity, whether the recipe calls for one or not. With the water bath, we may or may not need to reduce the cook time. The cheesecake didn’t taste burned at all and I (secretly) like the browned edges but, it could be a little less brown so cook time might be reduced to achieve that.
What we learned.
First, we should thoroughly read the notes in the recipe book before beginning. The Mom’s Best actually had a graham cracker crust listed in the notes but we thought it was just information on the origins of the Lindy’s cheesecake. That wouldn’t have changed much other than saving us time and moving from one cook book to another. Obviously, while we didn’t actually learn how to do the water bath, we learned that we must do it in the future. If you want to know how to do it, this is a good site to visit.
Overall, I loved the cheesecake despite its ugliness. I try to eat healthy so I had to use a ton of willpower to keep myself from eating a whole piece! I think I had half a piece down in 30 seconds. This is a delicious recipe and I have no doubts that if we make the changes discussed, it will be a keeper.
Until next week, Happy Baking!