A Cheesecake so Light, I Can Eat Two slices

I’ve had a love-hate relationship with cheesecake—not as an eater but as a baker. There’s something ridiculous about putting 2 pounds of cream cheese into a mixing bowl with a few eggs. Seriously, are we just reshaping the cream cheese? When Japanese cheesecake showed up on my radar, I thought, “Finally!” This is a cake with cheesecake flavor, but a completely new texture and a consistency that doesn’t make me feel like taking a nap.

I made our Japanese Cheesecake having eaten other versions at bakeries in New York City, so I knew what I was looking forward to—fluffy, airy-light cheesecake with a little bit of bounce. Whipped egg whites are the hero of this recipe, providing stability and—crucially—aeration. The presentation is so impressive it makes you think, “I could never make this at home.” But you would be completely off base.

The recipe calls for only eight ingredients, and for the first time in the history of cheesecake, you only need one standard 8-ounce block of cream cheese. In most cheesecakes, all that cream cheese makes up the bulk of the batter. In this one, air provides a substantial amount of volume. Cream cheese and butter are melted down in a pan and whisked with flour and egg yolks. That mixture is then lightened with soft peak-whipped egg whites. The “hardest” part of this recipe is lining the pan with a parchment paper collar. That is to say, it’s easy, if not slightly tedious.

An hour later you’ll open the oven to a towering, lightly browned cheesecake. Instead of creamy, thick and dense, this dessert is more of a cheesecake-meets-pound cake. I don’t normally write about slicing, but I have to call this out. You know how most cheesecakes require you wipe the knife with every cut so you don’t get clumps catching on the blade? You won’t have to worry about that here. Use a serrated knife and this one slices with picture perfect edges. (Surely someone else can appreciate that.)

I love bringing this cake to parties; it’s a bit fun and unexpected, an airy cheesecake that isn’t dense or even creamy. You can grab a slice with your hand and eat it while you chat and mingle. Admittedly, the cream cheese flavor is nowhere near as intense as it is in a New York cheesecake—it’s much more subtle. You’ll have to change your expectations there, but that’s not a bad thing.

Want even more cheesecake? Try some of our other favorites:

• Ricotta-Semolina Cheesecake
• Triple Crème Cheesecake with Guava Sauce
• Basque-Style Cheesecake
• Chèvre Cheesecake with Black Pepper–Graham Crust

Baking Tip of the Week: A water bath doesn’t have to be a tub

This recipe, like many other cheesecakes, calls for a water bath in the oven. You set the cheesecake’s pan in a larger vessel and fill the space with a 1/2 inch (or more sometimes) of hot water to bake. This creates a steamy environment and allows for more gentle cooking. It’s a little fuss for a lot of benefit.

While many recipes will call for a 13 x 9-inch dish as the water vessel—or in our case, a roasting pan—the water bath doesn’t have to be huge. It just needs to be big enough to hold your cake pan with some clearance around the edges for a meaningful water barrier, around 1-2 inches.

I used an oven-safe skillet as my water bath this time. It was about 2 or 3 inches in diameter larger than my cake pan and it worked perfectly well. The added benefits are that you won’t need as much boiled water as you would if the pan were much larger, and in this case, I had a nice handle to assist with moving it all into the oven.

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Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

Allie Chantorn Reinmann is a Digital Staff Writer for Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street. She’s a Thai-American chef who earned her diploma for Pastry and Baking Arts at The Institute of Culinary Education and worked professionally for over a decade honing her craft in New York City at places like Balthazar, Bien Cuit, The Chocolate Room, Billy’s Bakery and Whole Foods. Allie took her know-how from the kitchen to the internet, writing about food full-time at Lifehacker for three years and starting her own YouTube channel, ThaiNYbites. You can find her whipping up baked goods for cafés around Brooklyn, building wedding cakes and trying her hand (feet?) at marathon running. She’s working on her debut cookbook and lives in Brooklyn, NY.