My recent attempts at cheesecakes

Cheesecakes are expensive affairs. I say that not only in monetary terms but also because they are too high on calories. I always felt these were reasons good enough not to try one and satisfy my cravings by buying a slice (yes one and only one) from the bakery. It wasn't until recently i thought why not, lets try it at home, and here is what i went through in the process;

At first i started looking through some recipes provided by local tv channels and saw that most of them made the no-bake type of cheesecake by adding gelatin to a relatively small amount of cream cheese and whipped cream. I looked up online and most of the no-bake types there were without gelatin and used a larger quantity of cream cheese. So i decided to go with the local recipes and chose an oreo cheesecake as my first attempt, it turned out as it was supposed to and it tasted good too but....

.......yes there is a but!

But it was a cheesecake that was set using gelatin! It is not how a cheesecake is supposed to be like in a perfect world. So then it was hard to stop me and i just had to try the PROPER cheesecake, the one that is baked .

I looked up a simple recipe at joyofbaking.com and made individual cheesecakes. This is a picture of how they turned out.

Not so pretty right? And a cheesecake just has to be pretty, that is the beauty of it. I found it pretty wrong that they were baked in a muffin pan using muffin/cupcake liners because the liners left an imprint which was really unbearable for me to look at. Jaworski says in the recipe to dip a knife in warm water and smooth out the sides but that didn't work so well for me. Secondly, for some reason, the tops of these mini cheesecakes sunk after a while. I had to put caramel sauce to hide that. But apart from all that, they tasted great. Tender and creamy and just the right amount of sweet. 

So the next time i thought i will make them in a proper loose bottom, round mini cheesecake tray. I have ordered one from a local store and it will be in my hands soon.

Meanwhile i decided to try the same recipe for a 9" cheesecake, Stephanie Jaworski has done the same on her website.  The cake this time looked fine and didn't sink from the top, but it was a little hard and not as moist and tender as the individual ones i made. What did i do wrong? i still have to figure that out with a third attempt. And when i do, i will share the result with you all. Till then, ciao. 

Recipe References:

Individual Cheesecakes