Agent D had to work the whole of last Sunday so I had a girls’ day out baking session with Ivana over at her place (which by the way is super nice, like a hotel. I’m so going to self-invite myself more often from now on hehe).
Ivana and I wanted to bake something no-frills i.e. something that wouldn’t require buying a lot of additional ingredients and has an easy to follow recipe. After some online research, we eventually settled on…THE FLUFFY JAPANESE CHEESECAKE.
Japanese Cheesecake (Soufflé Cheesecake) fresh out of the oven!
We got our Japanese cheesecake recipe from Just One Cookbook. The original recipe can be found here: http://www.justonecookbook.com/japanese-cheesecake/.
We followed the recipe quite closely throughout. The only tweak we made was that we used coconut palm sugar instead of normal white sugar (hence the brownish tinge in our cheesecake). It turned out surprisingly well, the gula melaka flavour complemented the cheesecake nicely. Plus it didn’t feel sinful at all – not too sweet, very light and fluffy. TASTES REALLY GOOD SERVED COLD. 🙂 🙂 🙂
Gula Melaka Japanese Cheesecake Recipe (Makes one 9-inch cake)
Ingredients
Picture of all the ingredients needed.
- 400 g cream cheese, at room temperature
- 60 g coconut palm sugar
- 60 g unsalted butter, cut into ½” (1 cm) slices, at room temperature
- 6 large egg yolks, beaten, at room temperature
- 200 ml heavy whipping cream, at room temperature
- 10 ml lemon juice
- 80 g all-purpose flour
- 6 egg whites, refrigerated [for meringue]
- 100g coconut palm sugar [for meringue]
*Before prepping, remember to keep cream cheese, butter, egg yolks, and whipping cream at room temperature.
Instructions
- Lightly grease the bottom and sides of a 9″ (23 cm) spring-form pan with butter and line the insides with parchment paper. Wrap the base of the pan with aluminum foil to prevent seepage.
Parchment paper on the inside and aluminium foil on the outside.
2. Preheat oven to 320F (160C) degree. Start boiling water.
3. In the electric mixer bowl, beat cream cheese and coconut palm sugar on medium-high speed until smooth.
Cream cheese and coconut palm sugar.
4. Add butter and mix thoroughly.
Butter added!
5. Add the egg yolk and whipping cream. Mix well. (Remember to separate the yolks from whites earlier on!)
6. Add lemon juice and mix until the batter is very smooth.
7. Add in the sifted flour all at once. Mix well.
8. Transfer the batter to another large bowl. Wash the mixer bowl and dry completely. Make sure there is no oil or water in the mixer bowl.
9. To make meringue, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. In the electric mixer bowl, whip the egg whites on medium low speed (speed 4) till opaque, foamy and bubbly. Then add ⅓ of the sugar at a time as the mixer runs. Once all the sugar has been added, increase the mixer speed to high (speed 10) and whip for approximately 4 minutes, until the meringue has doubled in volume and is thick and glossy.
Add ⅓ of the sugar at a time.
10. To test for stiff peaks, the peaks should stand straight up when you lift up the beaters. The whites should not slide around. If the meringue has not reached the desired consistency, continue whipping at high speed for another 30 seconds, then stop and test again. Once the egg whites are over-beaten, they can’t be used for the recipe.
Stiff peaks??
11. Add ⅓ of the meringue to the batter. Mix well first.
12. Then add the rest of the meringue all at once and fold it in (don’t mix this time).
13. Pour the batter into the cake pan. To remove any air bubbles, drop the pan from 2-3″ (5-7 cm) high to the counter top several times.
14. Place the cake pan in a water bath with 1″ (2.5 cm) of boiling water. Place the baking pan in the middle rack of the oven.
In water bath 2.5 cm high.
15. Bake at 320F (160C) for 60 minutes or until light golden brown. Then reduce temperature to 300F (150C) and bake for another 30 minutes.
A wefie with our cake before it goes into the oven!
RISING. *so exciting*
16. When a wooden chopstick/toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean without wet batter, turn off the oven. Let the cake sit in the oven with the door slightly ajar for 15 minutes. After that, cool the cake pan on a wire rack.
Pock face cake cooling on the wire rack.
17. When the cake is completely cool, refrigerate it for a few hours before serving. Cut the cake with a warm knife (run the knife under hot water and dry it before each cut).
