Lemon Meringue cheesecake

HI EVERYONE!! This is my second ever blog post where I will be sharing more about how I attempted to make this delicious tangy lemon meringue cheesecake (my first time making cheesecake) for my grandfathers birthday celebration. After writing my first blog post, I realised that i would need some sort of system to help me get consistent with my entries, since they are pretty tiring to write. So i decided that every Sunday, i would have to write in some sort of blog entry, whether it be something cool i tried that i would want to recreate, something i made myself, something i wanted to reflect on or any sales i did. Thus, this blog is now titled “sundayzcrumbz” and you can look forward to seeing entries every.single.week

JUMP TO RECIPE

Now enough yapping. Let’s get into this cake !

Name : Lemon Meringue Cheescake

Description: Buttery digestive biscuit crust with a thick layer of zesty, smooth, tangy lemon cheescake topped with lemon curd and a sweet toasted meringue

Flavour Rating: 7.5/10 (quite sour so it depends on personal preference. Some might find it too sour but to me its perfectly tangy and tart)

Difficulty rating: 8/10 (have to use some stuff like a water bath, double boiling, complicated baking time which i will elaborate more on later, as well as overnight resting time for the cheescake to firm up. Soo there's a pretty high screw up rate. Good thing is that it stil can taste pretty great no matter how much you screw it up)

Occasion: Birthday cake for my grandfathers birthday celebration!

Baked VS No bake cheescake?

Now this is a very common question for those other lazy people like me, who wonder. WHY ON EARTH WOULD I PUT SO MUCH EFFORT TO MAKE A BAKED CHEESCAKE WHEN NO BAKE CHEESCAKES EXIST? yes yes. I totally understand because i thought the exact same thing.

Taste & texture :

Baked cheescakes have a richer, deeper and more classic flavour profile than no bake cheescakes. They are also firmer in structure.

No bake cheescakes are usually lighter in taste and do not have a very firm structure.

Ingredients and baking method:

Baked cheescakes incorporate eggs inside the batter. They also require quite obviously, for you to bake it. So the crust is baked first, then the cheescake (which needs to be baked in a water bath) for an hour or so. In addition to that it has ot stay overnight in the fridge to firm up.

No bake cheescakes often use heavy whipping cream and gelatin instead of eggs to help it firm up and ensure that it doesn't turn into soup the moment you take it out of the fridge.

Ultimately, it depends on how much time you have, ingredients you have on hand and flavour profile you are looking for. I have yet to make a no bake cheescake but when i do, i will definetly write another blog about it and will let yall know whether the baked cheescake is worth that much more effort.

Pan

For a cheescake you are gonna want to be using a springform pan, which is a pan that allows you to remove the sides from the base easily. This is pretty important to use as it will allow you to easily remove the cheescake from the pan wihtout damaging its delicate structure.

Water bath

A lot of you might be wondering - what the heck is a water bath and why does my cheescake need to have it? Well, a water bath is practically a large basin with warm water which you place your cheescake pan inside. This helps to prevent the cheescake from cracking at the surface since the steam from the hot water will lift the cheescake up slowly and evenly. However, since you have to use a springform pan for cheescakes, where the base and the sides are like two separate parts that can be detached from each other, there is a small groove at the bottom of the pan which can allow some water to pass through if not properly covererd. In order to prevent this from happening, there are a few methods to use.

Covering the bottom of the pan with aluminium foil
Placing the cheescake pan inside a bigger pan which is then put inside the larger basin of water

I personally used the first method, where i covered the bottom of the pan with 3 layers of aluminium foil. However, i highly suggest that you use the other method because even with these layers of aluminium foil, the water from my water bath STILL managed to get into the cheescake and cause the crust to get a bit soggy...

The soggy part of the crust which i had to scrap off and throw away.

Later on when i went online to find out if others faced the similar problem i did, i saw hundreds of videos of people also complaining that their cheecake base turned soggy when they only used aluminium foil to cover the base. Instead i found out that using method 2, in which you place the pan that you bake the cheescake in, into a larger pan then into to basin of water, it will fully prevent any water from entering your cheescake since there is no leeway for gaps to allow water to pass through.

Another way for water to seep into the cake is if you pour the water in the basin before placing it in the oven, as when you are carrying it into the oven, it could spill over and go into the cake pan. So if you can, i also suggest pouring in the warm water only when the cake is placed in the oven so that you dont have to struggle with this. In the case that your cheescake base still somehow manages to get soggy (idk maybe your bigger pan also has a hole in it or you still choose to use the first method), dont worry too much. You can still save the cheescake by cutting out the parts that are soggy (they should be paler in colour), then putting the rest of the cheescake in the fridge where the base will become crunchy again. Thats exactly what i did and after a day in the fridge (which it has to spend anyways so that the cheescake can firm up), it was perfectly fine!

Complicated bake time

When it comes to baking cheescakes, you can't really use the normal traditional methods to check if its ready, where you poke a stick and see how much batter comes out or wait until the top looks nice and golden brown before you take it out. When making cheescakes you have to check if its ready using something called the "Jiggle test". If you gently shake the pan which the cheescake is in, the optimal time to stop the baking is when you see the cake jiggle a bit like jello and the whole top moves togetehr as one. When is is underbaked, the top will wiggle like water. When it is over baked, it won't shake at all and will show some dark parts on its surface with some tiny cracks)

When i baked this cheescake, the recipe called to bake it for 1h 10 minutes. However at the 55 minute mark (15 minutes before I was supposed to take this out of the oven), i realised that the top was already browning a teeny bit and there were a few cracks. When i did the jiggle test, it still did jiggle a bit but it was on the furhter end of doneness, so if i could do this again, i would give it even less time in the oven. Good thing about cheescakes is that they are usually covered up at the top with some decoration, which in my case was the meringue. Soo no matter how ugly it looks, it still can be saved and will taste delicious!

Crust

Personally, one of my favourite parts of having a cheescake is having the deliciously buttery and crunchy crust at the bottom which goes so well with the tangy cheescake. I think the best part of making the crust is the fact that you can totally DIY it by crushing up your favourite biscuit/cookie to use. Oreos, Biscoff, Digestive, Graham, you name it, you can use it. The only rule is that it shoudl preferably be a "dry" cookie, so no fillings inside it (if you are using Oreos, just remove the white filling and get a sugar rush as you roll the filling into a ball and down it).

Personally i LOVEE Biscoff, so in future cheescakes i will be experimenting with using this cookie as a crust instead. My mouth is already watering thinking about how good that would be, mmm. Another reason i love the crust of a cheescake is because i think it adds the perfect contrast to the tangy cheesecake. So for me i like to add a pinch of salt when making my crust base because it just elevates the taste so much more. Tangy, creamy cheescake with a crunchy, slightly slaty cookie base. Someone hold me back...

Last thing about the crust is that you are looking for the texture of wet sand and you want it to be sort of malleable (i dont think this is the best word to use but you get it). Basically, you need it to be able to somewhat stick to the sides of the pan, so it cant be too dry. In order to make this easier, try to mash up the cookies into super fine pieces (can be done through putting it in a bag and letting out all your anger by SMASHING it with a rolling pin) (or if you have a food processor you coudl just chuck it in there as well). Then add melted butter in small quantities until it feels like the right texture. If it becomes too wet, add more crushed cookies, if too dry add more butter. When putting it into the pan, dont worry if it doesn't stick too well to the sides yet, just have trust in it and press it firmly with the back of a cup or your fist to get it more compact. After it bakes in that shape, it will be much more firm. In my case, when I tried to press it along the sides, it didnt really stick super well so i cowardly just put all the crust at the bottom LOL. Either way works, again it depends on you.

Enough about the crusts for now, i think yall get how passionate i am about that part already.

Reflections

I think with baking, the key to improving and reaching one step closer to perfection in your desserts is to not be afraid to try and make mistakes. When i first came up with the idea to make a cheescake for this party and took a look at some recipes, i felt super intimidated because i have never worked with things like that before and it seemed like it had SUCH a high screw up rate while taking super long to complete. I nearly wanted to back out and just make a simple cake that I knew would not screw up and I wouldn't have to worry about.

In the midst of my complaining, my sister said "why are you complaining? Isn't it fun to spend time baking?" This really caused me to stop and think. Yeah, why am i complaining ah? I love baking. Isn't it fun to try new things and spend more time doing the things i love?

I feel like ever since starting this business and doing so many sales and orders with the goal of expanding my business and earning money, i forgot why i started this in the first place. I turned this hobby into just another task for me to complete. Another tick off my resume. But along the way I lost the reason why I started this in the start.

I enjoy baking

So yes while sometimes it will take a long time and might not turn out the best, it is still fun and i need to remember to just appreciate the process, not just the outcome.

I'm so happy that i decided to try making this in the end because i learnt so many new things and now i added another category into my baking catalogue! This is just the first step into the world of cheescake making and i will definetly soon be trying to make another cheescake again, this time fixing all the mistakes i made in the first time.

If you are now inspired to make a cheesecake after reading this blog, i have the recipe below so that you can give it a try as well and let me know how it turned out!

Recipe

Ingredients:

Cookie crust

250g any dry cookies (crushed)
1.5 tbsp white sugar
Pinch of salt
130g butter melted

Cheescake

600g full fat cream cheese (room temperature)
200g white sugar
80g full fat Greek yogurt/sour cream (room temperature)
2 tbsp corn starch
70g lemon juice (about 2.5 lemons) --> pls remember to take out the seeds...
1 tsp vanilla essence
3 eggs (room temperature)

Lemon curd

80g lemon juice
100g white sugar
1 egg + 1 egg yolk (you can save the egg white for the meringue later)
50g butter (cold)

Meringue

90g egg whites (3 egg whites)
180g white sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Instructions:

Cookie crust

Preheat oven to 160 degrees (conventional oven)
Crush up cookies and mix with melted butter, sugar and salt until has a texture that resembles wet sand.
Press with the base of a cup or your first until compact and firm. You can chose to do it on the sides or just the bottom!
Bake for 10 minutes and take out to cool after done.

Cheescake

Leave oven at 160 degrees.
Cream the cream cheese for 1 minute, then add white sugar gradually and continue to whisk for another minute, scraping down to fully incorporate the mixture.
Add sour cream/greek yogurt and corn starch to the mixture and continue to mix on low speed until smooth.
Add lemon juice and vanilla essence until combined.
Add eggs one at a time until combined.
Scarp down all sides in the bowl to ensure that all ingredients have been fully incorporated.
Put the batter into a the springform baking pan with the cookie crust and place in a bigger pan followed by a large basin that can be used to put water.
When placed in oven, add warm water about half the way through the large basin and bake the cheescake for 55 minutes until it passes the jiggle test.
When done baking, leave the cheesecake in the oven for another hour with the oven door slightly opened (can use a oven mitten or a spatula to create the space)
Take out to cool before covering the top with cling wrap and putting into fridge overnight for it to firm up!

Lemon Curd

In a small pot, add lemon juice, sugar, egg and extra egg yolk the whisk constantly with a whisk over medium heat until it starts to thicken.
When thickened, pour it through a sieve into a separate bowl and wait 2 minutes to let it cool down.
Add cold cubed butter and mix.
Cling wrap to seal the bowl and place into fridge overnight as well.

Meringue

Take a medium pan with a small amount of water and place over heat so that it simmers (not boil!)
Place a glass mixing bowl over the pan with water (ensure does not come into constant with water, only the steam), and whisk egg whites and granulated sugar until sugar is fully incorporated (test by touching the bottom of the bowl and ensuring that you can't feel any sugar granules still.
Take off heat and add vanilla extract then whisk for about 5 minutes on high speed until it forms stiff peaks.

Decoration!

Take out the chilled cheescake and spread lemon curd on the top (don't spread it to the very edge since the weight of the meringue will also push it and cause it to spill over)
Add whipped meringue and use a blow torch to finish it off. (Try to only do the blow torch before serving!) (If you dont have a blow torch, you can just use a lighter, it will just take much longer)

Cheesecake can be stored for up to a week in the fridge and 3 months in the freezer, but i highly doubt it will last that long! Meringue is freshest eaten on the day that it is put on so i suggest you to put the meringue and torch it right before serving for ultimate freshness

xoxo,

nadzcrumbz

sundayzcrumbz entry #1

recipe inspired from https://juliemarieeats.com/lemon-meringue-cheesecake/