Japanese · Dessert
Japanese Cotton Cheesecake
- Advanced
- 40 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, acid holding everything up to the light.
Ingredients
- 250 g full fat cream cheese
- 60 g unsalted butter
- 100 ml whole milk
- 6 eggs, separated (about 300 g)
- 60 g plain flour
- 20 g cornflour
- 140 g caster sugar
- 5 ml lemon juice
- 1 g fine salt
Equipment
Sheet pan
The skills inside
Whipping a meringueThe bare simmer: holding liquid below the boilThe wobble & the skewer: testing a bake
The words inside
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy · egg
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Melt the cream cheese, butter and milk together in a bowl set over barely simmering water, whisking until it is smooth and pourable, then take it off the heat and whisk in the yolks and salt.
- Sift the flour and cornflour over the top and whisk until not one lump remains; the batter should fall from the whisk in a thick ribbon.
- Whip the whites with the lemon juice, adding the sugar in three lots, only until a lifted peak bends over on itself; whites taken stiff tear the batter as you fold and split the top in the oven.
- Fold a third of the whites in to slacken the batter, then fold in the rest in two lots, stopping the moment the streaks disappear. Pour into a lined 18 cm round tin at least 7 cm deep, or an 18 cm tin lined with a baking paper collar standing 4 cm proud of the rim, wrapped outside in foil.
- Stand the tin in a roasting tray of hot water and bake at 160C (325F) for 20 minutes, then at 130C (265F) for a further 50 minutes, until the centre wobbles as one mass. Turn the oven off and leave the door ajar for 15 minutes before lifting it out. 20 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Whipping a meringue 40 recipes
- Bowl and whisk are clean and dry with no trace of fat or yolk. Grease prevents the foam outright, and there is no recovering a bowl that had it partway through.
- The sugar went in gradually once the whites were already foaming, rather than all at once at the start.
- No grit: a little rubbed between finger and thumb feels smooth, so the sugar has dissolved into the foam rather than sitting in it.
- Stiff peaks means the tip stands with a slight bow when the whisk lifts, and the bowl can be tipped without the mass moving in it.
- Glossy and smooth rather than chalky or dull, with no liquid gathering underneath it in the bowl.
Where it goes wrong It was whipped past stiff peaks. A minute beyond glory the protein network tightens and tears, the foam turns grainy and matte, water weeps out beneath it, and folding that into anything gives a mixture that collapses on the way to the oven.
The wobble & the skewer: testing a bake 135 recipes
- Tested at the true centre and the thickest point, not at the convenient edge: the edge is done long before the answer is.
- The skewer comes out as the recipe describes, clean and dry or carrying the stated moist crumb, and it does the same on a second test in a different spot.
- The wobble is read in motion: nudged, the centre moves as one set mass with a faint tremble, rather than a liquid ripple travelling across the surface.
- The other signs agree with the test: risen and just shrinking from the sides, the top set and dry to a light touch with no wet gloss on it.
- Pressed lightly at the middle it springs back and leaves no lasting dent.
Where it goes wrong It was judged on the clock and on how the edges looked, so a centre still liquid went to the rack and sank as it cooled, a dense wet seam under a perfectly browned top.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Moscato d’Asti
- Also Right
- Late-harvest Riesling
- From the Taps
- Witbier
- Zero-Proof
- Sparkling elderflower
Citrus desserts need a wine sweeter than they are, with acid enough to keep up: light, frothy, and low-proof wins.
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