suemunzlinger's Recipe

Cheesecake

Category: Desserts

I got this recipe off an Argo Cornstarch box around 1965.

Preheat oven 325

ingredients

1 pound of small curd cottage cheese
2 (8) oz packages cream cheese, softened
1 pint sour cream
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1/3 cup cornstarch*
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup unsalted butter ( 1 stick)
1 9" springform pan
Gramham cracker crumbs

Grease a 9" springform pan with solid
shortening, and dust it with graham cracker crumbs

seive (or puree) cottage cheese into a large mixer bowl.

add the softened cream cheese and beat well
blend in the sugar and beat at high speed trying not to overbeat the cream cheese.

beat in the eggs one at a time on low speed


on low speed add the cornstarch. lemon juice, vanilla,

add the melted butter and sour cream and blend together on low speed

Pour into prepared springform pan **See Note
Bake at 325 for 1 hr and 10 minute and cake is firm around edges

Let stand in over for 2 hours.
Chill completely and remove from pan


To Prevent Surface Cracking:

Bake the cheesecake in a water bath to keep the oven moisture high and the heat gentle.
If you use a water bath - wrap the bottom of your springform pan in aluminum foil and place it in a larger pan with water in it, just halfway up the outside of the springform pan. Make sure the foil is wrapped around pan good because some springform pans will allow water to seep in.

**(Note I put the springform pan into another cake pan to keep the water from seeping in. Then I put them both into a larger pan, like a roasting pan, and then pour hot water in the roasting pan until it is about 1/2 way up the side of the pan sprinform pan is sitting in. I like this better then wrapping the springpan in foil but both work and have done it both ways)

Don't overbake the cheesecake. When perfectly done, there will still be a two to three-inch wobbly spot in the middle of the cheesecake; the texture will smooth out as it cools.

Cheesecake will shrink as it cools. Generously greasing the sides of the baking pan before pouring in batter will allow the cake to pull away from the pan as it cools and shrinks instead of pulling apart from the middle.

Cheesecakes have a tendency to crack, but they don't have to. One cause is air trapped inside the batter - a result of over-mixing. Once in the oven, the air bubble expands and wants to escape from the cake. As it finds its way out of the top of the cake, it creates a crack or crevice in the cake's surface. Another cause of a cracked surface is a drastic temperature change.

Be sure to mix your cheesecake batter well, eliminating all possible lumps in the cream cheese BEFORE you add the eggs. It is the eggs that will hold air in the batter, so add them last, and mix as little as possible once they are in the mix. Do Not overbeat

Also, be sure to cook your cheesecake gently. Don't bake your cheesecake at too high a temperature (I recommend baking cheesecakes at 300-325 degrees F at the highest) The egg proteins will overcoagulate from too much heat which eventually shrink when cooled, causing cracking usually in its center or tiny cracks all over its top.

turn your oven off and leave the cheesecake inside the turned off oven for another hour. Cool at room temperature with a plate or cookie sheet inverted over the cheesecake to slow the cooling. Only then can you refrigerate the cake, which you will need to do for another 6 hours at least.

If after all this, you still have a crack, make a topping or a sauce for your cheesecake, and tell all your guests that you intentionally made a special crack in the top of the cake to hold more sauce!

Cheesecakes with *cornstarch or flour added to the batter do not crack as easily from overbaking. The starch molecules will actually get in between the egg proteins preventing them from over-coagulating. No over-coagulating, no cracks!! Some bakers add extra insurance to a cheesecake recipe that doesn't contain cornstarch or flour, by simply adding 1 tablespoon to1/4 cup of cornstarch to the batter with the sugar.

With today's trend to produce larger and higher cheesecakes and to bake them without the benefit of a waterbath, they tend to overbake at the edge before the center of the cake has reached the temperature necessary to set (coagulate) the eggs. Your cheesecake will tend to form deep cracks upon cooling.