Cheesecake – Jewish style

Some cheesecakes are set with gelatin and have smooth, jelly-like texture. This cheesecake is baked and sets due to its whipped egg. When chilled it has an appealing dry, soft, crumbly texture. My recipe doesn’t fuss over beating things separately and folding them together. Nor does it fuss over the cheese: I use the soft cheese bought in tubs. These are light soft cheese; full fat soft cheese and marscapone. Ricotta is one I might try but the recipe below is already perfect. These wet cheeses cost similarly eg £5 – £6 a kilo. You want I pay more?

Ingredients:

• 8 crushed digestive biscuits £0.40. You’ll have a soft, imperceptible base if you don’t add melted butter to the crumbs – the butter holds the base together on its way to a plate but that may not matter. You might use slices of sponge cake instead of biscuit
• 150g (caster) sugar cost £0.25. (If you use ‘Stevia’ please add a comment to say how much you used)
• 3 eggs (£0.75)
• 675 g soft cream cheese (£5 for 800g 4 tubs of Tesco Full fat soft cheese). I have used similar amounts of cream cheeses such as curd cheese, mascarpone and ricotta. I detect not a blind bit of difference by doing so.
• 3 tablespoons of plain flour £0.01
• Pinch of salt + 1 teaspoon lemon juice + 1 teaspoon vanilla extract £0.25
• 150ml double cream £0.60
• Cooking cost £0.80

Costs:

For comparison with bought cheesecake this recipe cost is £6.70 or 16 slices at £0.42p. However this style of cheesecake is rarely found*. Its weight is 1140g making a cost of £6.10 a kilo. That price is from 2022 when fillet steak hit £35 a kilo.

Calories? Let’s not be ridiculous, go for a long walk. *There’s still a bakery at Stamford Hill, London which when I lived there in 1980, was my benchmark of good cheesecake.

Method:

1. Warm the oven to 185 degrees C
2. Generously grease the inside of a loose-bottom 9 inch (23cm) spring-base cake tin. Layer the bottom with the biscuit crumbs and press down with a smaller tin. Adding melted butter to the crumbs gives a base that holds together.
3. Beat together the eggs and sugar until creamy (pic)

4. Beat together the cheese, flour, salt, vanilla, lemon juice and cream in a larger bowl (pic)
5. Blend the two lots together and spread the mixture on the biscuit base
6. Bake for 40 – 50 minutes on the middle shelf at 185 degrees C. The cake should rise to the top of the tin and go brown on top. If there’s too much wobble in the centre when it’s already brown turn the heat down (to say 170) and cook it more.
7. Turn off the heat and leave the cake in the oven to cool. It will flatten to half its height. Although it’s delicious warm, place in the fridge for 1-2 hours to get more texture.
8. Run a knife round the inside of the tin and release the cheesecake from the side. As my tin base has a lip I remove, and eat a slice first and then ease the cake from the base.