Cotton cheesecake (IESP)

From this earlier post that compared cheesecake recipes, I decided to try out the very detailed recipe from I Eat I Shoot I Post that uses the bain marie method because the previous recipe that I tried has a very high failure rate - 66% failure (2 out of 3 attempts). Even with the 1 successful attempt, the cheese still sank to the bottom of the cake on the 3rd day as it it separated. Strange. I thought maybe putting the cheese in a bain marie to 'melt' it might help it to amalgamate better with the milk than just putting in warm milk and butter.

This recipe has about half the amount of liquid and everything else remains almost the same except there is 20g more sugar and uses 1 tbsp of lemon juice instead of 1 tsp.

However, the cake hardly rose. At first I thought that my tin was too big (I used 9" instead of 8") but Craft Passion followed his recipe and also mentions that a 9" tin can be used if the 8" tin doesn't have a 3" height. So I can only surmise that my cake didn't rise because 

1) I had to take it out of the oven about 2 mins after it first went in when I realised that the oven temp was about 150 deg C!

2) The sides were TOO non-stick - is that possible? And it had nothing to cling to. I used oil rather than butter which seemed to be less dense compared to butter and very slick. I had attempted to use corn starch to coat the sides but so much stuck on and I gave up. Maybe if I use non-stick spray/oil, I will have to use corn starch but not if I only use butter.

3) Oven temp? Did I cause the temp to fall too suddenly during the 160 deg C baking round?

Craft Passion suggests 200 deg C for 12 mins, 140 for 30 mins, off for 30 mins, open door and remove water bath for last 30 mins. 

Also with the same recipe, Chinadoll uses a 8" pan and suggests 200 deg C for 15 mins, 160 for 30 mins (tented), off for 20 mins, 120 for 10 mins with bottom grill only, open for 30 mins.

4) Somehow my springform pan (even though it is PushPan) may have 'caught' the cake because I had inserted the bottom in wrong way around in my haste?

5) Did not beat it enough. I was told to beat to just before soft peaks and under beating was better than over beating. But this occurred! I don't think it rose much, not that it deflated (ie reason #1).

Anyway, might have to try again and at least eliminate most of the reasons above.

Looked ok in the tin

Ingredients

250g cream cheese (Philadelphia brand only)

6 yolks, separated

140g caster sugar (not fine or super fine)

100ml full cream milk

60g butter

2 tsp vanilla extract

¼ tsp salt

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp lemon zest (optional)

Method

1) Separate the eggs just out of the fridge. 

2) Do all the other prep work: line the pan with a base of parchment and butter the sides. Weigh out all the ingredients. Boil the kettle. Prepare a tin with a cloth at the bottom. Melt the butter until ¾ way (1 minute on 80% power) and then pour in fridge cold milk. Microwave till about finger warmth (about 1 minute 80% power).

3) Boil a pot of water and insert a glass bowl that will sit on the pot but not touch the water. Use a scissors to cut the cream cheese into cubes and set aside to melt. 

4) Once liquidy, remove from the heat and add in the yolks 2 at a time and whisk. Add half of the sugar. Whisk till smooth. Add the milk and butter mixture and whisk again.

5) Add in the vanilla, salt, zest, and juice and whisk. Set aside. The batter temp should be between 50 to 60 deg C now.

6) Beat the egg whites, adding ⅓ of the sugar at a time after it turns foamy opaque. Whisk till just before soft peaks. 

7) In the yolk batter, fold in the sifted flours. Try not to beat too vigorously as you don't want to form gluten.

8) Pour in ⅓ of the meringue into the yolk batter and incorporate with a whisk. Next, transfer in another ⅓ of the meringue and folk in carefully. Finally, pour everything back into the meringue bowl and this time, very carefully folk through until no whites remain.

9) Pour into the prepared tin. The batter should be very pourable and liquid, like pancake batter. Using spatula, run zig zag strokes through the batter to burst big bubbles. Place in the bigger tin with the cloth, and pour in the boiled kettle water. Place everything at the bottom ⅓ of the oven.

10) Bake at 200 deg C for 17 mins to brown the top (mine only took 17 mins to achieve the browness I liked but the original recipe was 18 mins), then lower to 160 deg C for 12 mins (this means letting the temp lower gradually until it reaches 160 deg C in the oven at the end of the 29/30 minutes. I had to tweak my controls between 100 to 150 deg C to achieve this effect.) Switch off the oven but don't open it and the temp should fall to 110 deg C in 25 to 30 mins. 

11) Remove the tin from the water bath to prevent condensation at the bottom. Leave the oven door ajar and leave the cake inside for a further 30 minutes to cool. Unmould when still warm but cool enough to handle. Only put in the fridge after it is completely cool and it is nice served chilled.

Why so flat?

Update Attempt 2 

using CraftPassion's timings of 200 deg C for 12 minutes, 140 (i did 150) for ½ hour, off for ½ hour, and open oven for ½ hour. The cake developed a waist! It rose beautifully initially but then seemed to shrink. See how the top seems to have hardened but only on 1 side, the side that browned the most - dried out? Also, it developed a slight crack, but only after the 30 minutes of closed oven door, huh? I surmise that having a high temp and then turning down and eventually cooling by residual heat seem like a bad idea. Much better to cook for a long time at a lower heat.