I had such wonderful advice from you about the cracked cheesecake (thank you!), and I was inspired to try again. This time, I used the recipe from Rose Levy Beranbaum’s The Cake Bible, an oldie but goodie (published in 1988!).

Look Ma, no cracks!

2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
3 large eggs
3 tablespoons lemon juice – freshly squeezed
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups sour cream

Heat oven to 350 F. Boil water in a kettle. Wrap springform pan in 2 layers of aluminum foil. (I put it on like an upside-down tablecloth.) Spray with Pam+flour spray. Have a large roasting pan ready to use as a water bath. This recipe calls for an 8″ pan, but my springform pan is 7″ across. I cut everything by 1/3, but the original recipe proportions are shown above. I also used the same graham cracker crust as I did for the first cheesecake.

Beat the cream cheese and sugar until very smooth (~3 minutes) with the whisk attachment. Beat in the cornstarch. Beat in the eggs one at a time, scrape bowl between each egg. Add lemon juice and salt. Mix in the sour cream.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Set the pan in the roasting pan and add hot water from the kettle until it is 1″ deep. Bake cake for 45 minutes, turn off the oven, and leave the cake there for 1 hr. Remove it to a rack and cool to room temperature (about 1 hour). Cover with greased plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. To unmold, wipe sides of pan several times with a towel run under hot water and wrung out. Run a thin spatula around the sides and release the springform pan.

The texture was totally different than that of the first cheesecake. This one was much fluffier and creamier, the other was denser and drier. The top stayed pale and very soft (the first cake felt sort of like smooth leather on the top).

As it turned out, Matt preferred the first cheesecake. He thought this was was too lemony (“like that children’s aspirin”), and he liked the drier texture of the other cake. Of course, that didn’t stop him from scarfing up a large portion of this one! We did have a friend and her 3 kids come help us eat this cake, though, so we’re not about to have heart attacks just yet.