How to avoid a crack in a cheesecake is when you're almost done in the oven, you want to
ajar your oven and let it just kind of come to temperature gradually in the oven. Then take it
out to your kitchen counter and let it sit. I guarantee you won't crack. That's a big guarantee
I'm Diana Moles, VP of Research and Development at the Eli's Cheesecake Company
We specialize in a Chicago-style cheesecake which is creamy and rich and full of cultured
notes on a shortbread crust. And that's what I'm going to show you how to make right now
What we're going to start with is butter, and then we have confection sugar, and a little
bit of salt and flour. Room temperature butter. And we're just going to go ahead and add that to our mixing bowl
We're gonna start mixing this on, you know, medium. Just kind of break up the butter
And so once we get the butter kind of softened, we're gonna start adding the powdered sugar
I'm gonna add a little bit of the salt. And then we're gonna add the flour
which I'm gonna go on a lower feed because I don't wanna overwork the flour
So right now it kind of looks like this. Like little beads, you know
We're gonna just dust our surface a little bit. And I'm going to work this with my hands
Don't be afraid of it, okay, because you really can hurt it You know you trying to just incorporate your ingredients to where you get like this texture that we looking for this dough texture All right so we got this dough like it all put together now
and you just kind of want to mold it like this. As you can see, I kind of put it in a disc form already so that it's easier to do the nine-inch pan
Dust the rolling pin a little bit, just so you don't stick, and we're just going to roll this out
I got it to the thickness that I kind of want. About an eighth of an inch maybe thick
I'm going to use the form of the pan to cut my disc out
And the pan is different than your normal cake pan. The plate removes from the bottom
And then we're just going to cut the circle right out. Now I am going to slide the dough right on top of this pan
And we're going to bake right into this pan here. Before I put it in the oven, I want to dock it
Docking is just taking a fork and putting holes right into the dough
This way it allows the air to flow through and you won't bubble
The crust is done. Bake it for 12 minutes at 350 degrees
So we just took our crust out of the oven and it's nice golden brown
And as you can see, it's nice and smooth on top from the docking. Before I mix my batter, I want to make sure my pan is prepared
The trade secret, and I learned this over the years, is just vegetable oil and a little bit of flour
Mix the two together, and it acts like a really nice coating on the side of the pan
You'll get a beautiful crust and a very easy release when it's time to remove it from the pan
So now it's ready to go ahead and start making the batter, which we'll start with cream cheese
which is the backbone to a cheesecake recipe granulated sugar flour sour cream eggs salt and good quality vanilla This is about two pounds of cream cheese
that we're adding to the KitchenAid bowl with the paddle. If you want the perfect cheesecake, this is a good test to do
Just scrape it, get underneath the paddle, because, you know, things lodge under there
and lumps in a cheesecake doesn't taste good. And before I add the sugar
I'm just going to incorporate all my dry ingredients with the flour, sugar, and salt
Now, this will help you kind of incorporate that flour without lumping
Eli Shilman came up with this recipe in the late 70s. The recipe was developed in his steakhouse kitchen
He knew that he could make the best cheesecake because he wasn't happy with what he was getting
and he worked hard on that recipe until he got one that he really enjoyed
And that's the recipe we are making right now. It hasn't changed
Turn this on. Go a little bit higher. Because now we're doing a creaming method to add the sugar and flour in the dry
So we're going to let that beat a little bit for about a minute or so
And once I start seeing like it's turning fluffy, then I know we're really close
So we're going to do a scrape and then I'm going to add the eggs
So we are going to add two eggs and one yolk to our mixture right now
And then I'm going to scrape the bowl again. Okay so now we going to add our really nice vanilla one teaspoon And I going to add our sour cream Sour cream really gives you a nice tangy flavor Okay so we are getting to look beautiful in here I mean it almost looking like
ice cream. So you got this beautiful color. See how light and creamy that looks and it kind of
holds its marks when you run the spatula through it means you did a good job
It also means that you scraped really well. I'm going to deposit the batter into our prepared pan
Remember that we greased this with a trade secret. And we're going to just go ahead and put this right in
So I'm just going to smooth the surface out because I don't want those marks to bake in
that way, so I'm going to just kind of level it out. We're going to bake this at 375 for 15 minutes
Then we're going to turn the oven down to 250, and then you'll probably continue cooking
for about 40 to 45 minutes. I removed the cheesecake from the oven about 45 minutes ago, so it's nice and cool, and
I can show you how to release it from its pan. It's perfect temperature
You want to do it when it's slightly warm. So when you remove it, it just slides and glides right out
We have a beautiful cheesecake. To cut a cheesecake, it's best to chill it in the freezer for a while
Get it nice and firm so you get nice, clean cuts. And there you have it, a Chicago-style original cheesecake