London Cheesecake

Allright, allright, allright. The stress is (at least partly) out of town and the fun moved back into our apartment. All kinds of crazy is waiting at my doorstep. And I am sure to let it in some moment soon, but first - I am going to make a cheesecake. And enjoy the sight of something completely new and exciting down the way, along with cup of coffee and a smooth and creamy piece of cake.
I hope you all have a great week ahead of you!

Ingredients

150-200g digestive cookies
80g butter, melted
600g cream cheese, room temperature
130g granulated sugar
3 large eggs, room temperature
3 large egg yolks
1 ½ tbs. vanilla extract
1 ½ tbs. lemon juice

Topping
100-150g sour cream
1 tbs. granulated sugar
½ tsp. vanilla extract
your favorite jam

This recipe is from the divine Nigella Lawson, who introduced to us the method of baking cheesecake in a water bath. But, first things first. You process the cookies until they are fine crumbs (or you smash them with a rolling pin, very satisfying), add the butter and process again until everything’s combined. Press into a springform pan and put in the refrigerator to set. Then beat the cream cheese with the sugar and the rest of the ingredients until smooth (everything at room temperature!). Fill the mixture into the pan. 

Here is the twist: you double line the outside of your pan with foil so that it covers the bottom and no water can come inside the pan. Preheat the oven to 175°C. Put the cake pan onto a deeper baking tray or roasting pan and fill it with recently boiled water from a kettle, so that comes up the half of the cake pan. Do that when it’s already inside the oven, otherwise its way too heavy to lift. What happens that the cake is almost steamed, rather than baked, so it becomes super smooth and satiny. Bake for 50 minutes, than smear the sour cream mixture on top and bake for another 10 minutes. Take out and let cool.
Warm the jam in a sauce pan, drizzle over and serve! I know this sounds like an awful lot effort for a simple cheesecake, but it wasn’t half as bad as it sounds like and I promise it’s worth it!