Japexican On the GO!: Special for the sweet tooth; Japanese Cheesecake.

Cheesecake is, by far, one of my favorite desserts; it is simple to make, super versatile and is extremely hard to fuck up. While I was living in Taiwan, I got introduced to Japanese Cheesecake (yeah, in Taiwan, not Japan), an odd and amazing cousin of the cheesecake we all know and love. It is a fluffy, light and wobbly goodness with a very subtle flavor, perfect to finish any meal. It basically is the lovechild of cheesecake and soufflé.

Lately I've been seeing it popping up a lot in western style bakeries and in more and more of your Facebook feeds, so I thought, fuck it, let's get a recipe out there that is easy and delicious. So, get off your couch and gather ingredients, because when you are done with this you will be impressing even the most picky of your friends, the secret behind this is, that it looks so fancy and hard to make but in reality it is simple as fuck. So, here is the Japexican way of making Japanese cheesecake!

Khalua is optional but highly recommended.

Look at that fluff!

You will need:

Sugar. About 125 grms. Fine caster sugar.
Flour. About 60 grms.
Corn starch. About 20 grms.
Salt. A pinch.
Vanilla. A teaspoon of extract.
Heavy Cream. 100 ml.
Cream Cheese. About 200 - 225 grms.
Butter. 80 grms.
Eggs. 6 big ones, separate the whites and yolkes.
A double boiler. I use a stainless steel bowl on top of a pot with simmering water. The water should not touch the bowl.
A cake form. This time I used my rice cooker pot and it worked great. But you want a form that is at least 20 cm in diameter and is at least 15 cm deep, the cake will rice quite a bit in the oven. You can line the cake form with parchment paper to give the cake more room to expand to.

Ingredients

Let's get to it!

Put the egg whites in the fridge, you will want them cold.
Preheat the oven to 180 ˚C, set a tray full of water at the bottom, you want the inside of the oven to be nice and steamy.
On your double boiler melt your butter and start adding the yolks, one at a time, while whisking energetically.
Slowly add the heavy cream in a thin line, keep whisking energetically.
Add the cream cheese in small portions, whisking energetically.
Add the pinch of salt.
Gradually add half of the sugar while whisking, make sure the sugar dissolves before you add more. Reserve the other half.
Mix the flour and cornstarch, slowly sift into the egg-cheese mix. When you are done, the texture should be shiny and as thick as pancake mix.
Take the egg whites out of the fridge and start beating them, a hand mixer works best set to max. If you are brave and have a lot of arm strength/stamina, you can try doing it by hand with a whisk or fork… good luck.
When it starts getting foamy, slowly add the rest of the sugar and keep beating them.
You are looking for shiny soft peaks.
Fold the whites into the egg-cheese mix, slowly.
Prepare your form, grease and dust with flour. Slowly pour the cake mix into the form. You don’t want to make abrupt movements, if you do, the air bubbles inside will colapse and you will end up with a dense cake.
Put the cake in the oven and turn the temperature down to 160 ˚C. Once in the oven, don't open the door to check, if you do, your cake will collapse.
Bake for 30 min. After that, turn the oven off and leave the door closed for 10 more minutes. Once that has passed, slightly open the door and let cool for 2-4 hours inside of the oven.
Best is to refrigerate overnight, or at least 2 hrs.
Decorate with confectionary sugar/cocoa powder/matcha powder.
Serve with a little bit of whipped cream.
You are done, impress your friends.