What I Learned While Baking Cheesecake

Hello World

This past week happened to hold my birthday and I decided I wanted a cheesecake for my birthday

cake. Not a no-bake cheesecake, but a true New York-style cheesecake. This was also my first attempt. Sadly it didn't work out quite as well as I would have liked, but that means it was a learning experience. As expressed in the extremely underrated Disney movie Meet the Robinsons "From failure, you learn. From success...  Not so much." I also figured that I could share what I learned with you so that maybe you can avoid making the same mistakes. Knowledge is an invaluable tool. Even if you have made multiple cheesecakes, maybe there is something you didn't think of. Also if you have more tips then leave them in the comments below or tweet them at me at @AWitchyMama2020.

1. Use Parchment Paper

Ok, so this may seem like a no-brainer but when I first bake something I follow the directions pretty

much to the T and the directions did not tell me to use parchment paper. All they told me to do was to lightly spray the inside with oil. While yes this worked, you can't really take the cheesecake off the bottom of your springform pan, but if I had used parchment paper then I would have been able to transfer the cheesecake onto the cake tray with no problem. I also think the sides could have come out a bit neater if I had put parchment paper around the sides. Then I don't have to separate the cheesecake from the pan with a butter knife leaving less chance of messing up the edges. I don't think I'll ever bake a cheesecake without using parchment paper again.

2. How to Properly Seal a Springform Pan

The main problem that I had was that my pan leaked. If you didn't know, because I didn't before reading

the recipe, springform pans are not perfect and may let the water in, which will naturally ruin your cake. Now I did seal it, but the way I did it did not work. Luckily it wasn't enough water to ruin the cake completely, but I did have to bake it on low out of the water to dry and bake the bottom half. This didn't fix it 100%, but it did at least make it to where I could remove the outer pan. So, what is the best way to seal a springform pan? When you wrap the pan in foil make sure the foil goes a little above the edges of the pan, then crimp the foil up under the edges. This way water has absolutely no way to get in. I had tried to just seal around the bottom because for some reason I thought that would be enough, alas I was wrong.

3. Have Patients

I am a pretty impatient person, and when it comes to baking I'm sadly no different. There were a couple

things that I didn't let mix quite long enough and that caused there to be some slight chunks in the batter. Luckily it wasn't super obvious in the taste but I wonder if it would have been better had I stayed patient and just let the mixer do its thing. Obviously, I still need to scrape the sides, but I also need to let everything mix properly. This mainly means for me I need to walk away and clean up the mess I've started to make. That way I'm still right there. Also, we cut into that cake way too early. The cake probably should have sat for at least another hour, that most likely would have kept the cake from crumbling. I just really wanted my cake.

Overall, my first time baking cheesecake wasn't that bad. After it sat in the oven for a bit I was able to take it out of the pan. It did kind of sink a little bit and the sides spilled out some, but that's fine. The cake was still cooked all the way through and it tasted fantastic. If you want to make the same recipe I did you can find it here. As I said before if you have any other tips leave them below!

Thank you so much for reading!