Gemma's Best-Ever New York Cheesecake Recipe

Hi Bold Bakers. New York style baked cheesecake is a must for your repertoire and I have to say that I think my baked cheesecake is 5 stars, possibly better than The Cheesecake Factory but you guys are going to have to be the judge of that. As always the recipe can be found on my website. We're going to start out by making the crust. Here I have some crushed Graham crackers. You can use digestive biscuits, vanilla, cookies, whatever you like. I have some melted butter. I'm just going to mix these two ingredients together to make the crust. So mix it together until it resembles wet sand. And you know some people add sugar into the cookie crust. I just don't see the point in that because your dessert, the filling you're putting on top is already sweet, so you want to have something that's maybe not as sweet. So here's my springform pan and it's going to add in my cookie crust. What I personally like to do is go in with my clean hands. It just means that you can just feel underneath your fingers like how you think it is, and if it's nice and even. So there we go, lovely. Here's what we're going to do. Pop this bad boy into the fridge just for a few minutes while we make our filling. So to make our filling, I'm going to use my electric stand mixer. You can also use an electric hand mixer. You want something that's going to whip up that filling really well. I got a lot of questions about this and it is a Wolf gourmet stand mixer. It's really great. So let's talk cream cheese. I recommend using brick cream cheese for making cheesecakes because it's much firmer and not as soft and it just makes for better cheesecake. Also leave it at room temperature for like 1 two hours or so. It just makes it so much easier to whip up and get rid of any lumps. Into this, I'm going to add in some sugar. And then I'm going to turn my machine on to a medium speed and let this slip up really well. And like I said, get rid of any of those lumps. So this mix is looking nice and loose here I have some lemon I'm going to just grate in some lemon zest, so this is a plain baked cheesecake, but it has a little bit of lemon which is adds lovely flavor and some lemon juice. Get that in there and then of course my favorite, vanilla extract. These two ingredients just give a lovely pump of flavor to this cheesecake and then while the machine is still going, I'm going to add in my eggs one by one. Let it beat up and then add in the next one. If you want to turn your machine on high speed for this, so they combine, that's totally fine. OK, so last you're going to add in a little bit of flour and this just helps to firm up your cheesecake. Give it a bit of a mix And there we go. OK, perfect, this is ready to be poured onto our cookie crust. As you can see it is really big cheesecake and it is going to take some time to bake so we're going to pop this into the oven. So here's a little trick for you. I put a tray of warm water just below my cheesecake. Now the reason I do this is because I don't bake my cheesecake in a water bath. What I do is I put a little bit of trade in there and it just kind of helps to regulate the temperature, not let it get too hot, and hopefully that will stop your cheesecake from cracking. And if it cracks, it's not the end of the world. OK, so come here to me, when your cheesecake is done you will know it is because it would still have this lovely jiggle in the middle. Do you see that that is what you're looking for? That's how you know the cheesecake is perfect, so here's what we're going to do. Let it set, let it chill cool down in that and then what you want to do is put it in the fridge for minimum of a few hours, but preferably overnight. The longer you give it, the more it gets colder it sets and then it's perfect to cut. you. You can serve it as is, but I'm going to put a few cherries on top of mine. Look at that, Kevin, get in here. You're going to love this. I’ve been waiting for this all day, Gem. That is a legit New York Style cheesecake, better than The Cheesecake Factory. This is amazing. It's rich, it's creamy. It's like a cream cheese cloud. That’s one cloud that I want to dive straight into. Well done, Gem. Delicious. So I want to know if you guys think this recipe is better than The Cheesecake Factory. And make sure to share your photos with us when you make it. And we’ll see you back here again really soon. Bye guys. So delicious, light and airy. I love the crust too.