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I will never forget the day I tried cheesecake for the very first time and fell head over heels in that single moment.
It was Christmas Eve. We were having our traditional appetizers for dinner and my mom had made a cheesecake for dessert. For some reason it freaked me out. I mean a cake made out of cheese? It felt like something was very wrong with that.
But after some persisting that ‘I would love it and it would very much be my loss if I didn’t at least try it’ I took the plunge and landed right into heaven.
At the time I couldn’t believe dessert could taste any better than that glorious slice of creamy deliciousness, and I still don’t believe it could.
Between then and now I have made too many cheesecakes to count. I’ve experimented with different textures, flavour, colours and proportions. I’ve made some seriously awful cheesecakes and some incredibly wonderful mouthfuls of perfection.
Over time I’ve learned some great cheesecake tips on how to create them perfectly every time, and am super excited to share them with you!
Triple Chocolate Cheesecake with Caramel Sauce and Salted Peanuts
Use room temperature ingredients
It’s really important to use room temperature ingredients when making cheesecake because they incorporate better with each other. This makes the cheesecake much smoother.
Whip the cream cheese well
Whip it good! I used to use a hand blender to whip the cream cheese so I would end up never whipping it enough. Looking back it was so so sad. Chunky cream cheese.. so sad.
One year for Christmas my husband gifted me with my most cherished kitchen tool… my KitchenAid Stand Mixer! Five years later it is still the star of my kitchen, in all of it’s neon pink glory!
You want to whip the cream cheese until smooth because the smoother it is, the creamier our cheesecakes will be! However, you want to stop the machine as soon as the cream cheese is smooth because we want to avoid air bubbles.
This brings us back to point 1. Room temperature ingredients. The warmer they are, the quicker they smooth out and mix together which means fewer air bubbles.
After you pour your cheesecake batter into the springform pan, you can gently tap it on the counter to release any air bubbles that are trapped inside.
Why add cornstarch to cheesecake?
I never used to use cornstarch, but now that I’ve started I could never go back! It really helps to prevent cracking. If you don’t have cornstarch you can replace with flour in my recipes.
Classic Cheesecake with Strawberry Sauce
Grease your pan!
Grease your springform pan well! Cheesecakes shrink as they cool so if your pan isn’t adequately greased it will stick to the edge as it shrinks causing yucky edge cracking and chunks missing! So sad.
S’mores Cheesecake
Water bath for Cheesecake
Water baths are amazing! They seem very daunting, believe me, before I got the hang of them I would never ever use them! Then I would always end up either baking my cheesecake for 6 hours + to avoid cracking, or end up with a cracked cheesecake! Here are detailed instructions for how to do a water bath.
First wrap your springform pan in heavy duty tin foil.
Fold and press the tin foil tightly to the pan.
Place the pan into a roasting pan and pour boiling water in until it comes halfway up the tin foil. (Not halfway up the pan)
The water should come up about 1/2-1 inch up the pan, but make sure the water doesn’t come near the top of the tin foil because you don’t want the water to get inside the tin foil and make the cheesecake soggy. Less is better than more in this situation.
Don’t over cook it!
Keep an eye on that cheesecake! You want the edges to be puffy but the center to still be jiggly! Over cooking will create extra cracking and a dry cake!
S’mores Cheesecake Parfait
How to cool a cheesecake
Cooling the cheesecake slowly is very important to prevent cracking. I like to keep my cheesecake in the oven for an hour with the door propped open with a wooden spoon, then set it on the counter until it comes to room temperature before refrigerating overnight.
Lemon Blueberry Swirl Cheesecake
I hope you found these Cheesecake Tips helpful and are now excited to test them out on cheesecakes of your own! If you ever have any questions, please don’t hesitate to email me or leave your question in the comments below.
Looking for some delicious recipes to try? Click on the cheesecake links in this post to check out some of my favourite cheesecake recipes!
