My basic cheesecake recipe gets praise that I have to accept as I am not a big fan of cheesecake so not the best person to rate cheesecakes. What I have found is many people like cheesecake that isn’t as dense as many traditional “New York Style” cheesecakes. My basic recipe yields a cake that is a bit creamier due to the addition of heavy cream and baking it to a lower final temperature (145-150 F/ 63 – 66 C). See my article on use of a temperature probe to constantly monitor baking temperature.
Once I got the recipe sorted out, I would sometimes get cakes that ended up with a crack. A crack doesn’t affect the taste but isn’t visually appealing. So, my journey to figuring out how best to bake a cheesecake that consistently came out without a crack began.
Most of the suggested approaches utilize a water bath to surround the cake while it is baking. My first attempts at this used aluminum foil to create a barrier between the water the cake pan. Needless to say, not every time did I get the foil just right to keep out water. The crust would get a little soggy.
To avoid this problem, I purchased a silicone wrap that works perfectly to keep out water.
While I got less cracks, even when I got the foil right or used the wrap, I would still get a crack occasionally.
Next were directions to control the cooling process. Some recommended turning off oven and cracking the door open with a wooden spoon and allow the cake to cool slowly. Still got a crack occasionally.
One reason I think is the cake remained in the water bath so was still “baking” since the water was hotter than the cake. Taking pan out of water bath helped a little bit but didn’t markedly change the crack occurrence.
Another suggestion was to free up the cake from the sides of the pan so that as it cooled the cake was free to contract. Run a paring knife around the edge to free it from the sides. Still got a crack occasionally.
The light at the end of the tunnel was when I considered what the water bath was doing. Water when it boils holds its temperature at 212 F (100 C) until all the water has turned to steam. The water bath is intended to slow the rate and final temperature of the cake while it is baking.
Most of the recipes that included using a water bath baked the cake at 325 (163 C) or 350 F (177 C). If the water bath is doing its primary job of controlling the rate of the cake baking and can’t go above boiling point why not just lower the temperature of the oven. My thought was why not go to about the temperature of boiling water and do away with the water bath?
With that in mind I did some researching to see if others had considered this. I found a few recipes that lowered the temperature to 300 F (149 C) and just a few that said take it all the way down to 200 F (93 C). Some recommend a period of time at a very high temperature (450 F / 232C)) and then lower to 200 F (93 C).; tried that and got the biggest crack I have ever gotten.
My process now uses 200 F (93 C) as the baking temperature for cheesecake and no water bath. I monitor the cake temperature using a temperature probe (see article). With the temperature probe no need to open oven, set a timer or guess when the cake is done.
So far baking at 200 F (93 C) for the entire time yields a creamy cake with no cracks. For my convection oven I set it on convection and 225 F ( 107 C) which the oven adjusts to 200 F (93 C). When the cake reaches 145 F (63 C) I turn off oven and take the cake out. Allow it to cool to room temperature, put in refrigerator over night and then take it out of the pan next day. If you like your cake a bit firmer you can raise the final temperature a few degrees.
One thing I have noticed is if the cake has a topping such as cookie pieces you may still get small cracks adjacent to the cookie piece. One thought is to leave them off until the cake cools and then put them on top.
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