My baking tips for a perfect cheesecake

Cheesecake is one of my favorite cakes to make. I have made many over the years, so it’s time that I share my tips for a perfect cheesecake!

Cheesecake recipe

I think it was the first cake I ever made without any packaging, because at that time cheesecake was still quite unknown in the Netherlands. I made a lemon meringue cheesecake with a Bastogne cookies base. Since then, I have made countless other cheesecakes and they are always a hit. So what makes the cheesecake so popular?

It must be the delicious creamy texture in combination with that delicious cookie crust. But while everyone seems to bake the most beautiful cheesecakes, yours keep cracking after you’ve baked them. The cheesecake crack seems to be the most annoying thing about this delicious pastry, but preventing it is easier than you think. To help you out, today I am going to give you some tips on how to make the perfect cheesecake, including how to prevent it from cracking.

Preventing cracks in your cheesecake

Let’s start with the technical side of things: how do you prevent your cheesecake from cracking? Despite the many theories circulating on the internet, I really only have one that seems to work best. It’s all about the temperature of your oven. In preparation for this article, I tried my basic cheesecake recipe again the other day and changed one thing. As you can probably guess, my cheesecake cracked. So now I know for sure that this is the ultimate tip.

To avoid having your cheesecake crack, bake it gently. An oven that is too hot will cause the cheesecake to bulge and rise. This will, in turn, cause the cheesecake to crack as it cools, and sometimes already during baking. This is because the top cooks first and then cracks. If you bake a cheesecake at a lower temperature, the cheesecake will rise much more evenly. This is because you avoid the cheesecake batter to rise excessively and crack open in the process. So you want to bake your cheesecake at a fairly low temperature.

Now finding the perfect temperature to bake your cheesecake can be a bit of challenge. Every oven varies in temperature so it might be easier in one oven than in the other. It also varies if you bake with a conventional oven or with a convection oven. So you might have to search a bit before you find that perfect temperature in your oven. In my oven it is always 150˚C (300 ˚F – conventional oven). You can start there and check if that works for your oven as well.

Another tip is to place a separate oven thermometer inside your oven to check if the temperature is actually correct. If you have an older oven the temperatures might be wrong and testing it with a separate thermometer might give you some answers.

Let the cheesecake cool

Once your cheesecake is nicely baked, leave it in the oven to cool. You can leave the oven door open a little if you like, but you shouldn’t take the cheesecake straight out of the hot oven and leave it to cool on the worktop. Once the oven and the cheesecake have cooled down, remove the cheesecake from the oven and put it in the fridge – the recipe will usually tell you how to do this. If you take it straight out of the hot oven your temperature difference is too big which results in another crack as the cheesecake filling cools down too quickly.

Hot water in the oven

Of course, tips such as using a water bath will also help you make the perfect cheesecake. However, there is a big disadvantage to using a bain-marie, and that is the risk of leakage. No one wants hot water running into their cheesecake. I wouldn’t recommend wrapping a cheesecake pan in aluminum foil and than placing straight into the water bath as it can still leak and it won’t get you the best results.

To avoid this, you can also place a oven dish with hot water on the bottom of your oven, as steam rises. I think this is the best way to prevent your cheesecake from cracking ans avoids a mess.

Don’t overmix

Of course, you don’t want too much air in your cheesecake either, as air bubbles increase the risk of cracking. So don’t overmix your batter for too long and tap your filled springform tin on the worktop or work surface a few times before baking to remove any large air bubbles. Use room temperature ingredients to ensure a smooth batter too.

Preventing side cracks

Not as common but sometimes your cheesecake can also crack at the sides of the baking pan. In order to prevent that you can run a knife along the edge of the pan. When the cheesecake cools it can sometimes shrink a little causing the edges to crack. Running the knife along the edge will prevent this from happening.

Cheesecake toppings

If you still have a crack in your cheesecake, the solution is simple. Make an overly tasty topping and no one will notice it’s a cracked cheesecake. Examples of tasty cheesecake toppings include mascarpone cream, meringue, lemon curd, fruit jelly or coulis. Or try this delicious cherry topping. Works brilliantly with every cheesecake!

You can also simply sprinkle a layer of crumbled biscuits over your cheesecake and top with whipped heavy cream.

Flour in a cheesecake

I have sometimes been asked whether flour in a cheesecake will prevent it from cracking. Personally, I had never heard of it. You use flour to bind, of course, but that is not the cause of a crack in your cheesecake.

Adding flour to your cheesecake will make the baked cheesecake slightly drier.  Personally, I like a soft creamy cheesecake, but adding flour makes it also firmer. A New York cheesecake is an example of a slightly firmer cheesecake, so a few tablespoons of flour is a standard ingredient. It is common to add 1-2 tablespoons of flour to the cheesecake batter for a slightly firmer consistency. Does it actually helps to prevent the cheesecake from cracking? I don’t think so but you can always give it a go.

I hope the above tips for making the perfect cheesecake are useful and I look forward to seeing your creations.