Short Intro (i promise): 

Hi folks! Tried making this Japanese Souffle Cheesecake recipe in college and failed miserably. Tried it again and it came out amazing! Followed Oh Nino’s recipe and made a video of my process of trying it out (it’s below!!!) so you have a visual guide as well 🙂 This isn’t too difficult, you just have to know all the small tips and tricks and I have written down ALLL that I know/learnt. Enjoy!!

Ingredients required: 

• 160g cream cheese
• 20g Unsalted butter
• Hot water
• 50ml Milk
• 40g Cake flour (30 gms flour + 10 gms corn starch)
• 4 Egg yolks
• 4 Egg whites
• 1/4Tsp Lemon juice
• 80g Sugar

Utensils you need: 

1. 2 mixing bowls (one glass, another any material) // glass conducts heat well which is imperative here
2. One spatula
3. One whisk 
4. A round-base baking tin. Preferably one with a small circumference and high edges. 
5. A square/round baking tin that’s bigger than the earlier one (and the earlier has to fit into it with enough space on the sides because you’re going to pour water into it. 

Prep tips: 

1. Your butter, cream cheese, eggs and milk HAVE to be at room temperature. If they are cold, you will have a grainy batter and not get that air-like texture to your cheesecake. Keep all your ingredients out at least 1 hour before you start so they can get to room temperature.
2. Preheat your oven to 180C (although you’ll be baking at 160C it’s good to have it at a higher heat before you turn it down) 
3. Boil a vessel full of water before starting. Before you fill it with water, just put your mixing bowl over it and check and see if it fits in such a way that it doesn’t completely go inside but the bottom of the bowl will touch water when filled
4. Line the base of your baking tin with parchment/baking paper. No need to line the edges for this recipe, it’ll slide out easily after running a knife along the edges
5. Keep all your ingredients measured and ready – time is of the essence in this dish and any delay could make it go FLAT. 

How To Get The Perfect Jiggly Japanese Cheesecake:

1. Mix your cream cheese with a spatula until it becomes smoooooth.
2. Add butter to the bowl
3. Place the glass bowl over the hot water vessel and mix gently with a whisk until the butter melts. Basically here you’re using the heat from the water to both warm up the cream cheese and melt the butter.
4. After the butter+creamcheese combines, add milk to it and stir it in and then take it off the water pot (you don’t want the vessel too hot otherwise the eggs will scramble when you add them)
5. Also, don’t throw the hot water you’ll need it latersss
6. Next, take another mixing bowl and put your egg whites in it, while adding your egg yolks to the bowl with the earlier batter. 
7. Set the bowl with egg whites aside.
8. Whisk in the egg yolks gently until well combined, you should see it as one colour not strings of bright yellow in between (I know I keep saying gently a lot but brooo that’s like the main method to this – it’s very zen and delicate)
9. Sift in the cake flour and again gently whisk it in until well combined and there are no lumps
10. Now add lemon juice to the egg whites and whisk on low speed until it becomes frothy
11. Time to add your sugar – divide it into ⅓ portions and keep adding ⅓ the amount of sugar every 15 seconds and keep whisking on high speed. This is to ensure that the sugar is well incorporated into the eggs to make it fluffy
12. Keep whisking on high speed until you get soft peaks. DO NOT DO IT UNTIL YOU GET STIFF MERINGUE-LIKE PEAKS. Basically, when you lift your whisk it should hold up like a little mountain but the top should droop down – basically like Elvis’ hairstyle. Beating it until it get stiff, glossy peaks (while it looks v attractive) will not make your cake as tender
13. Now again, take ⅓ of your fluffy egg white batter and add it to your yolk batter. Using a spatula, gently fold it in (watch the video for reference how to do the fold technique – haha I just remembered a scene from Schitt’s Creek where they couldn’t figure it out)
14. Fold it in until again, it looks like one uniform colour and there are no white ribbons in between. 
15. Now take the entire yellow batter and pour it into the egg white mixture. Now ever so gentlyyyyy fold it in (imp!! You don’t want to destroy all the air bubbles you worked so hard to get. If you do it violently or in a hurry, you’ll end up with a flat cake – been there done that :(((() 
16. Combine it until again it’s all one colour and it’ll be nice and smooth and fluffy. 
17. Side note: I added 1 tsp of vanilla essence though the recipe didn’t ask for it. I specifically added it because I don’t like the ‘eggy’ smell this gives off and the end flavour was really nice 
18. Now pour it into the smaller baking tin. In the Oh Nino’s video, he holds his spatula in mid-air so it kinds of “cuts” the batter as it’s falling in, which i guess is to prevent too many bubbles from forming on top.
19. Once you’re done pouring and scraping all the batter out (don’t waste anything broooo) gently run the top of your spatula over the top of the batter to remove any air bubbles. This is to ensure you have a nice smooth brown top, otherwise because of the bubbles it’ll crack up like anything 
20. If this doesn’t help, gently (!!!!) bang your baking tin on the counter just to make sure the top bubbles pop. If you do it like a violent cave person you’ll just end up making more bubbles
21. Put the cake tin into the bigger cake tin and pour hot water into the bigger cake tin until it covers ⅓ the height of the smaller cake tin (watch the video if this part is unclear) 
22. Adding the water is CRUCIAL because you’ll be baking this for 1 hour 20 minutes and the water helps the cake stay moist and ensure even baking consistency. Don’t skip this step sis. 
23. Bake it at 160C for 20 minutes on the middle rack. When the timer goes off, open the oven door for 5-10 seconds (literally count it – don’t keep it open for too long)
24. Then bake it again at 110C for 1 hour. Basically in this one hour take the time to clear up the kitchen. There will be a lot of vessels to wash up haha and it’s nice to have a clean kitchen for when your cake is ready!
25. I found that my cake wasn’t browning enough on the top and here’s my advice – put it on the top rack when there are 5 minutes remaining. DO NOT INCREASE THE TEMPERATURE (I did and the top got burnt – like smoke was literally coming out of the oven :((()
26. Immediately take your cake out of the oven and pop it out onto a plate. Use oven mitts, it will be quite hot
27. If it doesn’t come out immediately, gently run a knife along the sides (careful not to scar it) and then try again
28. Peel off the bottom layer of wax paper and flip it onto another plate so you have the golden brown portion on top. 
29. Immediately cut and serve. Trust me, it’s the bestttt when served warm/room temperature. It’s all fluffy in the first bite (like you’re eating cotton candy) and then as it melts in your mouth it becomes like cheesecake. Yummmyyy
30. You can store it in an airtight box in the fridge and eat it within 2-3 days (i doubt it will last that long only because it’s soooo yummy!)

Phew! So I think I covered everything but if you have any more questions, please leave it in the comment section! 🙂