Japanese Soufflé Cheesecake

I've been yearning to make this since I tasted it in the cafe of the company that I worked with.. They used to have this Cheese Sponge Cake that I really love to eat as breakfast... Sadly, they are not selling it anymore... It was so damn good... It's milky, moist and velvety... Sigh... Why do they stop selling it?? 

Anyways, ever since I  had an oven and electric mixer, I did some research on a number of cakes and this is one my to-bake list... This is the simplest yet most tedious baking process I've done... It took approximately 1.5 hours to get it baked and cooled down too... I'm really glad that it turned out great! 

So, the first step is to mix butter + cream cheese + egg yolks + milk thoroughly.

Then prepare meringue till it forms stiff peak or till you can tilt it over without it slipping onto your kitchen counter :p

Fold in meringue into the batter. Mix till incorporated

Then it's ready to scoop them into your preferred molds, I used mini aluminium molds

Preheat oven to 160 Celsius. 

I also bake them in water bath. I added hot water onto the tray beneath the molds and had them baked for 1 hour. So there are 2 cooking process happening here. 

Steaming and baking.

Once your oven go "ting", it's time to cool them down... To avoid the cakes from collapsing, you need to follow this step diligently... This step is crucial to prevent sudden temperature drop that will shrink your beautifully baked cake... To do so, I used chopsticks to keep the oven door slightly opened to let them cool down slowly for about 30 minutes.

Once they are completely cooled, sprinkle icing sugar on top and now it's done!

Simple, right?

The cheesecake is crispy on top and soft inside... It's not as cheesy as conventional cheese cake.. It is more milky rather cheesy.. It has this light texture to it too... I also went easy with the sugar content to make it sweet tolerant.. 

Ingredients for Japanese Soufflé Cheesecake:

Batter:

80ml milk

40g butter (room temp)

140g cream cheese block (room temp)

1/4 cups super-fine flour, sifted

15g cornstarch, sifted

⅛ tsp salt

mix evenly with sifted cake flour and cornstarch

6 egg yolks 

Meringue:

Egg whites from 6 eggs

1/2 cups of caster sugar

Steps:

1. Mixed butter+cream cheese+milk+egg yolk and mix thoroughly.

2. Mixed in dry ingredients (sifted flour). Mixed till incorporated. Set aside.

3. Pre-heat oven to 160 Celcius.

4. In another bowl, prepare meringue by mixing egg whites and sugar. Beat till stiff peak is formed.

5. Fold in meringue into batter. Mix well.

6. Sift the batter through strainer.

7. Scoop them into preferred molds.

8. Bake in hot water bath for 1 hour in 160 Celcius.

9. Leave oven door slightly open for 30 minutes to prevent cakes from shrinking too fast.

10. Once they are completely cooled, sprinkle icing sugar on top.