I found this recipe years ago on website of polish blogger, I was very interested in the idea of ​​adding corn grits to the cheesecake. Although so far I have no idea what function it has there, and I haven’t seen anyone else adding corn grits to cheesecake. So don’t be discouraged if you don’t have it. Without it cheesecake will be also amazing. Also I read somewhere that New York cheesecake is usually more heavy and dense than regular cheesecake, and this one is actually the opposite: light, fluffy and velvety. Simply delicious! So I’m not sure it should be called with some other name. But that’s how the original recipe called it, so I keep it.

Anyway, I wouldn’t be myself though, if I didn’t change the recipe somehow. Instead of digestive biscuits (which I didn’t have), that were originally in the recipe, I used similar kind chocolate biscuits, also omitted the sugar in base layer. I also increased the amount of ingredients a bit, because I had a 1 kilogram of cream cheese and it was a bit pointless to measure out and leave the rest.

I admit that I was quite frivolously preparing this cheesecake, right now I would try more to follow the recipe, but surprisingly I have managed. Or I should say: cheesecake have managed 🙂 It has risen very quickly (then it deflate a bit like every cheesecake), cracked slightly and maybe it didn’t look very presentable, but the taste was heavenly. Light as a cloud, fluffy and moist. Not very sweet, with a lemon-vanilla aroma. Now then I look at the photo if it, I think think rustic look is very pretty.

Also if you don’t have a lot of experience with baking cheesecakes you can have a look here – there’s a few tricks and tips how to bake a perfect cheesecake. Or click here to see my 10 baking mistakes I often make when baking. Have fun! 😉

new york cheesecake

NOTE: my measuring cup is 250ml regular glass

INGREDIENTS for base (round baking tray 26cm / 10inch):

• 160 g chocolate digestive biscuits
• 100 g butter

INGREDIENTS for cheesecake:

• 1 cup of sugar or sugar alternative
• 3 tbsp corn grits (polenta coarse)
• 1 kg cream cheese (or curd cheese minced 3 times)
• 7 eggs
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• about 150 ml double cream
• about 150ml sour cream
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 lemon

DIRECTIONS

First, prepare the base cheesecake. Blend biscuits or crush them into a powder. In a saucepan, melt 100 g butter and add biscuits. Mix thoroughly with a spoon.

Line round baking tray with baking paper (I additionally covered it with aluminum foil from the outside in case something was about to spill out) and put digestive mix on the bottom, pressing it with your fingers or a spoon. Leave it aside to cool, and then in the fridge.

Carefully separate the yolks from the whites. Put the egg whites in the fridge.

In a fairly large bowl, using handheld mixer, beat together: egg yolks, sugar and vanilla sugar, salt, then add polenta coarse and cream cheese and continue to beat. Then add both creams and zest of one lemon and mix until ingredients are combined.

Wash the beaters thoroughly and put them back together – remember not to transfer the beaters directly from the cheese mix to the egg white, because you won’t manage to beat them. Bowl and beaters must be clean. Lightly salt the egg whites and beat until a stiff peaks. Transfer it into a bowl with cheese mix and fold with a spoon or spatula slowly and gently, but quite thoroughly.

Preheat the oven to 150ºC.

Pour the mix into a baking tray and place in the oven. Bake in 150-160ºC. My cheesecake baked for 1.5 hours. After an hour, I checked it with a wooden stick. After an hour and 10 minutes, I covered the top with aluminum foil, not to burn. I left cheesecake in the oven for about an hour, then slightly opened it and left it until it was completely cool. But everything depends of the oven, after you switch it off there’s still a high temperature that makes the cheesecake still baking, so just keep it in mind when you bake.

Enjoy!