Baked Plain Cheesecake—Prototype 24:
 
At times I have had problems with the crust being too soft or mushy. Perhaps this was especially an issue whenever I would serve a cheesecake at my workplace, The Home Depot (Prototype 6 of my s'mores cheesecakes being a disappointing example). After all, the cheesecake would be sitting out at room temperature for a long time. Typically, when including a chocolate crust—such as for my chocolate cheesecakes—I would use 4 ounces of chips, rather than 2, and the crust's firmness would be hopefully at least half-decent. In light of this, I decided to increase the white chips to 4 ounces for this latest plain cheesecake. Furthermore, I would pre-bake the crust for 30 minutes.

With this cheesecake, a new baking aid would make its debut here—Easy Bath Cheesecake Wrap, an easy-to-use, in-tub replacement for disposable wraps such as foil and parchment paper! (Note: I got mine through Amazon. But searching for it there could be difficult. I tried this direct link from a Google search, which—hopefully—worked as of October 2023: www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZN7JYJS/.)
 
3-Cheese Blend (1CT-1NC-1YG):
Prepare ahead of time 16 ounces of yogurt cheese, derived from one 32-ounce container of nonfat yogurt. If the resulting yogurt cheese falls below 16 ounces, add back enough of the whey (that was strained out from the yogurt) to make up the difference. To this yogurt cheese combine 16 ounces of whipped, lowfat cottage cheese and 16 ounces (two 8-ounce packages) of softened Neufchatel cheese ("light cream cheese").

Grease a 9 1/2" (or 9") springform pan, but do not wrap foil around it yet (see below).

Crust:
4 oz. melted, white chocolate
8 oz. (1 cup) 3-cheese blend (see above)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 oz. All-Bran, ground up

Place the resulting mixture in the greased pan and pre-bake without tub at 300 degrees for 30 minutes, then cool enough to comfortably touch at least the pan's upper sidewall.

Batter:
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
40 oz. (5 cups) 3-cheese blend (see above)
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
6 eggs

Wrap the pan in foil just before adding the batter (to minimize the foil's disturbance and therefore its leakage risk, do not put it on any earlier). Or as an alternative, place this pan in an Easy Bath Cheesecake Wrap (see comments above)—and don't bother waiting for the pan to get comfortably cool to do so.

Next, pour the batter over the crust and bake this cheesecake in a hot water tub at 300 degrees for 90 minutes (if using a 9 1/2" pan). Then cool the cheesecake down while still in oven (with this oven shut off) and in tub with door slightly ajar for an hour. Afterwards, remove from oven and tub and continue to cool down at room temperature for another 120 minutes, then remove from pan and refrigerate.

Plain Cheesecake—Prototype 24 New bath liner

This cheesecake, like many others before it, was served in the break area to my fellow associates at The Home Depot. The main purpose of this prototype was a room-temperature crust test. I checked on this a few hours later, and the crust seemed to be considerably less mushy compared to earlier versions. I saw a firmness that was, as I was hoping, at least half-decent. And much of the cheesecake was already gone (down to two slices after about 2 1/2 hours). I myself felt that the boost in the white chocolate chips not only made the crust more stable—but tastier as well. Also, the newly-used Easy Bath Cheesecake Wrap worked out successfully!
 

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