Baked Key Lime Cheesecake—Prototype 3:
 
For Memorial Day 2024, I made another key lime cheesecake, with the latest updates, including emphasis on stability.
 
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
1/2 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
1/3 cup key lime juice
1 tablespoon grated key lime zest (peel)
14-ounce can of sweetened condensed milk
2 1/4 teaspoons xanthan gum
6 eggs (brown recommended, large)

Expect close to 8 1/2 cups of the resulting batter, but do not add this to the pan all at once. Rather, this needs to be done in four installments. Wrap the pan in foil just before adding the first batter installment (to minimize the foil's disturbance and therefore its leakage risk, do not put it on any earlier). Or as an alternative to using foil, place this pan in an Easy Bath Cheesecake Wrap—and don't bother waiting for the pan to get comfortably cool to do so.

For each of the first three installments, gently scoop about 2 1/2 cups of batter into the pan, fully covering the surface (here's a tip—scoop small amounts of batter around the edge of the pan, letting this batter flow towards the middle on its own), and then bake this pan with its contents for 30 minutes, at 325 degrees. However, at the end of the third installment's 30 minutes, add on another 25 minutes of baking time, but only at 300 degrees (that's a 55 minute "baking installment"—the first 30 minutes at 325 degrees and the next 25 at 300). For these three installments here, bake with the pan in a tub filled with at least 1/4 to 1/2 inch of boiling water, but (to reduce spillage risks) do not fill the tub all the way at this point, because the whole tub-and-pan assembly is going to need to be removed from the oven (in order to comfortably add contents to the pan) between installments.

After these first three installments are done, there should be about 1 cup of batter left, with 115 minutes of baking time reached at this point (30 minutes for each of the first two installments, and 55 for the third one). Now comes the fourth installment—carefully add the last of this batter on top of the pan's earlier installments, fully coating the entire surface. Next, return the entire pan-and-tub assembly to the oven, with the temperature remaining at 300 degrees. At this point, fill up the tub generously with boiling water. Resume baking for another 75 minutes (based upon usage of a 9 1/2" pan).

Afterward, shut the oven off, and leave its door slightly ajar, with the cheesecake still inside—and in the tub—for an hour. Next, remove the cheesecake from the oven and tub. Continue to cool it down at room temperature for another two hours. After doing so, remove the cheesecake from pan and refrigerate.

Key Lime Cheesecake—Prototype 3

This time, the crust wasn't too sticky. The separation from the pan's bottom went smoothly—doubling the crust's white chocolate seemed to make a difference for the better. And the batter's firmness was great! I was also happy with the crust's stability. All these things led to this cheesecake holding out nicely for a few hours at room temperature.

And this one ended up being an encouraging success with my fellow workers at the Home Depot cookout as this cheesecake was finished off in less than five hours.
 

Back to my bushy homepage