Baked Maple Cheesecake—Prototype 7:
 
This one gets a 2017 update, featuring xanthan gum as a replacement for arrowroot.

However, I also thought that I would try a little experiment involving another ingredient for this particular prototype. I added a sixth egg to the batter. One reason was to find out how this would affect the cheesecake's firmness and texture. Another reason was that, if 6 eggs worked out better than 5, this would be helpful in my buying eggs, which have been available for sale primarily in multiples of 6.
 
3-Cheese Blend (3CT-1NC-2YG):
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 24 ounces of whipped, lowfat cottage cheese and 8 ounces 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:
2 oz. melted, white chocolate
8 oz. (1 cup) 3-cheese blend (see above)
1/4 cup maple sugar (see comments below)
1/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon maple flavoring
2 oz. All-Bran, ground up

Place the resulting mixture in the greased pan and pre-bake without tub at 300 degrees for 5-10 minutes, depending on the mixture's thickness (closer to 10 minutes if thin enough to be fully distributed across the pan's bottom by gentle shaking, closer to 5 minutes if thick enough to require spreading out this mixture by pressing on it with a utensil and/or fingers), then cool enough to comfortably touch at least the pan's upper sidewall.

Batter:
1 1/4 cups maple sugar
40 oz. (5 cups) 3-cheese blend (see above)
2 teaspoons maple flavoring
1 1/2 teaspoons 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).

Next, carefully 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 shut off oven and cool cheesecake down while still in it (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 two hours, then remove from pan and refrigerate.

Maple Cheesecake—Prototype 7

I was originally planning to use 1/2 cup of maple sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of maple flavoring—and no brown sugar—for the crust. But I ended up not having enough maple sugar on hand. What I had available barely amounted to 1 1/2 cups. And maple sugar was, as far as I knew, tough to come by in my area. I had typically bought it while traveling in Vermont (in recent years, I have been getting it in my cousin Rachel's hometown of Jericho, at End-O-Road Maple, whose owners I had more recently become friendly with, particularly Jennifer, whose daughter has been attending the same school with Rachel's son). So I settled for a little compromise with the crust, which included using an additional 1/4 teaspoon of maple flavoring to help compensate for the maple sugar reduction. Fortunately, no compromises were carried out on the batter, which would get a full 1 1/4 cups of maple sugar as I originally intended.

This cheesecake was served in early October of 2017 (on the Sunday just before Columbus Day) at Living Hope Church, among a modest selection of snacks...and was wiped out in nearly 5 minutes! I could not remember an earlier treat from me being devoured this quickly.

As for increasing the amount of eggs from five to six, the results were encouraging. This addition seemed to hardly affect the taste at all (which itself was great), but I felt that the texture and firmness have indeed improved. So I decided that my basic cheesecake batter plans would include the sixth egg from this point on. Not only would this make it easier for me when buying eggs, but I would not have to deal with splitting the contents of one egg when trying to evenly distribute an odd number of eggs between batters in cases of 2-flavor cheesecakes (such as Prototype 7 of my chocolate peanut butter cheesecakes). Furthermore, another idea has been on my mind lately, although I have never done this yet—but I have been contemplating it: 3-flavor cheesecakes!!! I would be able to easily split 6 eggs into 2 whole ones for each batter flavor, should I exercise this option in the future.
 

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