Baked Eggnog Cheesecake—Prototype 34:
 
This October 2025 update included a few adjustments, especially with baking and cooling times. Among other things, I aimed for a greater defense against the top surface's "snap" effect.
 
Crust:
4 oz. melted, white chocolate
8 oz. (about 1 cup) whipped, lowfat cottage cheese
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3 oz. graham crackers, ground up (if these are cinnamon-flavored, omit the cinnamon shown above)

Place the resulting mixture into a greased 13" x 9" glass ("Pyrex") pan and pre-bake without tub at 300 degrees for 30 minutes, then remove from oven and cool down at room temperature (for at least 30 minutes).

Batter:
16 oz. (about 2 cups) whipped, lowfat cottage cheese
8 oz. softened Neufchatel cheese ("light cream cheese")
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon rum extract
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2 cups light eggnog (such as Hood)
3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
3 eggs

Expect close to 6 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.

For each of the first three installments, gently scoop about 1 1/2 cups of batter into the pan, fully covering the surface (here's a tip—scoop small amounts of batter into scattered places throughout the pan, letting this batter fill in nearby gaps, and if any of these remain, use a rubber spatula and gently spread the batter to cover these gaps up), and then bake this pan with its contents for 25 minutes, at 325 degrees. However, at the end of the third installment's 25 minutes, add on another 5 minutes of baking time, but only at 300 degrees (that's a 30 minute "baking installment"—the first 25 minutes at 325 degrees and the next 5 at 300). For all four installments, bake with the pan in a tub filled with at least 1/4 to 1/2 inch of boiling water.

After the first three installments are done, there should be about 1 1/2 cups of batter left, with 80 minutes of baking time reached at this point (25 minutes for each of the first two installments, and 30 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. Resume baking for another 30 minutes.

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 120 minutes, then (with cheesecake still in pan) refrigerate.

Eggnog Cheesecake—Prototype 34

Unfortunately, the "snap" effect was still present (surprisingly very present, in fact), BUT...right after I made this cheesecake, I came down with a cold. That hindered my ability to try—and more accurately evaluate—a slice within a time window to my liking (typically at least one, but no more than three, days after baking). So I let this one just sit there in the refrigerator as I waited close to a whole week before biting in. By then, the top of the cheesecake was probably too dried out (as typical with all my cheesecakes these days, I did not cover this one while it was chilling in the refrigerator). An idea for next time: Throw some "Saran" (plastic) wrap directly on the top surface no later than a day after putting a rectangular cheesecake with very thin batter installment layers (like this one) into the refrigerator.
 

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