Baked Plain Cheesecake—Prototype 20:
 
So I reasoned that I needed more stabilizer—xanthan gum in this case. I considered increasing this substantially—to a good two teaspoons, until my experience with Prototype 23 of my eggnog cheesecakes moved me to back down a little.

I also noticed that the top surface of my last plain-flavored prototype seemed to have a slightly overdone appearance on it. Okay, that was my take with some scattered brownish spots. But that prompted me to reduce the baking time, and I felt that this would be okay since I was planning to raise the xanthan gum by 40% in the latest prototype presented here.

I also decided that it would be a reasonably safe idea to stick with a room temperature cooldown time of two hours as a frequent standard, even if the cheesecake was to be baked for a shorter time than that (beforehand, I often matched the room cooldown time to the oven-turned-on baking time).
 
Repeat Prototype 19, but for the batter, boost the xanthan gum by 1/2 teaspoon, to 1 3/4 teaspoons.
Also, bake this cheesecake in tub for only about 110 minutes, rather than 120 (if using a 9 1/2" pan). Then cool it down in the oven (shut off at this point), door slightly ajar, for an hour—just like the previous prototype. Afterwards, remove from oven and tub and continue to cool down at room temperature. But do this for 120 minutes (instead of only 110), then remove from pan and refrigerate.

Plain Cheesecake—Prototype 20

Upon removal from the oven, this cheesecake seemed to have hopefully less jiggle than its previous plain prototype, although brown spots still showed up. Maybe that came with my usage of xanthan gum. Or perhaps I could get away with even less baking time when using this relatively new stabilizer. I wasn't sure at this point.

But the taste was great, and so was the texture, which itself was not too soft. It seemed to be firm enough, yet hardly "rubbery". I brought this treat to the 2017 Labor Day cookout ("babbecue" as I sometimes like to call it) at The Home Depot, where a number of my fellow associates (including the store manager, Christina, and at least one assistant store manager, Jim, and probably another, Travis) had some of it. Upon my checking about three hours after bringing this cheesecake into the staff area, it was about 2/3 gone. I headed home while leaving the rest for others to enjoy later on.
 

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