Japanese Souffle Cheesecake

I'm not a fan of the usual dense American-style cheescakes, but I really like this Japanese souffle cheesecake. It tastes light and airy with a slight hint of cake. This type of cheesecake is so much more difficult to make than teh regular dense cheesecake. A lot of techniques go into mixing this cake and whisking the white. Very easily it can fail. I made this cake for a get-together a while ago that I couldn't attend because of the lunar new year. It was supposed to be a birthday cake so I couldn't cut it open to see if it turned out alright. Actually to this date, I don't know if it turned out okay since no one that ate the cake really said anything to me. I can only hope from the beautiful exterior, that it was a success.

Japanese Souffle Cheesecake

(from 周老師的美食教室)

cream cheese 300g
milk 300g
egg yolks  108g
cake flour  60g

egg whites  180g
sugar  120g

1. Line an 8'' by 3'' round cake pan with parchment paper.
2. preheat the oven to 275F. Fill a big rectangular pan with water to about 1'' height and put in the oven from the start. (this is to prepare a water bath)
3. heat the cream cheese and milk over low heat until the cream cheese has melted completely. Remove from heat and allow it to cool a little bit.
4. Add in the yolks and mix well.
5. Add in the sifted flour and mix well. Refrigerate the mixture. (It needs to be pretty cold and thick to be able to mix well with the whites later)
6. Wait for about 10 minutes to allow the yolk mixture to cool in the fridge.
7. After 10 minutes, whisk the egg whites and sugar to a soft peak.
8. Very lightly but thoroughly mix together the yolk mixture and egg whites. (You want to be very light to prevent the egg whites from deflating. But you also need to be sure it is well mixed to prevent layering.)
9. Pour mixture into the mold. Put the mold in the water bath. Bake for 80 minutes.

Baking note: I have tried other recipes with different degrees of success in the past, but this is my favorite recipe yet. This recipe calls for a bit more cream cheese than the ones I used before, but it also omits butter and corn flour. Simpler the better no? Perhaps the next time I would try putting a teaspoon of almond extract to give it a little almond kick.