In spirit of the strawberry craze this past week and finding some cream cheese in my freezer, I ended up also making a souffled cheesecake from Stella Parks’ BraveTart. While I did use the recipe from the book, this recipe seems to be very similar/close to the same.

I’ve made this cheesecake before but never with strawberries before. This also came together much more smoothly than the first time I made this. For one, I had a food processor, which made blitzing the graham crackers very easy. Gone are the days of crushing graham crackers in a ziploc bag with a wooden rolling pin. I used a metal-flat bottomed 1/4 measuring cup to press the crust into the bottom of the pan.

Next, it was the filling, which was pretty straightforward. The one snafu that I ran into was misinterpreting the directions when it came to adding the eggs. I misread the directions in the recipe where it mentioned to set a strainer over the stand mixer bowl and whisk and sift the eggs. I thought it meant to set it over the stand mixer while it was mixing and had a big brain moment of trying to angle the strainer while whisking the eggs over an operating stand mixer.

The actual directions called for me to turn off the mixer and remove the bowl and whisk the eggs through a strainer, which makes a lot more sense in hindsight. That was a “big brain” moment for me.

After that brief snafu, I poured the batter into the pan and it was time to bake it. I first baked it for 17 minutes at 450F, causing the cheesecake to ‘poof up’ by roughly 1/2″, causing a souffle effect from the high heat.

After letting it poof up and cooling for 10 minutes, I continued to bake it for another 27 minutes at 250F. The low temperature is to help remove the need for a water bath and keep the cheesecake baking equally. During this time, I noticed that the souffle started to deflate, making the cheesecake concave a bit in.

After baking this, I let it chill in the fridge for close to 2 days before removing the cheesecake from its pan with a knife and some scalding hot water to expand the pan. With a bit of graham cracker crust lost to the pan, the cake looked clean and adequately browned upon removal from the pan.

I ended up serving this cheesecake to the students in my youth ministry group, who seemed to have enjoyed it, judging on them quickly cleaning the platter. The taste was quite pleasant, where it wasn’t too pungent or tangy from the cheese. It tasted more on the vanilla and mellow side. It tasted amazing when paired with the sliced strawberries as a topping. I was relieved to see that the graham cracker crust did not crumble apart and stayed together. One curious thing that one of my friends noted was that there was a sort of grainy texture with the cheesecake. I’m not sure what would cause graininess but I figure it was related to the fact that the cream cheese I’ve used was frozen for a bit of time. These are only things to note for next time.