My littlest niece kind of got the short end of the stick when it comes to birthdays: December 30. It’s freezing outside, stuck between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, and kind of gets lost in all the other festivities going on.

This year, my brother and sister-in-law had the absolutely brilliant idea of celebrating her HALF birthday in July. She had all her friends over for some trampolining (a verb?) and a sleepover, and beforehand I told her I would make her whatever she wanted for her birthday cake. Her request: cheesecake. Huh? Are nine-and-a-half-year-olds into cheesecake? But the birthday person gets what they want, so off to make a cheesecake I went.

While I’ve made a few variations on cheesecake over the years, I’ve never made a straight-up classic version. I turned to Sally for this recipe, and got to work. I didn’t bother using a water bath, because I don’t have a roasting pan big enough, and this is what I ended up with:

The cracks/browning didn’t bother me, because this was also getting covered with blue whipped cream and sprinkles according to my niece’s requests, but my work-baking-bestie Jess gave me a tip for next time: just buy a big disposable roasting pan from Dollarama for the water bath. Genius!

This cheesecake got RAVE reviews as apparently all the kids at the party loved it and my sister-in-law said it was the best cheesecake she has had in her life! My oldest niece then requested one for her birthday in August, so I got the chance to try out the foil roasting pan trick, and that’s the beauty pictured up top. Perfectly smooth, no cracks, no browning. My only problem was that even with a double layer of foil, some water did seep in my springform pan, so next time I would do a better job of wrapping that up. It totally didn’t affect the structure or taste of the cheesecake though – the edges of the crust were just a little damp.

This cheesecake is begging for a fresh fruit sauce, hot fudge or salted caramel drizzled over top (which I didn’t prepare, but definitely would next time).

Classic Cheesecake

Source: Sally’s Baking Addiction

Ingredients

Crust

  • 1 1/2 cups (180g) graham cracker crumbs
  • 1/4 cup (50g) sugar
  • 5 tbsp butter, melted

Cheesecake

  • 4 x 8oz packages cream cheese, room temperature
  • 1 cup (200g) sugar
  • 1 cup (240g) sour cream, room temperature
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 2 tsp fresh lemon juice
  • 3 eggs, room temperature

Directions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350, and get out your 9″ springform pan.
  2. For the crust, mix together the graham cracker crumbs, sugar and butter. Add to the springform pan and press across the bottom and partly up the sides. Bake for 10 minutes. Let cool as you prepare the filling.
  3. For the filling, beat the cream cheese and sugar together on medium-high speed in a large bowl until it’s smooth. Add the sour cream, vanilla and lemon juice and mix until combined. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing until just blended (you’re trying hard not to overmix here).
  4. Pour the filling into the crust, and then get your water bath prepared (click on Sally’s post to read about this/see a video of it).
  5. Bake for 55-70 minutes until the centre of the cheesecake is almost set. If it starts to get too brown while baking, loosely cover with tin foil. Turn off the oven and open the door slightly. Let cheesecake sit in the oven (in the water bath if using) for 1 hour. Remove from oven and water bath and let cool completely uncovered, then finally cover it and chill overnight.