Page 13 of Sex On A Plate

Fill the stock pot 3/4 full of water and set on high heat.

BY HAND, mix the following with a fork (no mixers allowed, sorry). 4 room temperature eggs. Only the yolk from egg number five. 2 teaspoons of lemon juice and 2 teaspoons of vanilla.

Set this aside.

Open the oven door, fan it a few times, and reset the oven to 310 degrees F.

If you have a KitchenAid Stand Mixer, great. If you don’t. Well, that’s fine, too. You’ll follow the same steps by hand with a fork and a rubber spatula (air in the batter is your enemy with cheesecake).

If you have the stand mixer, use the paddle attachment and a low speed to mix the room temperature cream cheese until it’s smooth. This should take a minute. Add 1-1/2 cups of granulated sugar and 3 tablespoons of corn starch to the mixer bowl.

Mix just long enough to mix it up.

Let it sit for 2 minutes.

Scrape the sides of the bowl and then mix it again for 1 minute.

Let it sit for 1 minute.

Set the mixer to the lowest setting.

Add the lemon juice, vanilla, egg mixture in 4 evenly sized pours. After the last pour, use the rubber spatula to clean the sides well and make sure all looks good.

Add the cup of sour cream to the batter mixture by hand, using the spatula to fold it into the batter. When it’s all mixed good and even, pour the contents of the bowl into the graham cracker crust.

Remove the now boiling water from the burner (remember the stock pot?).

Tap all the air bubbles from the batter by tapping the edges of the pan. Remember, air is your enemy. Place the springform pan inside the 13x9 cake pan.

Pull the middle rack of the oven out halfway, giving yourself a little room to work. Place the cake pan (with the cheesecake inside) on the rack.

Pour the hot as fuck water inside the cake pan, being cautious not to get it in the springform pan. Don’t worry, unless your springform pan is a piece of shit, it won’t leak. If it does leak, the aluminum foil will help out.

Fill the pan to halfway up the sides of the springform pan.

If you’re giving the book (essentially, me) a dirty look right now, just stop. Cheesecake isn’t cake. It’s fucking custard. Undercooking it is a disaster. Overcooking makes it close to inedible.

Jiggly and undercooked, it’s like pudding. Brown and overcooked, it’s like wet dust. Cracked and nearly cooked perfectly? It’s going to be ugly as fuck and taste okay.

You want to impress everyone, don’t you? Well, the success of any cheesecake is a water bath. It’s how the guy in the restaurant cooks it, believe me.

Water boils at 212 degrees F. It doesn’t matter if your oven is set to 700, 350, 450, or 273, water will only get to 212 before it begins to boil. A water bath allows a low and slow regulated cook that won’t crack, overcook or fuck up your cheesecake. You’ll be talking about this water bath long after the cheesecake’s gone, believe me.

Now that we’re done arguing about the pan of water, bake your cheesecake in its warm bath at 310 for 1 hour and 40 minutes.

Turn off the oven and open the door 4” to slowly release the heat.

Let it sit in the oven with the door partially opened for 1 hour. Not roughly an hour, or an hour and 15 minutes, but an hour.

A 60-minute hour.

During this time, read five more chapters of Lover Come Back. At this point in the book, I will have threatened 4 college football players with a big rock.

At the 1-hour mark, shake your head free of any dislike you’ve developed for my quick temper and put the cheesecake in the fridge (leave it in the springform pan).

Let it sit until tomorrow. When tomorrow arrives, remove the cheesecake from the fridge and then remove the springform pan. Thanks to the strips of parchment paper, you’ll have no issues.

Slice the cheesecake, plate it, and eat it plain. Slice it, plate it, and cover it with fresh fruit. Hell, drizzle it with raspberry puree. Or, just pick up a piece and eat it like a fucking Snickers bar.

That’s what I do.

Best if served with a cup of your favorite espresso and enjoyed with a friend. Hand an unsuspecting soul this cake and watch them shit themselves when they take a bite.

Enjoy.