Japanese Cotton Cake

I had been intrigued by the Japanese cheesecake for quite some time. Interestingly this dish is popular outside Japan. When you visit Japanese bakeries you will be hard pressed to find a Japanese Cheesecake. They have baked, rare and soufflé cheesecake. The Japanese cheesecake popular among non Japanese is the third one. i.e, the soufflé variety. It is also known as Cottoncake because of its cloud like soft texture. The airiness comes from incorporating beaten egg whites and then being baked in a bain-marie.
The recipe also calls for cream cheese. This is a costly ingredient in India and also not that easily available everywhere. So I prefer making the easy substitute at home using simple ingredients. So I made this cake with my version of cheesecake. It takes almost 24 hours to make it and so you must calculate in that time if you plan on baking the cottoncake.
Recipe source : Rasamalaysia


Ingredients

140 gm fine granulated sugar
6 egg whites
6 egg yolks
¼ tsp cream of tartar
50 gm butter
250 gm cream cheese
100 ml fresh milk
1 tbsp lemon juice
60 gm flour
20 gm cornflour
¼ tsp salt
Preheat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius. Line and grease a round cake pan.
Melt cream cheese, butter and milk over a double boiler. Cool it. Fold in the flour, cornflour, salt, egg yolks and lemon juice. Mix well. Whisk the egg whites. Add the cream of tartar and whisk till soft peaks form. Take 1/3 of this meringue and fold into the flour mix. Repeat twice to incorporate all the egg white into the flour. Pour into an 8 inch round cake pan. Bake the cheesecake in a bain marie for 70 minutes at 160 degrees Celsius.
A bain marie is a water bath. Take a deep baking dish. If you do not have one then take a large square cake tin. Fill it to 1/3 with water. This is the water bath and you place the cheesecake pan in this hot water and let it bake .


Homemade cream cheese

Cream cheese is basically a fresh cheese made from milk and cream. It is meant to be consumed fresh. So we can easily tweak our paneer recipe to make cream cheese at home.

Ingredients

2 cups milk
1 cup cream (I Use Amul )
½ cup Greek Yogurt ( you can also use hung curd)
4 tbsp vinegar

Mix milk and cream. Bring to a boil, use vinegar and make paneer. Put the paneer in a cheese cloth and wash under running water three times. Hang it to drain the whey for half an hour. Add the yogurt to the paneer and blend in the mixie to an absolutely smooth paste. If the mixie does not move smoothly then add a little curd. Now put it back in the cheese cloth and hang it inside the fridge overnight. The whey will be drained away and you will be left with thick cream cheese.