Victoria Pocus

New York Style Cheesecake

Saturday 12 July 2025This recipe was orignally in a book my sister had, and I don't know which book but I will keep searching to find it and link as a resource.

Ingredients - Crust

(Note: this is for a 10-inch springform pan)

Crust
1 ¼ c flour
1 ½ stick butter room temperature
½ c sugar
1 large egg yolk
Grated lemon peel (small)

Ingredients - Filling

5 8-oz cream cheese
1 ¾ c sugar
5 eggs
2 egg yolks
¼ c milk
3 Tbsp flour
Grated lemon peel (small)

Prepare - Crust

Note: if you set out the cream cheese while making the crust it will be warmer and easier to add sugar to.

Mix all the listed ingredients together, you can do this by hand or with electric mixer. Using the mixer incorporates the ingredients really well so that’s what I recommend.
I use plastic wrap and start forming a ball of the dough inside the plastic wrap so that my hands don’t get so greasy, once the dough forms a ball and is wrapped up in plastic wrap, set it in the fridge for an hour.

Alternative ingredients note: I have used splenda instead of sugar and gluten-free flour. Splenda doesn’t seem to brown nicely like sugar and the gluten-free flour broke apart after the first bake so be gentle adding in the edge dough if you’re trying gluten-free.

Prepare - Filling

If you want to be extra cautious you can refrigerate the filling after you mixed it or you can wait until after the first bake (8 minutes @ 400°F) to make the filling. I have left it out because it’s easier to pour, and it doesn’t make a big difference flavor-wise but do what's safest for you.
In a LORGE mixing bowl add all of the cream cheese.
Get sugar measured out (don’t add it to cream cheese yet but if you can fit it all in one measuring cup that’s good, I use a bowl sometimes).
While using the mixer, start slowly adding in sugar to the bowl with the cream cheese. I have skipped this step or modified it and it’s still mostly the same in the end but I think it’s better incorporated if you follow the instructions and mix just the cream cheese and sugar first, often I will add the milk too so that it mixes a little easier.
Add the rest of the ingredients and mix until smooth.

Directions - Baking

Preheat the oven to 400°F, if you haven’t used your springform pan before I recommend setting it in a baking sheet just in case butter leaks from the pan during baking, it will get hella smokey if it leaks and is a bit of a fire hazard.
The original recipe says press ⅓ of the dough into the bottom of the pan, I end up somewhere between ⅓ and ½, then wrap up the remaining dough and place it back in the fridge.
Bake for 8 minutes at 400°F, the crust should be light golden brown, turn off the oven (Start the filling if you had decided to wait for this step).
Set the pan on a cooling rack until cool enough to handle, or longer, maybe 30 minutes then check?
Right before pressing in the edge crust dough, preheat the oven to 475°F.
If the pan is still kind of warm it will start to melt the remaining crust dough that you press along the edges, this is okay but it will stick to your fingers and make it a little difficult to smooth out the edge crust. I think the original recipe says something like “Leave a half inch from the top of the pan”. I usually just try to evenly spread the dough and whatever height it ends up at is fine, I try to keep it a little over ⅛-inch thick, you decide though.
Now that the bottom crust is baked and the edge crust is in place, you can pour in the filling.
There are three segments to the baking process now, once the oven is preheated to 475°F:

- Bake at 475°F for 12 minutes, turn temperature down to 300°F (you can check the cheesecake if you want to, depending on the oven it will help cool the inside of the oven to 300°F if you want, which means it will be just a little lighter brown in the end).
- Bake at 300°F for 35 minutes, leave the cheesecake in the oven but turn the oven off, I don’t usually open the oven at this point but I don’t think it’s bad to.
- Leave the cheesecake in the off oven for 30 minutes then pull the cheesecake out of the oven and set on a cooling rack for an hour or two.

If you want to go to bed or need to leave before cooling time is up I have placed the cheesecake into the fridge with minimal post-oven cooling time and it always seemed alright after. Just be careful if you place it in the fridge still hot then it will warm up anything touching/near it. It may also be more prone to cracking across the top if you try to force it to cool down quickly.

References

I don't have the book but I have a photo of the page I took it from if that's helpful to anybody.

(Photo taken circa 2005? 🫠)

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