Japan Dessert – Jiggly Cheesecake

Would this be a food blog if we didn’t give the viral sensation of the Japanese Jiggly Cheesecake a go?! Spoiler alert — unless you have the perfect kit (and maybe even then), this is unlikely to work on your first go!

We used the Buzzfeed Tasty recipe. It required 13 eggs, which is quite a commitment if you need several attempts!

The first step was melting together the butter and cream cheese, then adding milk. It’s worth doing this first so it has time to cool — this stops the eggs cooking when you add them later.

The fluffy jigglyness is all in the meringue made from whipped egg whites. This reminded us that we really need to invest in a stand mixer! The meringue was then folded into the cream cheese mixture.

We used a springform cake tin with a foil layer on the bottom to prevent leakage, then placed it on kitchen roll in a boiling water bath. Once cooked through (tested with a skewer), the top was golden and beautifully bouncy. We dusted it with icing sugar to finish.

It had a slight wobble but nothing too jiggly — we think the height was the issue.

The top layer was perfect — melted in the mouth with a subtle flavour. The bottom layers were essentially custard, which we’re not taking as a bad thing! Still tasty, still safe to eat, just not quite the plan.

What we think went wrong

• The foil bottom wasn’t fully sealed, so there was some leakage into the water bath
• The foil may have increased the heat at the base, cooking it faster there
• We faffed too long between mixing and getting it into the tin — prep the tin first!

Any other theories? Let us know — we’re planning a second attempt!