Whether it's sitting in a boring lecture, procrastinating on an assignment due at 11:59 pm, or simply walking to class, it’s safe to say that the majority of us will unfailingly turn to our electronic devices as an entertaining and readily-available distraction from the real world around us.
With the constant temptations of social media, there’s always something (besides whatever it is we should really be doing), to keep us occupied. If you’re like me, this temptation usually results in indulging in the greatest social media-related distraction to blow up in recent years: BuzzFeed Tasty videos.
Of course, some videos are little less appealing than others (watermelon poke? really?). However, there are a few that actually appear worthy enough of our time and money to give a try. Among them is the classic Jiggly Fluffy Japanese Cheesecake.
If BuzzFeed can condense the execution of this “simple” recipe into a one minute and 36-second video, it must be pretty easy to make, right? Does this cloud-like dessert taste as delicious as it looks? On a Thursday night (while catching up on the most recent Bachelorette episode), my friends and I set out to find some answers.
Jiggly Japanese Cheesecake
- Prep Time:20 mins
- Cook Time:1 hr 20 mins
- Total Time:1 hr 40 mins
- Servings:15
- Medium
- 1 cup milk
- 4 ounces cream cheese
- 7 tablespoons butter
- 8 egg yolks
- 1 cup flour
- 1 cup cornstarch
- 13 large egg whites
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- Parchment paper
- Strawberries to serve
- Powdered sugar to serve
Ingredients
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Step 1
Assemble ingredients and preheat oven to 320°F. Easy Enough.
Rebecca Li -
Step 2
Whisk the milk, cream cheese, and butter in a small pot over medium heat (we decided to add an extra three tablespoons of butter, because butter). Remove from heat and cool.
Rebecca Li -
Step 3
In a large bowl, whisk the egg yolks and add in the cream mixture until evenly combined. Sift in the flour and cornstarch and whisk in the ensure there are no lumps. We didn’t have a sifter at hand, so a tea strainer had to do.
Rebecca Li -
Step 4
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until they get to a foamy consistency. If you skipped arm day, you can give whisking by hand a try, but I suggest an electric mixer. Slowly add in the sugar.
Rebecca Li -
Step 5
Starting with about a fourth of the egg whites, start adding them into the egg yolk mixture in increments until the batter is smooth.
Rebecca Li -
Step 6
Line a 9x3-inch cake pan with parchment paper. Place this pan into a larger pan filled with about one inch of hot water. Bake for 25 minutes, then reduce heat to 280°F and bake for another 55 minutes.
After baking has finished, take the cake out and cool. Top with powdered sugar and sliced strawberries for presentation.
Rebecca Li
As someone who truly appreciates the value of a good slice of cheesecake, I can honestly say that my lofty expectations were not met by this recipe. Although undoubtedly worthy of a social media appearance, this “cheesecake” was definitely more on the side of a sponge cake (light and airy, but unable to provide the satisfaction characteristic to a classic dense and creamy cheesecake).
One problem we encountered was that the cake didn’t bake as evenly as it was supposed to, leaving a small layer of the yolk-heavy batter on the bottom. This left our cheesecake, as deemed by the group, “70% cake, 30% scrambled eggs."
Although the end product didn’t turn out as well as we had hoped, making this cheesecake still turned out to be an experience. And hey, we did manage to get some decent Snap stories out of it.