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Dessert

New York Ricotta Cheesecake

A cheesecake made with cream cheese, ricotta, and eggs baked in a water bath.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 19,175 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

The recipe

Oven400°F, then 275°F

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat oven to 400°F.

  2. Spray the spring-form pan with nonstick vegetable oil cooking spray. Set aside.

  3. In a shallow roasting pan big enough to fit the cake pan, pour about 1-inch of water and place it on the center rack of the oven to preheat.

Make the batter

  1. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat softened cream cheese, ricotta, sour cream and sugar substitute on low speed for about 1 minute until well blended.

  2. In a separate bowl, using a wire whisk, mix heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, eggs, and egg yolks until blended.

  3. Turn the mixer on medium speed, and slowly pour the egg mixture into the cream cheese mixture. Beat just until blended and then turn off; be careful not to over-whip.

  4. Pour batter into the greased spring-form pan.

Bake and cool

  1. Place pan into the heated water bath.

  2. Bake for 15 minutes, then lower the oven temperature to 275°F.

  3. Continue baking for 1½ hours, or until top is light golden brown and cake is pulling away from the sides of the pan.

  4. Turn the oven off when finished cooking and leave the cake in the oven to cool for 3 more hours. This will keep the cake nice and tall; then remove cake and refrigerate before serving.

  5. Serve chilled.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Milk + vanillatop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together19,175 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together35,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar substitute + sugartop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together78 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cream cheese + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,934 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  5. Cream cheese + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Sugar and vanilla share little aroma chemistry, yet 35,031 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cream cheese
Provides the dense, rich body and creamy texture of the cheesecake.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the cheesecake its firm, sliceable structure.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, making the custard-like texture smoother and silkier.
Ricotta cheese
Adds moisture and a lighter, finer crumb to the cream cheese base.
Sour cream
Contributes moisture and tang, softening the richness of the cream cheese.
Sugar substitute
Provides sweetness to balance the tang of the cheeses and sour cream.

The step that matters

Do not over-whip the batter. Beating too much incorporates excess air, which expands in the oven and then collapses as the cake cools, causing cracks and an uneven top.

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream cheese, milk, ricotta cheese, cream, sugar substitute, sugar, vanilla):

  1. Strawberrybetter flavor fit
  2. Blueberrybetter flavor fit
  3. Peachbetter flavor fit
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream cheese, milk, ricotta cheese, cream, sugar substitute, sugar, vanilla. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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