Baking – Why Place Pan in Water Bath During Baking?

Cheesecake is a custard, so your very best indicator of doneness is temperature. There are a range of opinions, from about 150 F to 165 F / 65 C to 73 C, measured at the center of the pan, in the center of the layer.

If you don't have an instant read thermometer, generally, you want a thin knife to come out clean from the center; similarly, when the pan is shaken a bit, only the center should jiggle slightly. These indicators are not as good as temperature, so you will need to gain experiene to interpret them.

Once you are measuring properly, problems with the top of the cheesecake being done, but the inside being too unset may be mitigated by:

• Baking in a water bath (which you indicate you are already doing)
• Baking at a lower temperature (within reason; you indicate you are already baking at a fairly low temperature)
• Baking in a wider pan, so the cheesecake is more shallow
• Do not use convection

Since you area already using a bath and a low baking temperature, if you are still having problems once you start checking for doneness by temperature, I would suggest checking your oven's calibration with an oven thermometer to be sure it is not running hot.

The best way to prevent cracking is to use a water bath. It will give you consistently perfect results every time. The payoff is worth the extra effort.

A cheesecake is a baked custard and controlling the temperature is an important component in uniform cooking. Especially in a thick cheesecake, it is hard to finish cooking the center without the perimeter areas overcooking unless you use a water bath.

Having said that, the second best way to avoid cracking is to use an instant read thermometer to test the internal temperature at the center of the cheesecake. Most sources are pretty clear that if the internal temperature rises above 160 °F, the cheesecake will crack so you should either turn the oven off or remove the cheesecake from the oven—depending on your recipe—when the cheesecake registers just over 150 °F.

Unfortunately, although the temperature of the cheesecake at its center should be a foolproof way of preventing a side-to-side crack along the top of the cheesecake, without a water bath it is still possible that there might be cracks along the outer regions of top of the cheesecake if those areas overcook from being unprotected.

Lowering the temperature might give you more control over the consistency of cooking, but it won't eradicate the risk of having the exterior of the cheesecake cook-through before the interior is sufficiently set.

Ultimately, to get back to your specific question, there is no reliable time-for-temperature adjustment that can be recommended. You will enjoy much more reliable results using internal temperature to tell when your cheesecake needs to stop baking. And I can assure you that using a water bath would revolutionize your cheesecakes.