Cake – Cheesecake Cooking Time Change with Pan Change

Okay, I undeleted my OP to this question (to be honest, not sure how similar the two are...., never checked that closely). The most important thing to watch for in terms of the 'silkiness' would be the mixing and ingredient temp. When all ingredients are at room temp, they homogonize much quicker, and require far less mixing, therefore less air is incorporated, making for a denser product. I think this should help.

Short of that, it could be recipe. A perfect cheesecake recipe is hard to find (luckily, I have one). Can I post it here? I don't think it's allowed.....

Answer I typed yesterday (sorry if it is essentially a dupe)..... I' @ work, don't have time to check too closely...

I have made thousands of cheesecakes. My pastry chef taught me how a method that has always worked:

1. Always use room temperature ingredients. NEVER overmix, incorporation of air is your enemy Set your oven to 300 F (sorry, in Canada we are metric, but use Farenheit for baking).
2. Place your cheesecake in a water bath. Bake for 30 minutes.
3. Turn off the oven and open its door, allow the cheesecake to rest for 30 minutes, sitting in the oven in this state.
4. After the thirty minute rest, carefully close the door, and set the oven to 300 F again. Bake another 30 minutes (I have sometimes had to go to 40 minutes depending on oven).

And that's it. Works every time. I am so thankful he taught me this. As an added bonus, you will get a cake that is flat like a board, with no cracks.

You can of course, try this.

The largest challenge you will face is that cheesecakes are notoriously difficult to release from the pan, and they are not very strong. The traditional crumb crust is also not very strong, so it doesn't provide much support or structural integrity to the slice.

This is why spring form pans are normally used for cheesecakes: they let you leave the cheesecake on its base plate, and just remove the ring. The crust sits on the base plate until service.

If you want to try it in another pan, to facilitate getting it out, I suggest that you:

• Consider using aluminum foil instead of parchment, as it is easier to shape. Make a sling for the cheesecake, so that the foil comes up the edge of the pan. You will want to do this in both directions.

  The sling will be used after baking to lift the cheesecake out of the pan. You should then be able to carefully peel the foil back from the edges, and slice it. (Many brownie recipes recommend this technique.)

• Consider a sturdier crust than a crumb crust, perhaps a full shortbread, that will survive the lifting from the pan, and be strong enough to support the pieces when you cut them.

• Changing the shape of the pan may change the surface area of the cheesecake, and thus its depth, which will affect the cooking time. You want to choose a new pan that is as close in area to the pan anticipated in your recipe as possible, so that the baking time and temperature do not have to be adjusted too much. Getting the perfect balance of time, temperature, and thickness of the custard is a tricky matter.

  If your original recipe calls for a 9" spring form pan (which is fairly typical of cheesecakes), that is approximately 64" square inches. So you would choose an 8x8" square pan to have approximately the same area.

  A complication is that spring form pans tend to be taller than square cake pans, and cheesecake recipes often take advantage of this fact. If all of your filling will not fit (with some reasonable room for a tiny amount of expansion (cheesecake should not really expand when cooked), you are going to have to adjust the baking time and possibly the temperature.

  Your cheesecake should be done when it jiggles slightly at the center, and has an internal temperature measured in the center of approximately 180-185 F. You will need an instant read thermometer to measure this.

  If you are changing the depth or the area, you will definitely want to monitor your cake closely for when it is done.

Another approach would be to make individual cheesecakes or tartlets in a tartlet mold.

You should easily be able to google many suitable recipes.