Cake – How to consistently get golden beads on meringue topping

That's a really good question. I imagine it was probably stabilized with something that stays solid at high heat, b/c hot cheesecake would be fairly soft. Was it warm all the way through? My wild guess would be they rewarmed it in the oven, then (if needed) blasted with a blowtorch for crispiness.

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.