Japanese Soufflé Cheesecake (日式芝士蛋糕)

Soufflé cheesecake is the Japanese take on cheesecake. It's much lighter than the American or German version and not at all cheesy – the ideal cheesecake for cheesecake haters.  The recipe I'm sharing is adapted from Diana's Desserts. I've made four changes to the original recipe:

⋈ The amount of cream cheese is reduced by about 30% to make the cake really light.

⋈ The oven is preheated to 180°C, then reduced to 170°C when the baking starts. The original recipe uses 160°C instead.

Despite the higher temperature and lesser cream cheese, my baking time is about the same as Diana's.

⋈ The cake is baked in the bottom instead of the middle of the oven so that the top doesn't brown too quickly.

⋈ The egg whites are whisked without cream of tartar. I find the cake too sour with the original recipe's ¼ tsp, and the acid isn't necessary for stopping the cake from collapsing.

Besides the above changes, I've added a couple of steps to make the cake as smooth as possible: sieving the cream cheese mixture; and removing big air bubbles in the batter by banging the mixing bowl hard, and by pouring slowly when the batter is transferred into the cake pan.

The inside of a good soufflé cheesecake should have lots of tiny holes, like a chiffon cake, to make it light. Big holes would be unsightly; no holes at all would mean the cake is heavy and dense like a regular cheesecake

Here's my video to help you make a very light, very non-cheesy cheesecake:

JAPANESE SOUFFLÉ CHEESECAKE (日式芝士蛋糕) Source: adapted from Diana's Desserts ((Recipe for one 18 cm cake) 80 ml milk 40 g butter, at (tropical) room temperature, cut into small pieces 140 g full-fat cream cheese block, at (tropical) room temperature, cut into small pieces 50 g cake flour, sifted 15 g cornstarch, sifted ⅛ tsp salt mix evenly with sifted cake flour and cornstarch 75 g egg yolks 2 tsp lemon juice 180 g egg whites 90 g caster sugar Measure and prep ingredients as detailed above. Preheat oven to 180°C (355°F). Put kettle on. Line 18 x 6 cm round cake pan, with parchment paper extending above top of pan by 2-3 cm. Heat milk till hand-hot. Add to butter and cream cheese. Mix evenly. Add egg yolks and lemon juice. Mix evenly. Sieve, twice so that mixture is silky smooth. Add cake flour, cornstarch and salt. Mix till just even. Whisk egg whites till big bubbles become small. Continue whisking whilst adding sugar gradually. Keep on whisking till egg whites form soft peaks. Add egg whites to yolk mixture in 3 batches. Mix till half even after each of first 2 additions, then till just fully even after third addition. Bang mixing bowl against worktop 3-4 times, hard, to remove big air bubbles. Pour batter into cake pan, slowly so that big air bubbles burst as batter flows out of mixing bowl. Reboil water in kettle. Put cake pan in a bigger pan. Fill outer pan with boiling water to about half-way up sides of inner cake pan. Reduce oven temperature to 170°C (340°F). Bake in bottom of oven till top of cake is golden brown and inserted skewer comes out with some crumbs attached, about 1¼ hours. Remove cake from oven. Leave on wire rack to cool down completely. Unmould by inverting onto a plate. Discard parchment paper. Invert onto another plate so that cake is right way up. Cut with serrated knife by moving blade either forward or backward, i.e. do not saw.

Ginger Milk Pudding (薑汁撞奶)

薑汁撞奶 is a Cantonese pudding made with ginger juice and buffalo milk, plus sugar to taste. Without steaming, baking, gelatine or agar-agar, the milk is able to solidify into a custard just by mixing with some ginger juice. Sounds really easy, right? Hey, the devil is in the details!

Recipes for 薑汁撞奶 usually specify the use of old ginger but I've succeeded and failed before with both old and young ginger. It's not the age that matters, but the white stuff you see in the photo above. That's the starch in the ginger juice that solidifies the fats and proteins in milk, turning it into a custard. I've come across old ginger which doesn't have much of it, and also young ginger which has lots. How do you tell if the ginger has lots or not? I don't know. But I do know that if you don't see a thick layer of starch after letting the ginger juice rest a few minutes, you should forget about 薑汁撞奶 and make teh halia instead.

How much ginger juice should there be? The ratio of juice to milk should be 8-10. If there's too little ginger juice, there'd be naturally too little starch and the milk wouldn't set. Too much is bad too unless some of the liquid part of the ginger juice is removed.

The way you add the milk to the ginger juice is critical to the success of the pudding. First, stir the starch sitting in the bottom of the bowl. Stop stirring, then pour the right amount of milk into the bowl in one go. It has to "crash" into the ginger juice, as the Cantonese name for the dessert says. Because the milk fats and proteins start solidifying once the milk hits the ginger starch, the turbulence in the bowl should be just sufficient to mix the starch and milk, then stop asap or the curds being formed would be broken up.

The temperature of the milk has a huge impact on how firm the pudding is. If it's too hot or too cold, the starch may not set at all. The good news is, ginger flavoured milk is quite nice! On no account use this ginger flavoured milk to make ginger tea. If you do, you'll regret it.

The ideal temperature is 75-80°C, i.e. hand-hot. That's for cow milk, btw. For buffalo milk – which is what's used in the pudding's hometown in China –  I suspect the ideal temperature may be different (lower?) because it has more fats and proteins than cow milk and, hence, sets more firmly.

If you want the pudding to be as firm as possible, don't add any sugar to the milk. Instead, make some sugar solution and drizzle it on the pudding like how you'd eat tau huay (豆花).

Finally, because you sooooo need a video to show you how to chop ginger and warm up milk, here it is:

GINGER MILK PUDDING (薑汁撞奶) (Recipe for 2 persons) 360 ml full-fat fresh milk 4 tsp sugar 40 ml freshly squeezed ginger juice, divided equally between 2 serving bowls let ginger juice rest 5 minutes; check amount of starch in bottom of bowls; if there isn't much, do not proceed Heat milk and sugar till hand-hot. Stir ginger juice. Stop stirring, then pour 180 ml milk in one go, quickly, into each bowl. Leave for 10 minutes without moving bowls. Serve.

Hong Kong Egg Tarts (港式蛋挞)

The best tool for flattening pastry dough isn't a rolling pin but a plate. Just place a round blob of dough between two plastic sheets, then press it evenly with a flat-bottomed plate. Peel off the top sheet of plastic, then flip the dough into a tart mould.

Ease the dough into the mould, from the centre to the edges so that there're no air pockets. Trim the excess around the rim, and you're done. That's all there is to it. With this method, even a novice can quickly make pastry shells that are nicely thin and even. It is, for me, much faster and easier than how professional bakers do it. They just press a lump of dough into the mould without flattening it first.

Sieving the custard is necessary only when you plan to use it within a couple of hours. If you have time to let it rest half a day or longer, you can skip this step. Refrigerated, the egg and milk mixture may be stored for maybe one week.

A vanilla pod is good for flavouring the filling. Failing that, a high quality vanilla extract makes a reasonable stand-in. If vanilla is too vanilla for you, how about dark rum, brandy, kahlua or Bailey's? Hey, nutmeg is nice if you like nutmeg. Ginger juice would be appropriate if you're feeling windy.

On no account prick the tart shells to stop them from puffing up in the oven. If you do, they'll leak. Instead, prebake the pastry at a low temperature of 150°C and, if there isn't any air trapped underneath the dough, it should stay nicely flat even without pie weights. If you like, the tart shells may be chilled or frozen either before or after prebaking.

I like my egg tarts shiny, not matte. The shine comes from the slightly undercooked custard on top, which is done by giving the tarts less heat from the top than the bottom. And the heat has to be quite gentle, overall, so that the eggs and milk cook into a soft and silky smooth custard.

If photos and words are too abstract for you and you don't get the picture, here's my video to help you connect the dots:

HONG KONG EGG TARTS (港式蛋挞) Source: adapted from Aunty Yochana (Recipe for 20 tarts) Custard Filling 240 g eggs 160 g sugar   480 ml milk 1¼ tsp vanilla extract Tart Shells 125 g salted butter, softened 60 g icing sugar, sifted 15 g egg white 15 g egg yolk 1 tsp vanilla extract 210 g plain flour To make tart filling, whisk sugar with eggs till melted. Add milk and vanilla extract. Whisk till evenly mixed. Sieve to remove big bubbles, into something that can pour without dripping. Set aside till small bubbles subside, about 1¼ hours. To make tart dough, mix butter and icing sugar till smooth. Add egg white, yolk and vanilla extract. Mix till well combined. If dough is sticky, sprinkle with flour 1 tsp at a time and mix through. If dough is dry and crumbly, sprinkle with water instead 1 tsp at a time. Place dough in freezer till just firm, spread out to cool down faster. This should take 10 minutes or so. When lining tart moulds, remove dough from freezer ¼ portion at a time. To line tart moulds, smooth 2 plastic sheets so that there are no folds. Roll 30 g dough into a ball. Place ball between plastic sheets. Press evenly with flat-bottomed plate to form a circle 2 mm thick and 10 cm wide, checking thickness and evenness by touching dough with palm. Remove top plastic sheet. Place 8 x 2.5 cm tart mould on dough, rim side down. Flip mould, along with dough and remaining plastic sheet, to face upward. Press dough into mould, from centre to rim. Remove plastic sheet. Trim excess dough around edges. Run fingers round tart mould, gently pressing to even out thickness and remove air pockets if necessary. Trim again if there's excess dough. To bake tart shells, preheat oven to 150°C. Place shells on baking tray. Bake 15 minutes in middle of oven. Increase temperature to 180°C. Continue baking till slightly brown, another 5 minutes or so. Remove from oven. Leave on wire rack to cool down completely. To bake tarts, preheat oven to 165°C. If you want to line your baking tray with foil, it should be shiny side down. Pour custard into shells, to 2 mm from rim. Bake 15 minutes in bottom of oven. Reduce temperature to 150°C. Move tray to middle of oven. Top up filling to make up for evaporation. Bake till custard is just slightly wobbly in the middle when shaken, another 15 minutes or so. If custard puffs up during last few minutes but is still too watery in the middle, remove tarts from oven to cool down till custard subsides, then continue baking. Watch custard closely towards the end to make sure it doesn't overcook. Serve hot, or at least warm. Leftovers should be refrigerated. Tarts may be reheated at 120°C using bottom heat only for 10 minutes or so. Pastry isn't soggy at all if reheated without moulds.