New York Cheesecake

I ate a cheesecake just like this in New York once. I couldn’t quite work out what gave it that airy lightness until I registered that, unlike the creamy, smooth and dense cheesecakes I’d always known, the whites of the eggs must have been whisked.

I know the cooking instructions look odd (and if you want, you can go for the water-bath option and the more straightforward approach of the following two cheesecakes), but for me they’re part of the Jewish cheesecake tradition.