Japanese Light Cheesecake

My family loves this light cheesecake - its texture is cake-like, not cheesy.  I guess you could call it the Asian version of the regular cheesecake.  

Ingredients:

• 100 g Neufchatel cheese (cut cheese into smaller chunks to hasten melting process)
• 120 g butter
• 100 g milk
• 100 g low gluten flour (cake flour)
• 30 g corn starch
• 20g parmesan cheese powder (grated cheese), the ones used for pizza condiment
• 4 eggs - yolks & white separated (best to use eggs at room temperature, not directly from fridge, leave it at room temperature at least 30 minutes from fridge)
• 120 g sugar
• 1 teaspoon cream of tartar

Directions:

1. Melt cream cheese & butter over a pot of hot/boiling water until melted. Note - cream cheese might still be a bit chunky, press it with spoon to smooth it out as much as possible
2. Add milk into the cream cheese & butter mixture and stir gently, usually the cream cheese will melt with the addition of milk (use spoon to smooth it out again)
3. Combine flour, corn starch, and cheese powder in a medium/large mixing bowl and mix it. Then pour the cream cheese, butter & milk mixture in and mix it evenly
4. Add the egg yolks into the mixture now and mix it
5. Preheat oven at 325 degree C
6. Butter & flour the baking pan first (I use 8x8 square pan)
7. In a separate mixing bowl, beat egg whites, sugar and cream of tartar until it's fluffy (won't spill when you turn the bowl over)
8. Fold in the egg white mixture gently into step #4 until it's even (no more white spots but not overdo it)
9. Prepare a cookie sheet or big pan with some water in it, place the cake mixture pan on the water cookie sheet, and bake for about 40 minutes until the cake is slightly browned

Note: if there are still tiny chunks of cream cheese in the mixture in step 2, you can use a strainer to smooth it out. You can find Neufchatel cheese in the cream cheese section in supermarket. Low gluten flour can be found in Chinese markets, it's the same as regular cake flour.

 Recipe courtesy of Vivian Lin