Light & Airy Cheesecake

An incredibly light and airy cheesecake that will have your friends begging you for the recipe!

Print Recipe

Prep Time 30

Cook Time 2

Servings 12

Ingredients

2 8 oz and 1 3 oz package of Philadelphia Cream Cheese
1 cup of sugar
1 pint sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
6 eggs separated

For the crust

2 cups graham crackers crushed
1 stick butter melted
3 Tbs. sugar
1 10 " springform pan

Instructions

Combine ingredients for crust either in a food processor or by hand and place in bottom and sides of pan up to 2/3 of the way up.
Mix cream cheese until creamy and add sour cream. Blend until incorporated. Add sugar and vanilla and incorporate thoroughly. Add six yolks, one at a time, and blend.
In a separate bowl and using clean beaters, beat egg whites until fluffy. Fold in gently and incorporate.
Place mixture in springform pan and place in a preheated, 300 degree oven for 1 hour. After 1 hour, turn oven off and leave cake in oven for an additional hour before removing.

Notes

Here's a a tip I learned the hard way: make sure your cake has plenty of 'head room'. I placed another rack too close and that resulted in a cracked top. It didn't change the taste of the cake but if you want your cake to be all nice and pretty give it some room to rise up.
Depending on your oven, your cake may not brown on top. If that happens, place it under the broiler but make sure you don't take your eyes off it! It will brown in less than 3 minutes so be careful!
If you don't have a 10" springform pan, you may use a 9" pan but you will have to add about 15 minutes to the cooking time.
To avoid potentially getting your oven dirty, use a piece of foil on the bottom of your oven. I didn't have an issue with this but it's a good thing to do nonetheless.
Use a thin, sharp knife if needed to separate the cake from the sides before removing the springform.
The recipe doesn't call for greasing the pan before adding the ingredients, but I did anyway. I think it helped.