The Feast Before Us: Sima Lipkin's Israeli Cheesecake

Ingredients

750 grams of five percent soft white cheese

(in the US, substitute cream cheese)
5 eggs (separated into whites and yolks)

1/2 or 3/4 cup sugar

grated lemon peel

5 tablespoons of flour

1/2 tablespoon of baking powder

Directions:

Separate the whites and yolks of the eggs.
Whip the egg whites with the sugar until stiff. Add the sugar gradually, while mixing at high speed with a hand mixer.
Now mix all the other ingredients in a different bowl.
Add the whipped eggs to the other ingredients by folding them in. (Do not stir or use a mixer.)
Pour into an ungreased baking pan.
Bake for one hour at about 120 degrees Celsius. (248 degrees Farenheit).
Enjoy!

Caveat: Sima is not looking at a recipe when she demonstrates how to bake the cake. For this reason, some of the ingredient quantities (number of eggs) and baking directions (degrees Celsius) are a little different each time she mentions them. If you have an allergy to egg whites, you can use fewer of them, while maintaining the original number of egg yolks. Also, oven temperatures vary. It is fun to watch Sima bake!

Uncut Israeli Cheesecake Dialogue

Sima: I have here, in the bowl, 5% white cheese, about 750 or a thousand grams of cheese. I put five egg yolks in it, (the yellow part of the eggs), and grated lemon peel. That's what I have here.

In this container I put the six eggs whites, which I am now going to whip up with ¾ of a cup of sugar.

Now I am going to whip it up. That will take time.

I can change the speed here. It's set at the highest speed of this hand mixer.

It's almost whipped up completely. I will add the sugar when it is a little more stiff.

This is ¾ of a cup of sugar. You can make it more or less sweet, but for those who like it sweet I add more. I add it to the mix slowly.

It's getting stiff and will be even more stiff when I finish adding the sugar.

Aya: Wow!

Sima: The foam is really stiff – hard like snow. This is the ideal condition in which to add it to the mix.

Good. I put this aside.

As I stated before, in this bowl there are egg yolks and grated lemon peel.

I am putting it down into the sink so I don't have to lift my arm so high.

Three, four, five. (Five tablepoons of flour.)

And baking powder. And you can also add vanilla sugar powder.

Now we have the entire mix blended together, and using a lower setting, I mix it together some more.

The mix is ready. What is left for me to do is to clean the sides of the bowl, so that the entire mix will be in the bowl.

And now I am adding the whipped egg whites that we prepared before into the mix. I fold them in gently. I don't stir; I fold.

Here, how stiff it is! Like snow.

Aya: Yes.

Sima: That's very necessary. Otherwise, the cake will fall.

I try to empty out all the contents, in order that the cake be richer, but also not to waste.

And now I fold the whipped egg whites into the cake. Into the previous mix. Using up and down motion. Not stirring.

Aya: Yes.

Sima: That, in fact, is the cake. What is left to do is just to put it in the baking dish and to bake it at 140 degrees Celsius for about an hour.

Aya: Do you need to grease the baking dish with butter?

Sima: You have to plan it. I don't know the exact calculation.

Aya: How do you prepare the baking dish? Do yo need to add butter?

Sima: I'll finish mixing, and then I will put it into the mold. And later, when we eat it, we can lick it.

Not that I am an expert cook, but this is one the things I make very well.

Aya: Your cooking is always good!

Sima: Now I am going toward the baking pan. The baking pan is here.

Aya: And you don't have to prepare it? You don't need to add anything?

Sima: No, nothing. You just pour it into the pan. I try not to waste anything, because it's a shame to lose a drop of it. It's so tasty.

I try to get out as much as possible.

Aya: It is very rich.

Sima: I hope you enjoy it, because it is said to be good.

Today is the Holiday of Weeks (חג השבועות) , and we have to eat cheesecake.

Okay, now I even it out throughout the pan. So we don't have peaks and valleys. Make everything level.

It goes in here. One cake is ready for the evening. I set the oven for 130 degrees more or less and it goes in here.

Thank you. I hope you enjoy it!

An American version of the Cheesecake

I liked the cheesecake so much that I asked my daughter Sword to bake it for me for my birthday this year. Some substitutions had to be made. Three eight ounce packets of cream cheese were used instead of the Israeli soft white cheese. Because of this, it had a much higher percentage of fat. The American cream cheese is 90% fat. The cake was baked for an hour at 300 degrees Farenheit.