Baked or non-baked cheesecake?

I'm a HUGE fan of cheesecake. Honestly really like it alot. Especially the fluffy, cotton-like japanese ones.  The problem is baking it is a little notoriously difficult and you often see people gripping about cracks on the surface, using water baths etc. But ok, well I maybe wrong about that but I've never really tried it before, so I decided to try two very easy recipes online that I've been meaning to.


The first is a no-bake tofu cheesecake and I followed the recipe by cooking with dog:

and this is the result:





Well its alot flatter than hers cos her tin was 15cm while mine was 23cm and I used the same amount of batter. but I actually think taste wise this height is a good amount. I also added cocoa powder to 1/4 of the batter and layered it over to try and create marbled patterns, but obviously my layering didn't go as well as I wanted and there was a slightly too little chocolate batter. But I actually think the chocolate taste adds alot to it. I seems a little bit more mousse-y than hers, perhaps i underestimated the gelatin and overadded the liquids cause I didn't have any weighing machine and kinda used whatever methods I can think of (cups, spoons, estimation based on packaging). But taste wise its like icecream without the extreme chill and I like the subtle sweetness. :) Its really nice! And when eating it you can console yourself that half of it is tofu and yoghurt and ignore the whipping cream and cream cheese half. I actually really wanted to make a matcha version but couldn't find any sold nearby so next time!

The second is a simple baked cheesecake, recipe by ochikeron:

The end result:

I think it looks pretty much like hers! I used strawberry wafers instead of her vanilla ones, but I might go with digestives next time. The artificial strawberry flavour is a little distracting. She wrapped it up like sweets so I think its a neat thing to make for gifts. :) Ran out of parchment paper but wasn't much of a problem. It tastes good for the amount of effort put in. ^^

Yeah it cracked cause the temperature she used was too high for my case.

Verdict:

I actually liked eating the creamer non-baked version. But initially I was apprehensive at how everything was really raw in it (did I keep everything sterile?). ^^; But got past it haha. You wouldn't think twice unless you made it. And with the baked one its like ~100% safe by heat sterilisation. haha. I think I prefer the non-baked one, but I think my bro likes the baked one.

Though the thing with cheesecakes is, cream cheese is relatively expensive at ~$5 per 250grams, so the cost of baking a tray is around $10. But well at least you know what goes in it compared to buying it outside, and as long as its cheesy I'm happy. :)