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2-1/2 packages soft cream cheese --
5 [about 8 oz. each]
Topping:
Beat egg white with 1/4 cup of sugar, until it hold its peaks. By hand blend all other ingredients, but the topping. Blend gently the egg whites with the cheese.
Spoon the cheese batter into a 26cm [about 10"] springform baking pan and bake for 60 minutes in pre-heated 325°F hot oven. Leave cake in oven with the door slightly open for another 15 minutes, cool. Keep in fridge. Prepare the topping only after the cake is 1 day in the fridge.
Topping:
Poster's Notes:
Raya Tarab, Z'L wrote: In Israel cheesecakes are made from what is called "white cheese" which is either 1/2 or 5 or 9%. It is much more wet than in the US and called here sometimes cream cheese because "they are creamy". If you were to use the recipe I would use either sour cream or mixture of sour cream and Philly - since it will be very hard to achieve the exact texture of the Israeli wet white cheese. Philly is marked at least here 30% but we do have here whipped low-fat Philly. I suggest you try once the cheese cake with the wet cheese - it is certainly lighter than the traditional American cheese cake.
Maxine in RI asked: Could drained yoghurt be used? There are a couple of fairly available brands that are whole milk, or about 4% fat.
One of the closest things to the Israeli white cheese is indeed Maxine's suggestion. Here goes:
Posted by Rina Perry
Nutritional Info Per Serving: 157 calories
4 tbsp. vanilla instant pudding mix/try lemon
3 tbsp. cornflour [Archivist's Note: cornflour is the British for cornstarch]
4 egg yolks
4 egg whites
1/2 cup sugar, divided
1 cup sour cream
1 cup whipping cream
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 package vanilla instant pudding mix
1/2 tbsp. grated lemon
1/4 cup milk
Beat together the last 5 ingredients until well blended. put on top of cake. Keep it in the fridge until you serve.
This cheese is for keeps. You taste it once, you can't stop. Try it and you will find out that I am right.
Drain very very well in gauze (frankly, I use a fabric diaper that I bought especially for this purpose) either yoghurt, or buttermilk (in Israel it is almost always 3%) or a mixture. The taste would of course depend on if you took sour buttermilk, or yoghurt, or sour cream, or sweet buttermilk (= Eshel). What I do - I hang the diaper with 2 containers inside on the tap, over the sink, before I go to bed. In the morning I have inside a very close thing to the cheese.
Add salt to have a spread.
Add za'atar and olive oil (and use only yoghurt) to have labaneh.
Etc.