We’ve been doing a lot of baking at home. I finally tracked down my grandmother’s cheesecake recipe and it came out as amazing as I remembered. The farmer cheese gives it a lighter texture than the typical New York style cheesecake. I’ve lived in NYC almost my entire life and the below is the best cheese cake I’ve ever had!

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Below is the recipe for the cheese cake itself. It works well with variety of crusts or no crust at all. I included crust and topping options at the end.

My Grandmother’s Cheesecake Recipe

I forgot to take a photo of the cake until after we cut a slice…

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Ingredients

Note that the measurements are a bit wonky as my grandmother always eyeballed and just measured for us to document the recipe. It’s a forgiving recipe and should come out great without precise measurements.

1/4 lb Neufchatel or cream cheese (I use a brick, not tub)
1/4 lb farmer cheese (we use Friendship low sodium)
1 heaping tablespoon flour
6 heaping tablespoons sugar
2 eggs
juice of half a lemon + zest of one lemon (or 1/4 c. lemon juice)
1.33 cups of milk (I use whole milk)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

Bring cheeses to room temperature.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Blend all ingredients on medium until smooth.
Place a pan of water on lower shelf of oven to help prevent cracking of cake. Mine cracked anyway and no one cared. If you are adding a topping, no one will know.
Transfer cake batter to a 9 inch square pan (I made 150% of the recipe and used a 9 inch springform pan).
Bake cake for 45 minutes on middle shelf (60 - 70 minutes if scaling the recipe up for a 9 inch springform pan). The cake is ready when edges are set and center has a slightly custard-like texture.
Turn oven off and allow cake to sit in oven for an additional 30 minutes to help prevent cracking (45 minutes if scaling the recipe up for a 9 inch springform pan).
Allow to cool on wire rack.
My grandmother dusted the cake with cinnamon upon removing from the oven. I prefer no cinnamon or topping. It is, however sturdy enough to handle a topping (see below).
Leave in refrigerator 12-24 hours to achieve ideal texture (it may be springy and/or spongy until it completely sets).

Crust and Topping Ideas

Chocolate Almond Crust

I improvised to make this crust and it came out amazing. I mixed 1 cup of almond flour, 8 crushed chocolate sandwich cookies (like Oreos) and 3 Tablespoons of softened unsalted butter, baked at 350 in a 9 inch springform pan for 8-12 min until just set. I then cooled it and filled with the above cheese cake recipe.

I crushed the cookies by placing them in a ziplock and rolling with a rolling pin. I intentionally left some texture. I then mixed in the other ingredients while wearing gloves.

This crust is less dense than the traditional Oreo crust and more interesting than the traditional graham cracker crust.

More crust and topping ideas

My nephew has made this countless times and plays around with crust and topping. See below for crustless cake with blueberry topping and Oreo crust with toffee topping. Let me know in the comments if you’d like me to share his crust and topping recipes.