 We're Mason and Vanessa Woodruff and today we're making five different cheesecake recipes to see which we like best. As an average home baker, I'm always curious to try new recipes, but it can be really overwhelming trying to select which recipe I want to make online. There's so many out there. So this inspired me to start my bake-off series where I pick five highly reviewed dessert recipes of a particular dessert, say cheesecake, to see what I can learn about it and which recipe I like best. It's been such a fun way to experience new desserts and learn from more experienced bakers online. So join us today as we learn all about cheesecake from five of the internet's most popular recipes. Let's talk about crust. As far as ingredients go, they all consist of the typical combination of graham cracker crumbs, sugar, salt, and melted butter. You will see some slight differences here where a few recipes excluded salt or used a combination of white and brown sugar as seen in Sugar Spun Runs recipe. Moving on to method, all recipes called for pressing the crust mixture evenly across the bottom and up the sides of the springform pan, except for once upon a chef's recipe that only required crust on the bottom layer. Including crust up the sides definitely created some extra texture in the final product and made a difference when eating it. However, from the baker's perspective, it can be annoying trying to achieve this with essentially a crumbly sand. Just be sure to use a measuring cup to press the crust mixture into the pan instead of just using your hands. Lastly, all recipes required baking the crust before adding the filling except Sugar Spun Run. It is worth noting that there was no discernible difference in the taste or texture of these crusts despite their small variations. Moving on to the filling. Again, the ingredients for this portion will also be very similar with slight variations across the five recipes. You can expect to see cream cheese, sugar, sour cream, vanilla, and eggs used in all of the fillings. The main variation will come in the amount of each ingredient that is used. The most notable difference can be found in the use of lemon juice and lemon zest in two of the recipes. We found there to be no change in flavor when only lemon juice was used in Sally's Baking Addiction's recipe. However, the lemon zest and lemon juice combo used in once upon a chef's recipe resulted in such a strong flavor you could almost call it a lemon cheesecake. Once upon a chef was also the only recipe that called for a small amount of flour. Ultimately, I think this contributed to the final texture and provided a bit more structure. While the ingredients are important, we actually found the mixing method to have more of an impact. Because the ingredients are so similar, the differences really come down to the texture of each cheesecake, which was partly achieved by the mixing method. Most recipes emphasized not over mixing the batter to prevent incorporating air and therefore bubbles into the batter. We found that the least mixed batters resulted in a denser, creamier cheesecake. Whereas in contrast, the New York Times cooking recipe specifically called for significant mixing of the batter and resulted in the fluffiest cheesecake of them all, a true delight to eat. While the mixing method is important, the bake and cool down process just might be the most impactful on the final result. Sugar Spun Run and Sally's Baking Addiction both kept the oven at the same temperature for the entire bake, whereas New York Times cooking, once upon a chef and Lauren's latest, all started at higher oven temperatures to bake the crust before reducing to bake the cheesecake. All five recipes had different results when it came to browning and cracking on the tops of the cheesecakes. The New York Times cooking recipe was the only one that warned of and encouraged browning, which was a relief. In contrast, once upon a chef instructs to cover up the top of the cheesecake with foil if it starts to brown. Unfortunately, this caused the rising top to stick to the foil and it ripped upon removal, a sad sight to see after all the work put into it. Finally, Lauren's latest recipe had three reductions in the oven's temperature and it was the only cheesecake to achieve a perfect top with no browning and no cracks. This was a surprising result considering the fact that this was one of the two recipes that did not call for the infamous water bath. Prior to this experiment, I assumed a water bath was necessary for a perfect cheesecake. The second recipe that did not require a water bath was sugar spun run. However, as mentioned earlier, it did bake at the same temperature for the entire time, which contributed to the browning and cracking on top, leaving me to think that Lauren's latest tactic is the better one. It is worth noting that the two recipes on the bottom of our preference list were the two that did not use a water bath and both were quite dense. While most recipes bake for about an hour and 15 minutes, they all approach the cool down process very differently. And the cool down process is very important as it determines the final texture of your cheesecake. Allowing the cheesecake to slowly and gently cool down ensures a smooth top and a set filling. As usual, sugar spun run did nothing special for the cool down process. All you have to do is take it out of the oven and cool it to room temperature before chilling in the fridge overnight. From start to finish, this recipe is a no fuss, simple task. Next, once upon a chef instructs you to remove the cheesecake from the oven but allow it to cool down in the water bath for another 45 minutes before transferring to the fridge to chill overnight. The three remaining recipes instruct you to turn off the oven, crack the door and allow the cheesecake to cool for one hour. Lauren's latest recipe takes it one step further and instructs you to leave the oven door closed for 30 minutes prior to cracking it. All five recipes encourage you to chill the cheesecake in the fridge overnight to get the best results. Wow, that was a really long day of baking. But we learned quite a bit about cheesecake. Yes, we definitely did chef. Not a bad week to be the savory cook in the house. And as the resident taste tester of the house, let's get into our ranking, shall we? Sorry, the number five, sugar spun run. It's a very classic cheesecake, arguably the easiest recipe of the bunch. So if you need the easy recipe, can't go wrong here. Very creamy, ultra rich, borderline stodgy, would be it's negative when it's down here at the bottom. Next on the list is Lauren's latest. Look at the topping. There is no browning in sight, no cracks to be seen. I don't think that's ever happened making a cheesecake my entire life. So that's really exciting. It's got nice, great flavor. It is very creamy, almost ultra rich. So if you like a rich cheesecake, go for this one. Number three on the list, tried and true, always a safe bet for Vanessa, one of your early inspirations, Sally's baking addiction. This is a great cheesecake that borders somewhere between ultra rich and creamy, light and fluffy. The flavor on this is probably the strongest of the bunch. It's extra tangy, not in a bad way. Overall, really great cheesecake. Coming in at number two is one spot a chef. This is a nice fluffy cheesecake, which is our preferred texture and has a nice strong forward lemon flavor. You could almost say this is a lemon cheesecake, thanks to the inclusion of lemon zest and lemon juice. If you're looking for a lemon cheesecake, this one's for you. And Vanessa keeps telling me to shut up about blueberry compote, but if you have a blueberry compote recipe or some fresh summer strawberries, please put it on top of this cheesecake. It'll be a lot of work for one day, but you would enjoy it. Okay, drum roll. You can probably get ducked by now. New York Times, number one cheesecake. Buy a long shot. Buy a long shot. We love this cheesecake. It's aesthetically pleasing. It's nice and tall, but it's somehow the perfect ratio between crust to filling in the nicely browned topping is not only beautiful, but adds another texture between the two. It's almost like eating a cheesecake sandwich, which I never knew I wanted. I can't say enough of good things about it. Zero negatives, five stars would make again. It's the perfect cheesecake, at least for us. We found that we liked a more light and fluffy cheesecake as opposed to a rich and dense cheesecake. If you like a creamier cheesecake, you're gonna wanna start on this side and work your way this way. What kind of cheesecake do you guys like? Do you prefer rich and creamy or light and fluffy? Let us know in the comments below. And if you like this style of video where we do bake-offs or we've done other cook-offs, it's the savory cook in the house. I know a guy. Be sure to subscribe, check out some of our other videos, and we hope you enjoyed, and we'll see you next time. Bye.