HELP!!!
I’ve been dying to try my hand at making a cheesecake from scratch.
I don’t have a Springform pan, and really don’t have the resources to get one, nor the desire to spend money on something I would probably only use once.
Anyone have a decent method that doesn’t require a springform pan?
Thanks, you gluttenous dopers!
I’ve made cheescake in a 9x13 inch pan (doubled the recipe IIRC), so any cake pan would probably work OK.
Brian
I make cheesecake in a cake pan or casserole dish if it’s for my family. The benefit to a springform pan is it basically upwraps from around the cheesecake, giving you that nice uniform edge that looks so pretty in restaurants and magazine covers. If you’re going for taste alone, any pan will do. Just scoop it out like you would a pie.
You can make cheesecake in any sort of pan…square, round, whatever, doesn’t matter. You want to use a pan with the highest sides you’ve got to avoid leakage.
Springform pans are all about presentation…the ability to put a pristine round cheesecake on the table all ready for slicing. If you don’t mind prying chunks of cheesecake out of a regular pan it won’t affect the taste at all. You don’t even need a graham cracker crust of you don’t want it.
Cheesecake is really one of the simplest things to make. Cream cheese, sugar, and eggs for the most basic recipe. 3 8-oz packs of cream cheese, mix with 1 cup sugar, and mix in 3 eggs one at a time. Oh, and add vanilla or lemon zest or whatever.
Depending on the type of cheesecake I’m making, I’ve had good luck making it in a pie pan, usually two pie pans worth of cheesecake per recipe. I like the look of the pie pan slice for the kind of cheesecake that gets served with a sauce (like chocolate or mint or raspberry). It’s also pretty easy to cut the slices out, especially if you have a cake server.
Because the pie pan (or pie tin, as my grandmother would say) is flatter than the typical springform, I cut a little off of the baking time and keep a close eye on it while it’s in the oven.
You can use parchment paper.
In an ordinary 9-inch round cake pan, cut a circle of parchment paper for the bottom, and a strip slightly higher than the side and slightly longer then the circumference. Heavily butter the bottom and sides, then put the parchment paper in.
Make your crust and cake as always. Cool in pan. When the cake is cool, you can submerge the cake pan briefly in hot water. This will melt the butter on the bottom and sides and let you invert the cake onto a plate. I recommend sprinkling the plate with sugar to make it easier to immediately re-invert it off the plaet and onto a cake round or serving plate.
Actually, I like to use springform pans for regular (non-cheese-) cakes, too. Just minimizes the mess when you want to get the cake out of the pan and onto a nice plate for display purposes. So you might not use it only once.
But then, I have 4 springform pans in various sizes, so I’m kind of a kitchen geek. 
Or do what Bricker said. That works great too.