Midweek Crush: Japanese Cotton Cheesecake

If you walked into a bakery in Japan and asked for a Japanese Cheesecake you are more likely than not to be welcomed with a lot of eye-rolling. What they have are a baked cheesecake (the typical cheesecake, baked in the oven, with or without the biscuit bottom); a rare cheesecake (the eggless “no-bake cheesecake” set inside a refrigerator; and the one you’re probably looking for – the soufflé cheesecake.

Like with most food trends one isn’t quite sure how or why a city begins to proclaim undying love for one dish, all together. And so, I cannot identify the exact moment when a decidedly mithai and chocolate loving Mumbai fell in love with the delicately flavoured, pillowy Japanese cheesecake.

This Japanese cheesecake is made like a traditional baked cheesecake, only with far less cream cheese and sugar, and baked in a bain-marie (water bath) to help bake it into a cloud.

Even if you aren’t a fan of one of the oldest surviving desserts (historians have stated that cheesecake was served to athletes during the first Olympic Games in 776 BC!), I’m pretty sure that one bite into Flourist’s Japanese Cotton Cheesecake will have you converted. And if you needed added incentive it is lower on sugar and has fewer calories than most other cheesecakes in town.

The fluffy, light as air soufflé will melt in your mouth. I promise.

The Japanese Cotton Cheesecake by Flourists Shefali Mirani, Daphi Manroi, Krishni Shroff and Moayyad Mithaiwalai is available for Rs. 1,400 on order from Shefali Mirani’s Flourists on (022) 22611163 and at their pop up in July at LOVE Shafali, 17 Commerce House, Ropewalk Lane, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai.