I wanted to take a moment to talk about some really important equipment for making nice cheese cakes. The first thing I want to talk to you about is pans. Now I like to use spring form pans. Not everybody uses these, some people use regular cake pans. That's up to you. But I think for beginners, these are a lot easier to use because you don't have to worry about flipping your cheesecake out of a pan.
These just pop off and you can lift your cheesecake right out. Now the most important thing with your spring form you want to find ones that have a tight fitting bottom. Some pans for some reason, the bottom will kind of move around within the mold and you definitely don't want that you want them to be very snug because we're going to bake our cheese case in a water bath. And if those aren't snowing the water cooler Get in there and make crust soggy and the cheese cake filling might not completely set. The next thing you need to have pan wise is a larger pan that's going to fit your spring form pan. Something bigger, you know depending on if you're using minis you could fit a few into a pan to bake.
You just want to make sure that there's enough space around the edges of your pan for water to come up. So you don't want it to be super snug fit. I just use a quarter sheet pan with an eight inch spring form. If you need to get a half sheet pan you know use whatever you have. If you have a casserole dish, you know that works great, too. You don't have to go out of your way to find something really fancy.
And if you just don't have anything on hand, you can bake it without a water bath. It is just gonna make the cheese cake a little more rustic. The next thing I have Have that I've found is extremely useful is I have these slow cooker liners. And these are just large plastic bags that really help you can wrap the size and bottom of the pan and it keeps the water out. If you don't have that or you can't find those get the large roll of aluminum foil. You can pick this up at the grocery store simple Actually, I found this in the same aisle as the aluminum foil, but you want the long roll the shorter one, there's more likelihood that the water will get into your pan.
You know a couple other really great tools. I have a KitchenAid mixer that's really good for getting a nice smooth cheese cake batter. You don't have that you have a handheld mixer works just as well. spatulas and you are set. Now let's get into the next lesson and actually make some cheesecake.