始终害怕

hello, i've been busy since morning making a cheesecake! if you remember, i tried making nigella's london cheesecake last time. it was an utter disaster. but today i used the right cheese, and without having to unmould and slice the cake, i can already tell it's gonna be good.
a voluminous load of cream cheese mixture. well, today, i wasn't making a london cheesecake, but adapting the recipe to make an oreo one. so i omitted the sour cream topping as well.
folding powdered oreos into the cheese mixture; i was trying to create a marbled effect. i had no idea that they would tint the batter so deeply brown. next time i'll process the oreos to crumbs, not powder.
poured the somewhat marbled cheese mixture into the springform pan lined with an oreo crust at the base. this pan's really water-tight, so i didn't even bother wrapping it with foil.
you can see my lame-ass attempt at trying to decorate the top of the cheesecake with six oreos. incidentally, six happens to be a very important number in geometry. (i don't know why.) then i placed the pan into another baking dish, filled with some hot water. this is called a water bath, or a bain marie.

i think i understand why a bain marie is used now. it's for the slow baking of eggs-rich stuff with gentle heating: this cheesecake had seven yolks and four whites; the rich truffle mud cake had six eggs. the idea is not to let the eggs in the batter get overcooked in a short time. baking slowly with gentle heating ensures a smooth texture. for this reason, baked custards done in water baths. (a cheesecake is essentially a baked custard, replacing the usual cream or milk with cream cheese to achieve a creamy texture.)
you can see the subtle difference in the two photos above. the first is when the batter is still wet, and the second is when the eggs have been cooked, giving the cheesecake a set structure.
i think i might have just baked it a little too long. the top surface appears to have hardened a little too much; it's sprawled with fine cracks if you look close enough, like the signs of ageing on a woman's face.

ok, this cake is for the july birthdays, and it's an oreo cheesecake because PC wanted it >.< right now i'm waiting for it to cool completely before i refrigerate it. the problem is, i don't dare to unmould it in case i can't slip it back into the springform for transporting tomorrow. so i have to live without a photo of the cake unmoulded and/or sliced.

i think any basic cheesecake recipe can be easily adapted to make an oreo cheesecake. so, this should be aptly called 'london oreo cheesecake'. next time i'll try nigella's new york cheesecake, then a new york oreo cheesecake. it's like how sourdoughs take on the name of the place they are made.