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A japanese cheesecake is basically like a cheesecake fused with a spongecake.

When i beat the egg whites they peak perfectly then i am required to get 1/3 of the egg white mixture and fold it into the cake mixture then fold in the rest of the egg whites. Then i pour it into a pan and place it into a baine-marie and bake it for about 1 hour and 10mins at 180 degrees celcius.

In the oven it raises perfectly and looks beautiful, then when i take it out of the oven to rest it slowly starts to shrink and is no longer tall but rather about 1-2cm shorter (20cm cake pan).

Can anyone please help me? Anyone have any suggestions or any techniques on how to prevent this from happening?

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2 Answers 2

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Try letting it cool in the oven.

The tip is from the blog "The Little Teochew", which writes:

  1. Leave to cool in oven with door ajar, about 30mins to 1 hour. Sudden changes in temperature may cause the cake to cool too quickly and collapse.

Further tips can by found in the blog post: Japanese Cheesecake

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    This tends to be the case with almost any baking recipe using beaten egg whites as a leavener or stabilizer. Unless the whites are permanently stabilized (e.g. an Italian meringue), they'll break apart and deflate if cooled too fast.
    – Aaronut
    Commented Dec 9, 2011 at 15:23
  • Aaronut, what kind of stablizer would be suitable and how much do I put in? I've heard people use gelatin in souffle
    – issy
    Commented Dec 30, 2011 at 5:11
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Just as with souffles and angel-food cakes, the rise of your cake depends on steam-filled bubbles lifting the batter while the egg proteins set. The trick is, you don't want to overcook the batter, nor do you want to have dramatic swings in temperature, which might deflate the bubbles before the proteins have set. So, you need to do a staged baking process.

First, preheat the oven to 180C (350F) for at least 30 minutes to be sure the walls of the oven are hot (if you simply quick-heat the oven, all you've heated is air, much of which will rush out the moment you add your cake). Put the cake pan in the bain-marie, place the bain-marie on the oven rack, and then add the boiling water. Bake for 15 minutes, then lower the temperature to 160C (325F) and continue to bake until the top turns lightly golden (about 25 minutes, depending on your oven -- but don't go strictly by time during this phase). Finally, turn off the oven and leave the cake pan for another 40 minutes to an hour.

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