Evelyn's Cheesecake

I have baked (and eaten) more cheesecakes in my life than I care to mention. Finally, it dawned on me that what I was doing was making a type of custard in a crust. Revelation - I could do custard without a recipe and from then on I have never used a recipe to make cheesecake. This is one of my favourites. There's no crust - it really doesn't need it.

• Ready In: 1 hr
• Serves: 16-24

Ingredients

• 5 (8 ounce) packages  philladelphia cream cheese, room temperature
• 1  tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1⁄2 cup cornstarch
• 2  cups  whipping cream
• 4 1⁄2 ounces unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 1⁄2 cups sugar
• 7  large eggs
• 1⁄4 cup  fresh-squeezed lemon juice

Directions

1. Position rack 1/3 down from TOP of oven and preheat to 350 degrees F (175C).
2. Butter a 13x9x2" cake pan or large springform pan (put foil around outside of springform pan as the cheesecake batter is quite runny) and set aside.
3. In a large bowl, beat cheese and butter until soft and smooth.
4. Beat in vanilla, sugar and cornstarch and continue beating until smooth.
5. Beat in eggs one at a time and then, on low speed, gradually add the cream.
6. The mixture will be very thin.
7. Add lemon juice and beat only to mix.
8. Pour into pan, place in larger pan that is not deeper than cake pan and pour in hot water almost 1" deep.
9. Bake for 30 minutes, rotate pan from front to back; raise oven temperature to 400 degrees F (190C) and bake 10-15 minutes more, until top is pale golden-brown.
10. Remove from hot water and let cool completely (do NOT!!! refrigerate until it has been removed from baking pan! otherwise you'll never be able to get presentable pieces out.).
11. Turn out onto cake plate and serve with your topping of choice (strawberries and whipped cream are always good).