By virtue of its ingredients a cheesecake is sticky. Slicing it will tear the filling unless you take precautions. There are two easy ways to slice a cheesecake properly; the hot knife method, and the wire method.
Hot knife
- use a sharp, thin knife
- fill a container (deep enough to hold the blade) with hot water
- before every stroke, submerge blade, let it warm up, and wipe off the water
- press the blade down firmly, down to the crust – don’t saw back and forth
- after each cut, wipe the blade clean, reheat, wipe off excess water
- change the water a few times during this process
- (this method works perfectly with Dairy Queen cakes too)
Wire method
- use a fresh piece of piano wire, unflavoured dental floss, or fishing line
- wrap both ends tightly around your thumbs
- pull down firmly through the filling and into the crust
- let go of one end, and pull it through to the other side
Slicing a round cake
I’ve added lines to this picture to demonstrate how it was cut.
- cut in half vertically
- cut in half horizontally – now it’s in fourths – left side, and yellow line on right
- cut each fourth in thirds – green and blue lines
- slicing each fourth from the centre out to the edge makes it easy to make a clean cut, and go right down to the crust
The next time I bake a rectangular cake I’ll photograph the slicing process.
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