Why Is the Middle of My Cheesecake Not Cooked?

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Baking a cheesecake is something that you look forward to all week. Many people love baking them on the weekend as a type of special snack for the family to enjoy.

It’s a bit disheartening when your cheesecake doesn’t turn out exactly as you expected it to, though. Sometimes cheesecakes will come out of the oven and they’ll appear to be uncooked in the middle.

Of course, this isn’t normal, and it means that some type of mistake was made during the process. If your cheesecake appears to be a bit runny and uncooked in the middle, then there are some things that you can do to fix it.

Read on to learn a bit about why this might happen and what you can do to remedy the situation. Once you’re done reading, it should be easier to take the right actions so that you can enjoy the cheesecake.

You Baked it at the Wrong Temperature

Baking the cheesecake at the wrong temperature can lead to many problems. It’s possible that you might have read the instructions wrong when looking at the recipe that you decided to follow.

Even being off by five degrees could make a big difference in how your cheesecake will turn out. Baking issues can lead to it not being done when you take it out of the oven.

Sometimes other things can be to blame for cheesecakes coming out without being fully cooked in the middle. For example, you could have baked it for the wrong amount of time.

You might have pulled the cheesecake out too soon before it had time to finish baking. Keep in mind that a cheesecake won’t come out of the oven fully set even if you do everything right.

Ingredient Mistakes

Ingredient mistakes can cause your cheesecake to turn out funny in the middle. Did you get distracted at any point during the baking process?

You might have forgotten to add an ingredient and that is why things turned out strange. It’s also possible that you could have made mistakes when measuring out the ingredients.

Sometimes adding too much of a certain ingredient or not enough can have an impact on the cheesecake. It could even make it so that it won’t be able to set like it normally would.

Try to do your best to remain focused when measuring ingredients and mixing things together. You don’t want a small mistake to ruin the cheesecake.

The Cheesecake Just Needs to Finish Setting

Most often, there isn’t anything wrong when your cheesecake comes out of the oven. You might not be all that used to baking cheesecakes, and this means that you might not understand that they take time to set.

The cheesecake should come out of the oven soft and somewhat jiggly in the middle. This is completely normal, and you just need to put the cheesecake in the refrigerator to allow it to finish setting.

You need to cool the cheesecake down completely before you even try to remove it from the pan. It’s going to take hours for most cheesecakes to cool down and set.

In fact, some thick cheesecakes might need to stay in the refrigerator for up to eight hours to finish setting. You might simply need to exercise some patience and allow it to stay in the fridge for longer than you initially expected.

Try Putting the Cheesecake Back Into the Oven

If you’re worried that your cheesecake really wasn’t allowed to bake for long enough, then you could try placing it back into the oven. This is possible even after it has been in the refrigerator.

You simply need to allow the cheesecake to slow-cook in your oven at a low temperature (around 175-200 degrees F). You’ll want to keep checking on it every five minutes or so to see how things are going.

Typically, the cheesecake should be fully cooked using this method at some point between 15 and 30 minutes. You’ll need to keep a close eye on things so that you don’t overcook it.

Overcooking a cheesecake can cause it to crack due to the egg proteins getting overcooked. If you keep your eyes on everything, this could work if your cheesecake truly does seem to be uncooked in the middle.

Turn the Cheesecake Into a Frozen Dessert

One idea that you can use if your cheesecake is still having some issues is to just turn it into a frozen dessert. Essentially, you can just put it into your freezer and allow it to freeze.

Once the cheesecake is frozen, you’ll be able to slice it up and serve it like that. It’ll be a lot more solid this way, and you can easily add toppings to it to give it some extra flavor.

Some people will add fruits or chocolates to the tops of frozen cheesecakes. No matter what, this is going to be an easy way to enjoy one even if it didn’t turn out perfectly.

You don’t need to throw your cheesecake out unless it’s really bad and tastes funny. If it’s just runny in the middle, then freezing it should allow you to still enjoy it well enough.

You would most definitely want to check the internal temperature of it before you freeze it though, as a cheesecake that has not reached a temperature of 150 to 155 degrees Fahrenheit could possibly make you sick!

Final Thoughts

Having your cheesecake come out uncooked in the middle is going to be a bit of an annoyance. You might have made some mistakes that caused things to go awry, but you can try to correct things.

If you didn’t bake it at the right temperature, it might just need more time to finish baking. Putting it back into the oven and slow-cooking it at a low temperature is a way to remedy this.

It’s also possible that you just need to allow your cheesecake to set properly. Cheesecakes need time in the refrigerator to set completely, and this process can take several hours depending on how thick the cheesecake is.

If worse comes to worst, you can always just freeze the cheesecake and eat it like that. That method allows even a runny cheesecake to be eaten and enjoyed without it being too big of a deal.

Enjoy your cheesecake and do your best to avoid the issues that you ran into this time when you go to make another one. Now that you know more about the process, it should be easier to get good results moving forward.

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