Classic AGA Cheesecake

The AGA cooker is a peculiar British institution—a cast-iron range that never turns off, invented by a blind Swedish physicist in 1922 and adopted by the English country house set with almost religious devotion. It operates on thermal mass rather than thermostats, which means learning to cook on one is less about following temperatures and more about developing an intuition for which oven does what. The Roasting Oven is ferociously hot. The Simmering Oven is gentle. The Baking Oven, on models that have one, sits somewhere in between. The New York-style cheesecake would seem an unlikely candidate for AGA adaptation, but the Simmering Oven turns out to be perfect for the long, slow bake that produces that characteristic dense-yet-creamy texture. The technique is counterintuitive: you start hot in the Roasting Oven to set the surface, then transfer to the Simmering Oven where the residual heat does the real work over two unhurried hours. The result is a cheesecake with no cracks, no sinkage, and a texture that lies somewhere between custard and cloud. The chocolate digestive base is a concession to British taste. Americans would use graham crackers. The Norwegians, from whom this particular recipe descends, use whatever sweet biscuits are at hand. All approaches work. The filling is what matters.