Decadent-but-Fluffy Cheesecake

How can you make a cheesecake that's as rich and decadent as the dense, creamy New York style, but with a fluffy texture? another_adam's family recipe achieves this result via folding stiffly beaten egg whites into the batter. Cook's Illustrated's light and airy cheesecake uses the same method.

A friend of ChefJune's served an airy cheesecake "with all the great flavor of the New York cheesecake we know and love" in his restaurant, she says. "They achieved the texture," she explains, "by combining all the cake ingredients and then inserting the whisk attachment on the KitchenAid mixer and letting ’er rip! A few seconds later, the ingredients had a lot of air whipped into it, and when baked was extremely ethereal in texture." She now uses this trick at home.

Discuss: Airy/fluffy cheesecake?