Ladies and gents, I present to you my favourite thing in the world, the unfashionable, underappreciated cheesecake. Poor cheesecake, you seem to have gone the way of my second favourite thing, eggs benedict (or whatever the spinach version of eggs benedict is).  Let me clarify: I noticed at least a year ago that eggs benedict was disappearing from the menus of cafes, a discovery usually made in the midst of a hungover, hollandaise-craving fugue state.  Similarly, when the hangover had abated and I needed something sweet with my coffee to get me through the afternoon, the cheesecakes were disappearing from the cake cabinets or, worse, only stupid flavoured cheesecakes remained. Chocolate cheesecake, you are many things, but proper cheesecake you are not. This is an unfortunate state of affairs, when you can order dukkah dusted eggs and friands everywhere, but have to hunt for the greasiest and most disappointing of benedicts, slivers of cheesecake dressed with the most useless pieces of gustatory flair. I'm coming for you, joyless wad of fruit jelly found on many a commercial cake.

Actually, I think one of the reasons for the cheesecake's downfall is that it is, for some reason, a polarising cake. When I tweeted that I was making a cheesecake I got two responses: 'ew, gross, why?' and 'that better not be baked.' To the first I can only say haters gonna hate, to the second I say trust me.

I've been making this cake, a Nigella Lawson original, since I was a teenager, and it is practically perfect in every way. It is straight up, no funny business cream cheese, with just a little sugar and half a dozen eggs for richness, dressed with a splash of vanilla and some lemon. No batteries, no jumper cables. Yes, it is baked, and for quite some time, too. But Nigella, in her wisdom, wraps her springform tin in aluminium foil then bakes it in a water bath. This makes all the difference. Instead of dry, crumbly, disappointing corners this cake is smooth and crumbless, perfectly damp, the kind of cake you'd happily devour whole. And you have to finish it with sour cream, as she does. It gives it the appearance of your frozen Sarah Lee cheesecake, only it is delicious sour cream instead of regular cream, which I find too cloying.

This is a very easy cake to make, with the caveat that cream cheese is an absolute bitch to work with. Here is how I get around it: one, your cheese has to be absolutely room temperature and very soft.  Two, you need to change game plans midway through beating. I beat the cream cheese with an electric mixer, add the three eggs, then scrape as much egg-and-cheese out of the beaters and switch to a wire whisk. The wire whisk allows you to really get into your larger clumps and break them up. There will still be a few bits and pieces left by the time you're done with the batter, but you won't notice them when it's baked.

Nigella's perfect cheesecake
Via Nigella Lawson. Serves 8-10. Or me.

150g plain biscuits. I use Marie. If you could scare up gluten free biscuits you could totally make this a gluten free cake.
75g butter, melted
625g cream cheese, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
3 egg yolks
1 1/2 tbsp vanilla
Juice of a lemon

For topping:
145ml tub of sour cream
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Crush the biscuits. You can use a food processor, but I prefer to put them into a zip loc bag, then another, larger zip loc bag in case the first bursts, and vent my spleen using a rolling pin. When you're done either add the butter to the food processor and pulse to combine, or decant the crushed biscuits to a small bowl and combine the butter with a fork.  Using your fingers press into the bottom of a 20cm springform tin. Put into the fridge to set while you make the rest. Fill your kettle and put on to boil.

Put the cream cheese into a large bowl and beat until (relatively) broken up and creamy with an electric beater. Beat in the eggs, followed by the sugar.  Scrape as much as you can off the beaters and switch to a wire whisk to beat in the yolks, vanilla and lemon juice.  Wrap the tin securely in two layers of heavy duty foil. Pour the cream cheese mixture into the tin, then set the tin in a large roasting pan in the oven. Pour hot water into the kettle into the roasting pan until it comes roughly halfway up the sides of the pan.

Bake for around 50 minutes until the cake looks smooth and set with a faint wobble in the middle. Whisk together the sour cream, sugar and vanilla and pour evenly over the top of the cake. I also like to sprinkle over a little nutmeg, but that's just me. Bake for a further minutes.

Remove from the oven when it's done and stand the tin on a wire rack for 15 minutes to cool. Unwrap the foil - a little water may dribble out, but that's fine - then transfer the cake to the fridge to cool completely. Overnight is best.  When you're ready to serve, run a knife under hot water and run it around the edges of the tin before you unclip the ring.