Sour cream necessary?

by Sarah
(Bologna, Italy)

Your website is great, I'm very happy to have found it!!!

I live in Italy, where everyone thinks I'm crazy to make a cake out of cream cheese. But once I pull it out of the fridge, it's a feeding frenzy every time!

There is no such thing as sour cream here, which vastly limits my choice of recipes. Do you think I can make a recipe (for example your Decadent Caramel Topped Cheesecake) without the sour cream? Will it come out similar or do you think it could be a disaster? Do you know of any substitutes for sour cream that I can use?

Thank you for your help!

Sarah,

Thank you for your question. Sour cream is often used in baking cheesecakes because of the denser texture it gives. It's not really going to affect the taste.

If you'd like to use sour cream and it's not available, there are substitutions I have found and they are as follows:

1 cup sour cream For baking: 7/8 cup buttermilk or sour milk plus 3 tablespoons butter

1 cup sour cream For baking: 1 cup yogurt plus 1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup sour cream For baking: 3/4 cup sour milk plus 1/3 cup butter

1 cup sour cream Baking: 3/4 cup buttermilk plus 1/3 cup butter

Good luck with your cheesecakes. I'd love for you to submit some of the pictures to my site for others to see.

Please contact me with any other questions you may have.

Debbie