The history of cheesecake
Cheesecake: a truly ancient history for one of the most popular desserts which owes its progenitor to the dessert served to the participants in the Olympic Games of ancient Greece on the island of Delos. Sheep's cheese and honey between two discs of dough, flavored with bay leaves: a true concentrate of energy to strengthen the performance of athletes.
Also present in ancient Rome, the first forms of cheese-filled cakes were already reported by Cato in the 2nd century BC with the name of "placentae”.
A preparation which, over time, found its widest favor in Great Britain and which, in a very similar style, is also offered in Australia, while in other countries it has taken on different characteristics for each place, using different cheeses (for example the Quark in Poland and Germany) and with different versions, both cooked and uncooked.
In Italy there are many desserts based on cheese since the most ancient times; the preparations that are closest to cheesecake (or cheesecake: it is difficult to say whether it is a feminine or masculine name) are those with mascarpone or ricotta, such as the Neapolitan pastiera, the robiola cake and the Sicilian cassata.
A dessert which, given its diffusion throughout the world, has even been taken as a symbolic cake by Esperantists.
The cheesecake recipe
Making a good cheesecake is possible.
A recipe that is not particularly difficult, but for which they are necessary Very fresh and high quality ingredients, a lot of care and in the preparation of which, those who are passionate about pastry making, will try their hand at least once in their life.
Cooked, if in New York style, or, in typical Anglo-Saxon style, without cooking.
Similar ingredients for your versions (a base of dry biscuits such as Digestive or the typical American Grahams Crackers and a cream cheese spread) but without eggs and with the addition of edible gelatine or isinglass in the uncooked version.
A preparation for which they are necessary about twenty-five minutes, plus careful cooking for about an hour (spring molds are perfect, preferably lined with baking paper) and rest in the refrigerator (much longer in the case of the raw version).
The advice to obtain perfect slices is to use the knife after wetting the blade.
It is also possible to adapt our cheesecake to a vegan version, using tofu, soy cream, cornstarch and cane sugar. For those with celiac disease problems, you can use gluten-free biscuits, or, for those intolerant to lactose, replace dairy products with others indicated as lactose-free.
New York Cheesecake
Various cheesecake options are available, with additions of fresh, candied or dried fruit, or enriched with chocolate, caramel, jellies and variously flavored creams.
Between these, the best known version, the one that comes to us from the United States, where cheesecake has become a typical traditional dessert since the moment it made its appearance in the nineteenth century and where in many places it is prepared with Philadelphia, the fresh cream cheese which takes its name from the city where the American milkman James L. Kraft, in 1872, created it.
A traditionally cooked cheesecake, the New York style one, for which 13-15 cm high cake pans are used and where milk cream, eggs and yolks make the cake particularly smooth. Versions with ricotta and lemon, or the addition of chocolate and strawberries or berries in the cream.
Sweet and soft, made slightly acidic by the crème fraîche used for roofing.
A real treat that we at 'Taste we inserted in our menu with a special one pear and ginger garnish, to offer customers one of the most refined and delicate combinations with which to end their meal in style.