I love cheesecake, baked cheesecake. The taste. The texture. I have known cheesecake all my life since the 1960s or 1970s.
Not those wobbly, insubstantial frozen jellies, like frozen yogurt, which claim to be cheesecake. With brightly coloured, ersatz gelatine toppings. Deigned to look like oranges or strawberries or blueberries but not tasting of anything fresh. When did they appear? Much later. I like proper, substantial, filling, baked cheesecake.
The essential ingredients are cream cheese, sugar and eggs. Add a crunchy biscuit base or better still a proper shortbread pie base to mitigate, or counteract, the sugariness.
In Starbucks it is called New York cheesecake. Why New York? I used to have it in London. Anyway, what Starbucks calls New York cheesecake, I call proper cheesecake. Baked cheesecake.
It contains cream cheese. Something to make it sit solid. And a crumbly biscuity base.
At one time cheesecake was just another sort of cake. Then it became more expensive than other cakes.
Chicago Cheesecake
You may imagine my surprise and confusion when I was faced with Chicago Cheecake. It was in The Coffee Bean And Tea leaf outside the entrance to Expo, the large exhibition centre, in Singapore, one stop on the MRT train line from Changi airport.
I wondered, was this just marketing, a way of distinguishing their cheesecake from that of rival Starbucks, who I imagined might have invented the name.
I asked the assistant. She was smiling and helpful but she didn't know.
I tried the Chicago cheesecake. It was not quite what I expected, but good enough.
Later I went onto the internet. I looked everywhere. Wikipedia has now subdivided itself into a dozen categories. There is Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikiquotes, Simple wiki, Wiki commons, wikitravel, wikivoyage. Wiki food and recipes and country portals and whatnot.
Finally, I tracked it down, the differences. Not so different. Of course, every recipe can be found with fifty variations, one pinch of salt or two, this kind of sugar or that, add optional cinnamon, an egg, two eggs, water or milk or cream. With or without alcohol.
So it was with Chicago and New York cheesecake.
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Photos by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.
Wikipedia revealed<
Chicago
Chicago-style cheesecake is a baked cream cheese version that is firm on the outside with a soft and creamy texture on the inside. These cheesecakes are often made in a greased cake pan and are relatively fluffy in texture. The crust used with this style of cheesecake is most commonly made from shortbread that is crushed and mixed with sugar and butter. Some frozen cheesecakes are Chicago-style.[31]
New York
New York–style cheesecake uses a cream cheese base, also incorporating heavy cream or sour cream.[32] The typical New York cheesecake is rich and has a dense, smooth, and creamy consistency.[33]
Arnold Reuben is said to have created and named the New York cheesecake in Reuben's Restaurant in New Yoirk in the 1920s.
Useful Websites
Chicago Cheescake
Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf
https://www.coffeebean.com/cafe-menu
https://www.coffeebeanrewards.com/
https://store.coffeebean.com/pages/how-to-make-a-latte-at-home
New York Cheesecake
Starbucks
https://athome.starbucks.com/recipe/vanilla-coffee-cheesecake
Comparisons
https://queen.com.au/traditional-cheesecake-new-york-cheesecake-whats-difference/
Cheesecake History
