Cheesecake flavors

[Monica Bhide]

I am what is certain to be a stupid question - How do you select fruit flavors that complement cheese in a cheesecake?

I have tried Mango, Strawberry and they work well ( I have also tried saffron with success)

However we ate a guava cheesecake at a friends and did not care for it much - perhpas its personal taste but it was a bit strange

What other flavors would work? which ones dont.. is there a rhyme or reason to select certain flavors

[fiftydollars]

A friend of mine once made a curry cheesecake. I'll leave you to decide which camp that should fall into.

[Monica Bhide]

A friend of mine once made a curry cheesecake. I'll leave you to decide which camp that should fall into.

Hmmm - what did it taste like or should I not ask.

I bet you chai flavors might work well

[cakewalk]

I recently made a mango cheesecake that came out awful (and it wasn't my fault!!). I thought mango would be a great flavor in cheesecake, and I daresay it might be, but it wasn't even discernable and the texture of the cheesecake was yukky. So I think it must have been the recipe -- if you've made mango cheesecakes that you thought were good, I'd love to have your recipe.

I can't imagine any fruit that wouldn't be a good partner with cheeses used in cheesecake. (I hate guavas altogether, so I can't even begin to comment on the guava cheesecake.) But still, I'd say it has more to do with the recipe than with the type of fruit. Then again, what do I know?

[Gifted Gourmet]

Something like an exquisite lemon-oil fragrance, i.e. lemon verbena, adds a sophisticated accent to a creamy vanilla cheesecake and anything that will contrast with the creamy, blandly smooth taste and rich mouthfeel, might work well .. citrus flavors, the tang of a berry, the taste of fragrant pineapple ... but these are all sweet ... what you had in mind?

[fiftydollars]

It was weird. I certainly wouldn't call it good, but it really wasn't bad. It might have worked had the choice of curry been more tuned to pastry.

He also made a goat cheese cake, which was definitely good although the goatness was barely recognizable. This was all part of a bizarre series of experiments that followed a visit to the Cheesecake Factory.

[FL Heat]

I want to try a mango/ginger one, after eating some stilton cheese that had mangoes & ginger in it. Maybe a gingersnap crust instead of a graham cracker one?

My grandmother makes a peach cheesecake that's heavenly. I wonder if kiwi would work? How would you make a citrus cheesecake? Great googly-moogly, I didn't realize thoughts of cheesecake could make me drool this much!

Diana

[eunny jang]

More or less any fruit that works with dairy - fruits you see in ice cream - would work well, I imagine.

Mango/ginger - delicious.

Watermelon - probably not so much.

[Carrot Top]

My personal favorite is a soufleed lime cheesecake....

[Carolyn Tillie]

My friend Constance in SoCal makes a Ginger Cheesecake I would give my eye-teeth for (and she WON'T share the recipe!). I know there are finely minced bits of candied ginger in it and an incredibly crunchy, cookie-like crust. My fav....

[FistFullaRoux]

Berries are kind of a given. Anyone try figs? They make beautiful fig/strawberry preserves in Louisiana. My bet is that would be awesome.

The only advice I can offer for the mango is to puree, strain, and maybe reduce some of it to marble into the cheesecake, and develop a sauce based on mangos, or tropical fruit in general to go with it on the plate. With mangoes, that is one way to avoid changing the texture of the cheesecake itself too much.

[Knicke]

Hmm, I'm SURE figs are good with cheesecake. My favorite snack is dried figs stuffed with pecans and cream cheese - how could a cheesecake with the same be bad?

[phaelon56]

However we ate a guava cheesecake at a friends and did not care for it much - perhpas its personal taste but it was a bit strange

Several months ago I made a guava cheese flan and it was remarkably good. There were six adults and two kids present - none of us had previously tried that dish and only one of us had ever even tasted guava. Feedback was uniformly positive. Perhaps having less cream cheese in relation to the guava paste and the complementary aspects of the flan made it more appealing than it would be with cheesecake?

[nwyles]

I used to a do passionfruit cheesecake. It was fantastic.

[FL Heat]

Could you do an orange curd, and swirl it through, for a dreamsicle-kindofthing? Or would the baking of the cake mess it up all kinds of ways?

(I'm still new to anything more complicated than spooning ice cream out of a carton for dessert. The "Baking" section still frightens me a little.)

Diana

[ladyyoung98]

correct me if im wrong but isnt the only cheese that is used in cheescake cream cheese? if somethign esle is used im not aware of it. however, my experience with cheesecake in general the flavors are only limited by ones imaginaton..but ive found with regards to fruit..its best not to put them in the cheesecake itself but rather to use them as a sauce/topping...i have had more requests for cheesecakes made that way than to have fruit added to the cheesecake itself....thats not to say it cant be done but on the whole..ive just found it turns out better as a sauce or topping, and there seems to be more demand for the ones with fruit topping/sauce.

[LaurieA-B]

My grandmother makes a peach cheesecake that's heavenly.  I wonder if kiwi would work?  How would you make a citrus cheesecake?  Great googly-moogly, I didn't realize thoughts of cheesecake could make me drool this much!

Haven't tried it yet, but I thought this Philadelphia Cream Cheese recipe sounded good: Triple Citrus Cheesecake

Peach cheesecake sounds luscious. I am fond of pumpkin cheesecake with gingersnap crust (in the recipe I've used, you add pumpkin and spice to part of the cheesecake batter, then swirl it with the plain cheesecake batter).

[FistFullaRoux]

Some restaurants (famously Jacques Imo's in New Orleans) do savory cheesecakes. Jacques Imo's does an alligator cheesecake that the tourists go nuts for. I haven't had it myself, but it sure does look tasty.

And I don't see any reason (other than to keep an eye out for the salt content) to use something in addition to or instead of cream cheese. I think a lot of fruit flavorings would go nicely with a little blue crumbled through the mixture, for example.

[Cheffy]

I have a list of like 30 different cheesecakes that I do...

I have done a Mango-Guava-White Chocolate that was out of this world...reduced Mango Nectar and Guava Paste with orange juice and zest...it was the bomb...

Cheffy

[Carrot Top]

Mm hmm. There are cheesecake recipes that use farmers cheese, ricotta, sour cream, mascarpone, cottage cheese (they use this a lot in low fat recipes) and even tofu for the cheese-challenged....

I've seen recipes for savory 'cheesecakes' that included blue cheeses, triple creams like St. Andre, mascarpone, etc. with walnuts or pistachios or occasionally something like asparagus, sometimes with a crust, sometimes not, but usually I think of these as 'Tortas' or 'Tortes' rather than a cheesecake....

[Susan G]

I do a cheesecake with pralined granny smith apples as a topping.

Almond slivers, almond flavoring with canned cherries and a little kirsh also works well...........

[mongo_jones]

am i the only one who likes just plain old cheesecake with a graham cracker crust? maybe with some raspberry sauce on the side. maybe. if you want fruit flavor, i say, eat the damned fruit.

[browniebaker]

I'm one who likes my cheesecake plain, no crust or fruit. Any fruit just seems to overwhelm the delicate flavor of the cheesecake. In all those fancy fruity cheesecakes, it seems that the cheesecake serves as just a vehicle for the fruit on top or mixed throughout. What a shame.

If I had to have a fruity cheesecake, I would prefer the fruit be on the side or on top, so I could isolate the fruit and avoid eating it!

[offcentre]

I make a rather nice lemon and vanilla. Rind and juice of a lemon and seeds from vanilla pod.

I like the sound of the passion fruit though and will try this instead next time. I bet the crunchy seeds add a lovely twist.

[mike k]

eat the damned fruit.

I guess that would be an apple, right?

I'm not a fan of fruit cheesecakes either, except for a tad of lemon zest to give a little edge to that full fat flavor.