Cheesecake flavors

[SiseFromm]

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.

No doubt. As with Creme Brulee, I'm a purist of sorts when it comes to cheesecake. I don't go for anything other than vanilla creme brulee and I don't fall for anything other than classic cheesecake. I do like the responses relating to citrus though, as lemon in particular is a natural compliment. Candied zest or a simple sauce along with a plain cheesecake is an obvious fit. Sweetened berries seem to go well also, though I would add any additional flavor components as accompaniments after the cake is finished.

That's just me though.

Edited August 20, 2004 by SiseFromm (log)

[saskanuck]

I make a nice apricot cheesecake. You rehydrate dried apricots with water and a little Grand Marnier, puree them, and add them to a standard cheesecake batter.

You do get small bits of apricot throughout, so if you're not a fan of that sort of texture in a cheesecake, it may not be for you.

[hjshorter]

Some restaurants (famously Jacques Imo's in New Orleans) do savory cheesecakes.

My husband had a salmon cheesecake at NOLA that he still raves about 10 years later.

Cheesecake is so rich that tart fruit flavors are needed. Lemon and lime are my favorites. Cranberry cheesecake is pretty good - the cranberries are pureed and swirled through the cheesecake. Sour cherries would probably be good in cheesecake too.

[NulloModo]

Bourbon.

Bourbon is wonderful is almost any kind of cooking, but a bourbon cheesecake with a slightly salt nut crust is divine.

[viva]

I'm a savory cheesecake fan. Sweet cheesecake is usually too rich for me, but I do like it if there is a bit of ricotta in it to keep it lighter in texture, or something unusual to balance the taste (like a sweet potato cheesecake). (ETA that a bourbon cheesecake with a salt nut crust might do the trick nicely!)

I ate at Emeril's and had a lobster cheesecake that was out of this world. I can't believe I missed a savory cheesecake at Jacques Imo's! (I'll just have to return, then!)

Also made a green chile cheesecake with a papaya salsa topping for a southwestern gathering that was a real hit (although it did have a blue cornmeal crust that I don't think I would repeat, blue crust is a little weird).

Edited August 21, 2004 by viva (log)

[LCS]

Graham cracker does not appeal to me. Vanilla wafer cookies does as well as almonds. Any other suggestions? What about a garnish?

[Ling]

How about a shortcrust with ground almonds?

A dark chocolate cookie crust?

You could make a nut brittle, pulse it in the food processor, and sprinkle that on top of your cheesecake for crunch. Or decorate the top with shards of the brittle.

[Patrick S]

Graham cracker does not appeal to me.  Vanilla wafer cookies does as well as almonds.  Any other suggestions?  What about a garnish?

←

This is what the Cook's Illustrated lemon cheesecake used. I liked it better than graham crackers or vanilla wafers.

5 ozs Nabisco Barnum's Animal Crackers

3T sugar

4 Tunsalted butter, melted

Pulse the crackers to fine crumbs. Add sugar, pulse a couple of times. Add butter while pulsing and keep pulsing til the mixture looks like wet sand.

[Jason Perlow]

How about a shortcrust with ground almonds?

A dark chocolate cookie crust?

←

Yeah, I was thinking dark chocolate as well. Maybe someting like Oreo wafers.

[RuthWells]

Graham cracker does not appeal to me.  Vanilla wafer cookies does as well as almonds.  Any other suggestions?  What about a garnish?

←

Ginger snap crumbs?

[mhadam]

What about ground-up windmill cookies. You know...the cookies shaped as windmills that have the almond slivers. They have a nice ginger bite without being a gingersnap, and they have the almond taste without being an almond cookie.

I use them as my cheesecake crust sometimes.

[tryska]

i like the idea of oreo cookies or ginger snaps

[prasantrin]

Add my vote for gingersnaps, but add some crystallized orange peel into the mix. I love layers of the same flavour in one dessert.

[Ling]

^Another option with the gingersnaps could be pieces of candied ginger.

To make the chocolate crust a little fancier, you could paint melted dark chocolate over the crust before you put the filling in.

[prasantrin]

^Another option with the gingersnaps could be pieces of candied ginger.

←

To add, my favourite gingersnap recipe is this one by Emily Luchetti. It's the only gingersnap recipe I've ever liked--most are too soft, too sweet, or too plain (i.e. not enough ginger bite to them). I usually add candied ginger to it, to give it even more ginger flavour.

I wonder if using candied ginger and candied orange peel with an orange cheesecake would be overkill...

I'd try it!

[Syrah]

I agree with the chocolate biscuit idea. I love jaffa.

[LCS]

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. I forgot to mention that I'm allergic to chocolate (yes I know, very sad, please don't remind me!) I just wanted to try an orange filling so badly that I just just vanilla cookies with chopped toasted almonds since it was quick and I already had the crumbs and almonds. The crust was blah. Next crunch, but that was about it. Short crust recipe (or maybe just flat out buttery shortbread!) for sure with some almond flour with the chopped almonds.

Ling, great suggestion on the brittle! It made me think of nougatine cut-outs which would make great decorations. Now only if I can find my nougatine recipe. I haven't made it since school!

[LCS]

I realize I have a lot here so if you're just skimming through... the things I already have are in bold and the things I need help with are in italics. Thank you.

I want to add some new flavors to my menu. With the cakes I sell directly to customers, I can get as crazy as I want. However with wholesale, there's a budget I have to keep in mind so those don't have the pricier ingredients are and aren't as time consuming to make. Or depending on the ingredients or method, I can have a pricier ingredient if it's not time-consuming over all, or vice-versa. Wholesale cakes are also expected to have a longer shelf life... retail gets eaten that night or the next day; wholesale is expected to last 4 days. I've love suggestions for both, but obviously more of the latter. Ideally I'd like to add 2 cakes and 2 cheesecakes. I already have three types of chocolate cake (though I would like a "cold weather specific" one), one almond cake with ganache filling, and one hazelnut cake with ganache and espresso buttercream fillings. Of course I have the standard pumpkin cheesecake. Kahlua cheesecake isn't cold weather specific and I sell it all year round and same goes for my chocolate chunk cheesecake.

I'd like to do something with apples or pears, but don't know how to make that work in layer cakes or cheesecakes. I have yet to see any good ideas in any of my books either. I made a delicious peach cake which is just a thick (almost quick bread consistency) batter with peaches pressed in which I think would taste great with apples or pears, but I was thinking of something less "homey", though I guess I should get over it because I know for a fact it would be a huge seller and "homey" desserts are in anyway.

I'm thinking of a vanilla bean cheesecake with a mac nut crust with some kid of tropical fruit topping (for when berries are scarce). It can't be fresh fruit. I was thinking of a mango curd. Can I make curd from pineapple juice? I've never tried. Also, I've been looking for recipes for a spring board on the vanilla bean filling and they all have varying amounts of vanilla beans. Where's a good place to start for 3 pounds of cream cheese? One recipe said 2 beans with 1 teaspoon of vanilla and the reviews said it wasn't enough, yet every other recipe I found calls for much less? Vanilla beans aren't cheap so you can see why I'm hesitant to just "play around".

For my hazelnut/espresso buttercream cake, I'd like to use chocolate covered coffee beans, but I can't use what's currently available. I need them to be made from fair-trade coffee and chocolate, and on top of that, caffeine-free coffee beans. Yes yes, I realize there's caffeine in chocolate too, but it's a long story to explain why those are my requirements. Making my own will never look like what people are used to seeing and I don't like looking at them anyway. (Is it true that the only way to get them to be big and round if by machine?) So pushing that idea out of my head, would a bark be just too much? A small piece of bark with crushed up beans perhaps? (Just thinking out loud here). What's a good ratio?

I'll be posting more questions as they come to me.... thank you for reading.

Edited September 17, 2005 by LCS (log)

[Ling]

You could top a plain cheesecake with a caramel apple topping...just cook it over the stovetop, and arrange the slices in concentric circles on the cheesecake.

Or how about baking a gingerbread cake, mixing cooked pears and pastry cream, and layering it with the cake? You could frost it with cinnamon buttercream.

A "homey" dessert could be a standard apple coffee cake, with cinnamon streusel topping drizzled with a thick caramel sauce.

How about a marzipan and pear cake?

Edited September 17, 2005 by Ling (log)

[LCS]

You could top a plain cheesecake with a caramel apple topping...just cook it over the stovetop, and arrange the slices in concentric circles on the cheesecake.

Or how about baking a gingerbread cake, mixing cooked pears and pastry cream, and layering it with the cake? You could frost it with cinnamon buttercream.

A "homey" dessert could be a standard apple coffee cake, with cinnamon streusel topping drizzled with a thick caramel sauce.

How about a marzipan and pear cake?

←

Ooooo! I REALLY like your way of thinking! I'm going to work on specifically the gingerbread cake idea this weekend! For fall, I think a little marzipan pear on each portion would look adorable, then for winter, change it to a mini gingerbread man cookie. I've had a mini cutter for years and never had a use for it until now!

Between the suggestions you gave me for the orange cheesecake and these suggestions, I hereby dub you my Flavor Combinatoin Twin.

[Ling]

Ooooo!  I REALLY like your way of thinking!   

Between the suggestions you gave me for the orange cheesecake and these suggestions, I hereby dub you my Flavor Combinatoin Twin.

←

YAY! I have a FLAVOUR COMBINATION TWIN! (Only on Egullet would you hear something as geeky as that..haha!) Glad I could help!

[chefpeon]

Is there such a thing as a caffeine free coffee bean? I didn't know that.

I love Ling's ideas too.

I make a cranberry orange cheesecake during the holidays that is a big seller. I just take a standard plain cheesecake recipe, add some orange zest and a little juice, soak some dried cranberries for a bit, drain the cranberries, and mix it all together and bake on a gingersnap crust. It's pretty good.

[kitchenmage]

I make a cranberry orange cheesecake during the holidays that is a big seller. I just take a standard plain cheesecake recipe, add some orange zest and a little juice, soak some dried cranberries for a bit, drain the cranberries, and mix it all together and bake on a gingersnap crust. It's pretty good.

←

I make a similar cheesecake, but use fresh chopped and lightly sugared cranberries as a middle layer and graham cracker crust with fresh nutmeg and/or cardamon.

Have you tried grated apples in your cake batter? It's still homey, but very tasty. I make apple muffins with whatever tart/cooking apples I happen to have around and often swap some of the flour for ground nuts. Maybe there's a variant for a cake in there somewhere?

As for pears, I keep thinking clafouti, neither original nor what you're after.

[Susan G]

Here in New Mexico, as the new pinon crop comes in, toasted pinon-topped cheesecakes with caramel sauce are a staple of restaurant dessert menus!

[JeanneCake]

Or how about baking a gingerbread cake, mixing cooked pears and pastry cream, and layering it with the cake? You could frost it with cinnamon buttercream.

←

There's a pear pastry cream recipe in The Cake Bible (I haven't tried it). And there's a preserved pineapple recipe that could work as a cheesecake topping. I've been making the apricot-pineapple jam from the Pike Place Market cookbook - it calls for crushed pineapple and fresh apricots that would be nice as a cheesecake topping.

I also like the spiced cheesecake from Emily Luchetti - it lends itself to lots of possibilities for garnish. It's a vanilla cheesecake with allspice and cloves (those are the only two I remember off hand, will look up the recipe), and is wonderful with a topping made from frozen summer blueberries but would be just as nice with supermarket frozen berries probably.

I'll have to dig up my holiday recipe book; I have a chocolate chestnut pave that could be made into a round (it's basically white choc mousse and chestnut mousses layered into a plastic-lined loaf pan, chilled and then glazed with chocolate and garnished with marron glacee. Maybe you could rework it as one of your winter chocolate cakes... layer the mousses between chocolate cake layers?