Cheesecake Recipes & More From Cheesecakes To Go

Stop by for a visit!

I found it using Bloggernity

Back in 1747, Joshua Prentiss won a drinking contest and the possession of Nathaniel Mapleton’s pregnant mare by quaffing straight apple juice, tankard for tankard, to Nathaniel’s downing of spirits-charged cider. Nathaniel Mapleton spent the night passed out on the tavern floor while Joshua Prentiss pretended to reel out into the dark and clumsily mount his prize. A few lengths from the tavern, he rode straight and tall in the saddle, gently guiding his newly acquired mare to her new home. He bedded down on clean straw in a stall next to the mare’s on the chance the tavern wench he had bribed to serve him sweet apple juice might sell him out, but she did no such thing. Instead, Peggy Wilson walked half the night to the Prentiss farm and scared Joshua half to death when she laid down on the hay beside him. He made a quick recovery. Peggy never returned to the tavern. They married and their first child was born about the same time the mare foaled. The baby was christened Joshua Prentiss II and the colt was named Rascal, but as it turned out, the names could have been interchangeable.

Throughout the next 172 years, the Prentiss brood prospered whereas Nathaniel Mapleton’s lineage had bad luck. That is, until Lettie Mapleton was born. Feisty from the moment she drew breath until she died in 2005, a non-virginal old maid, Lettie was a force of nature. She had no patience for the family’s lamentations about their hardscrabble plight. On scholarships she earned and student loans she borrowed, she achieved an MBA, a doctorate in economics, chucked the corporate world to write one best-selling historical novel after another, “bodice rippers,” all based loosely on the bad blood between the Prentiss dynasty and the Mapleton family tree. For relaxation, she burnished her talent in the kitchen into a thriving business, and the signature delicacy of her wares (other than her own considerable charms) was her acclaimed cheesecake.

Known to only Lettie, the recipe lived in her head, not on paper. She prepared a dozen or so cheesecakes once a week when she was alone in her sprawling house. Most were pre-ordered; the others, pardon the expression, sold like hotcakes. Some called for fresh berries, others for drizzled chocolate or her own raspberry preserves. Occasionally a customer requested nut pieces – almonds, walnuts, pecans. Those whose order called for whipped cream were handed a separate container filled with crème de la crème whipped just shy of turning into butter. Her mini farm included a dozen Jersey cows and a flock of laying hens. Nothing but the best.

When Lettie at age 85 passed peacefully while asleep into her next adventure, the good cooks and bakers in Birchfield rejoiced. Not because they disliked Lettie – everyone either liked her or got a kick out of her; she had no enemies, other than the giant food conglomerates who tried repeatedly to beg, borrow or steal her cheesecake recipe – but because with Lettie gone, Birchfield’s bakeoffs and harvest fair competitions would not be dominated by Lettie’s culinary gifts.

But that’s not what happened. A young man began living in Lettie’s house. Who the hell was he? Her grandson, that’s who! And he had the birth certificate, DNA documentation, and a notarized statement in Lettie’s handwriting, all of which attested to the fact that a love affair between Lettie Mapleton and Nate Prentiss had produced a child christened Nathaniel Prentiss, III. Yes, that Nathaniel Prentiss, the owner of the two most exciting fine dining experiences – one in L.A., the other in New York City. And he was determined to give full rein to the genes he had inherited.

The Birchfield women organized: all cooking and baking competitions would be limited to females only. Nathaniel Prentiss laughed. He had no intention of entering. His plan was to foster the talent already displayed by his young daughter. Peggy Mapleton Prentiss proved she had inherited her grandmother’s baking creativity by introducing a new cheesecake that blew away all competition. The foiled ladies of Birchfield sighed and bowed to the inevitable – culinary dominance by Lettie Mapleton’s granddaughter and a continuation of the rivalry between the Prentisses and the Mapletons. But Peggy Mapleton Prentiss buried the hatchet and simultaneously elevated the town’s spirit when she proposed that the best of show be called The Birchfield Prize. Every year during the three days following the annual competition, the winner of The Birchfield Prize is served on the fine china atop the heavy damask cloths at La Prentiss in Los Angeles and El Prentiss in New York City and on paper plates atop picnic tables covered with checkered oilcloths set out on Birchfield’s village green. Peggy Mapleton Prentiss’ cheesecake concoctions are nothing short of phenomenal.

– Scarlet O’Cheesecake

Cake finishes with a flourish - Washington Times

By Betty Rosbottom

Your holiday finale has to meet some important criteria.

First, a sweet confection that will serve at least 10 and can be prepared a day in advance. Of course, this holiday dessert has to be striking as well as delectable.
I finally came up with the idea for a mascarpone cheesecake with a cranberry topping.

technorati tags:holiday, cheesecake, recipe

Avert cheesecake disaster - News & Observer

“Lately, I have received a bunch of questions on preventing cheesecake
disasters. You know the problems: overbaked and dry; undercooked and a
mess; and, of course, the dreaded “crack.”"

technorati tags:cheesecake, recipe, crack

There are two kinds of cheesecake. One stimulates the taste buds. The other arouses the imagination. Both are a feast for the eyes, yet it’s not difficult to determine which came first. A Greek writer is often credited with recording the first basic recipe for cheesecake in about A.D. 230, while there is evidence that cave dwellers who appeared long before recipes were invented may have outdone even the trail blazing Julia Childs.

We know that the art of storytelling began with the cave dwellers. We know this because we know what happens even today when people sit around a campfire: they start telling stories. They munch on pork rinds or popcorn and they share adventures—real and imagined—and eventually break out the graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate, create colossal s’mores, and everybody taps into the delusion that they are kids again at sleepover camp.

Yup, our ancestors scratched picture stories on the cave walls. They gathered around the fire. They chewed on roasted legs of beasts. They concocted libations of mind-altering capability. They took another swallow and threw another log on the fire. Their world may have lacked the ingredients for s’mores, but we know they were not deprived of their just desserts because of the evidence they left behind: pictographs of lions, tigers, bears and—oh my—there’s something else carved into those ancient walls. With as much delicacy as a stone can render, there are supple curves and suggestive poses of—yup—girls.

In many of the pictographs, the Misses Nurturer & Gatherer recline demurely among the furs of animals as firelight flickers on one bared shoulder, a bended knee, a sensuously arched foot. Subtle, alluring, provocative, and definitely sensuous precursors to the 20^th century Vargas period, the home walls of ancient caves reveal the origin of (drum roll, please) the original cheesecake.

Passed along from millennium to millennium, each successive generation has embraced this enticing recipe for appreciating pulchritudinous cheesecake. The ancient Egyptians were certainly not priggish, and who can overlook the shocking temptation of a French postcard? During World War II, cheesecake was more American than apple pie: artist Alberto Vargas’ gorgeous, leggy Varga Girls adorned aircraft, ships, and even uniform jackets of U.S.A. servicemen. From the Ziegfield Follies to Playboy Magazine, the “Varga” and “Vargas” girls are among the most recognizable cultural icons of the 20^th century. And, there are others. Who can forget the first animated cheesecake? Betty Boop, a salacious cartoon vixen with bedroom eyes, too-kissable lips, a baby-doll voice and more curves than a meringue topping first debuted early in the 1930s, made the movie scene in the 80s and 90s, and still shows leg today.

Apparently, the more men and women change, the more they remain the same.

In other words, oh ye who delight in the epicurean pleasure and sensuous taste of the culinary triumph of an extraordinary cheesecake—the other meaning of the double entendre name for this delectable dessert is also a real dish.

—Scarlet O’Cheesecake