Cheesecake Recipes & More From Cheesecakes To Go

Aunt Myrtie couldn’t bake her way out of a paper bag (not to coin a phrase) but she pulled a rabbit (culinary triumph) out of three chilled, styrofoam containers. Best of all, no one was the wiser. Who among us does not admire ingenuity?

The custom at family holiday feasts was to pass a hat just before dessert was served in which had been placed slips of paper, enough for everyone to choose one. There were two that read, “hors d’oeuvres,” but all the rest were single listings – “meat,” “salad,” “two vegetables,” “bread/rolls,” “wine,” “beverage,” “dessert.,” and “ice cream.” Within this family, ice cream was considered its own food group. Whoever drew what from the hat was responsible for bringing that dish to the next family feast. Theoretically, no one was supposed to tell anyone what they were bringing. There were also assignments for KP and blank pieces of paper so that occasionally, some could gloat about how relaxing it was to be a guest.

Aunt Myrtie’s paper said, “Dessert.” For years she had dodged this bullet. But now, here it was, in black and white – her nemesis. Blood drained from her face. She brought her wine glass to her lips and drained it. She had three months to come up with a palatable dessert. She downed another glass of wine.

Every week, she experimented. That is, she leafed through cookbooks and followed recipes. But no matter how explicit the directions, regardless of how meticulously she measured, how she stirred if it said stir, or folded, or beat, or melted or chilled, her efforts never set, fell apart, or hardened like a rock. She exhausted the possibilities in her cookbooks and turned to the Internet. What a plethora of possibilities! Her adventurous spirit revived. But the results? Disaster followed catastrophe. Her spirit sagged.

“There is no joy in cooking!” she cried.

By six days before the holiday feast, she was desperate. She trolled the ‘net. And then, because she was a good woman, the dessert gods smiled on her, steering her to a site that offered not recipes to ruin but a solution to her deficiency in the dessert department: ready-to-eat cheesecake, shipped over night to your home, packaged so that by the time it was to be served, it was at the perfect temperature. She would pull the same trick she had as a bride: she would slide the cheesecake like she had slid apple pie into one of her own glass baking dishes and no one would be the wiser. She ordered one cheesecake as an experiment. She managed to transfer it into a glass baking dish but not even tons of raspberries could camouflage what appeared to be earthquake damage.

The dessert gods smiled on her again. “A ha!” she exclaimed. She ordered three more cheesecakes. She visited the florist and came home with a dozen irises.

Before she went to bed that night, she dug out large glass platters she hadn’t used in years, washed them carefully in hot soapy water, rinsed them well, and dried them with tea towels, rubbing until the glass glistened, and set them on the dining room table along with a short stack of small doilies. She prepared four glass bowls and a small pitcher, set them on the table, and went to bed. The irises stood tall in a vase. She was confident the cheesecakes would arrive by mid-afternoon.

And they did – classic New York style cheesecakes, pristine in a foam container protected within a corrugated box. Did she attempt to transfer them to a glass container? Aunt Myrtie may not have been a natural baker but she was not stupid! She cut the cheesecakes into individual serving pieces, placing each one on a doily, and then onto the platters. She placed iris blossoms among the cheesecakes, elevating the platters to works of art. In the bowls were garnishes – raspberries, strawberries, chocolate syrup, whipped cream, and a small pitcher of a coffee liqueur. Aunt Myrtie refilled the whipped cream bowl once and the pitcher seven times. If she picked “dessert” from the hat again, she knew exactly what she would serve: brownies re-named “crumble delight” served with coffee liqueur and whipped cream.

– Scarlet O’Cheesecake