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Baking History 101 | The Short History of The Cheesecake

The Short History of The Cheesecake

Did you know that the earliest cheesecake was made in Ancient Greece? Yes, that is true! And after the Roman conquest of Greece, this tasty secret fell into the Roman hands. The Romans often used cheesecakes (libum – as they called it, meaning the small sweet cake) as offering at the temples to their gods. Did you also know that the small cheesecakes were served to athletes during the first Olympic Games held in 776 B.C. on the Isle of Delos? If you are wondering what did they taste like, here is the oldest recipe known to date. So let’s see a short history of cheesecake.

The Recipe

The basic recipe and ingredients for the first cheesecake were recorded by Athenaeus, a Greek writer, in about A.D. 230:

Take cheese and pound it till smooth and pasty; put cheese in a brazen sieve; add honey and spring wheat flour.  Heat in one mass, cool, and serve.

Besides, the next recipe worth noticing is the one found in the mid-16th-century cookbook, and it reads as follows:

To make a tarte of Chese  – Take harde Chese and cutte it in slyces,and pare it, than laye it in fayre water, or in swete mylke, the space of three houres, then take it up and breake it in a morter tyll it be small, than draw it up thorowe a strainer with the yolkes of syxe egges, and season it with suger and swete butter, and so bake it.

Modern Cheesecake

American dairymen achieved a technological breakthrough that ushered in the Modern Age of cheesecakes.  In attempting to duplicate the popular Neufchatel cheese of France (a soft unripened cheese originally from Neufchatel-en-Bray, France), they stumbled upon a formula for an un-ripened cheese that was even richer and creamier – hence the name cream cheese.  This richer cream cheese gave way to the famous New York Style cheesecake in the early 1900s.  New York Style cheesecake is made with pure cream cheese, whipping cream, eggs, and sugar.  Most people have an image of New Yorkers creating the best cheesecake because the dessert soared to popularity in that region, but today you can travel anywhere and find a great cheesecake recipe incorporating sour cream, caramel, chocolate, or whipped cream toppings and various flavors!

A Brief History of The Cheesecake Cupcake 

While cakes have been in existence for centuries, cupcakes appeared around the 19th century in the United States of America. This awesome new idea behind making very tiny cakes was elaborated in ‘American Cookery’, a cookbook from 1796. However, the word ‘cupcake’ itself did not appear until approximately 1828, when celebrated author and cooking expert Eliza Leslie published her cookbook titled: ‘Receipts’. The first cupcake recipe resembled the details below:

Cup Cake 

  • Five eggs
  • Two large teacupsful of molasses
  • The same brown sugar rolled fine
  • And The same of fresh butter
  • One cup of rich milk
  • Five cups of flour sifted
  • Half a cup of powdered allspice and cloves
  • Half a cup of ginger

Cut up the butter in the milk, and warm them slightly. Warm also the molasses, and stir it into the milk and butter: then stir in, gradually, the sugar, and sit it away to get cool. Beat the eggs very light, and stir them into the mixture alternately with flour. Add the ginger and other spice, and stir the whole very hard. Butter small tins, nearly fill them with the mixture and bake the cakes in the moderate oven.

Once the concept was popularized, cupcakes became a favorite amongst bakers because they are the perfect size handy sweet treat that can be shared at birthday parties and other celebrations and are loved by children.

Cheesecake Cupcakes

Today, the demand for cupcakes has grown exponentially because everyone loves a decadent dessert!  Cupcake recipes are being perfected on a daily basis in thousands of bakeries around the globe.  One of those bakeries specializes in cheesecake cupcakes, an alternative to the traditional slice of cheesecake. Cheesecake de Granger is offering more than 65 flavors of this very interesting combination. If you have a sweet-tooth, and you have never eaten a cheesecake cupcake, then you need to get your hands on one of these:  https://cheesecakedegranger.com/product-category/cheesecake/.

These cheesecake cupcakes are a perfect way to treat yourself or say “I love you”, or perhaps “I’m sorry” to that special person in your life. So, order them now, and your desserts will be freshly made for you and your loved ones!

 

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