Monday, February 2, 2009

cheese dessert - tastier than it might sound

Dear QotD?ers,
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For the brief times that I was outside today, I did indeed see my shadow. I also looked up some statistics and the official groundhogs-day groundhog correctly predicts the weather less than 40% of the time.
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I finished watching the superbowl halftime and commercials tonight. If I was a Bruce Springstein fan I would have enjoyed it more, but it was still pretty great. I have yet to decide on my favorite commercial. I'll do that by Wednesday.
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Today's Question of the Day? is from Jackie:
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Is cheesecake a pie or a cake?
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It doesn't matter, it's delicious! but seriously, I"ll have a well thought out answer sometime tomorrow. Thanks for the question, Jackie!
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Love,
The Asker

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I vote for cake because of the texture of it. My family disagrees with me, which makes the total votes:

cake 1
pie 4

However, you get a total of five votes for delicious, so who cares!!

Nick has never liked cakes (except the honey bun cake that I make for him) and has always requested either cookies or cheesecake for his birthday. He says this makes cheesecake clearly NOT a cake. That kid won't even eat the frosting off cakes.

Anonymous said...

I agree.....it really doesn't matter because cheesecake is delicious!!!

But it is cut/served like a pie would be served(wedges) and it doesn't have the same texture as 'most' cakes...it is more 'pie' in texture and it does have a crust
like a 'pie' would have a crust.
So I will say, PIE!

Anonymous said...

Oho! Good question. I think it depends on how it's made. The "fancy schmancy" cheesecakes are more cake-like, but I'd say a good 3/4 of them are pies.

Anonymous said...

A quick Google search turned up a lot of similar threads!

I think I'll join the pie camp, though. I draw the line at chocolate mousse cake.

Jackie said...

My friend who works at Starbucks says that when they categorize the cheesecakes, they put them by the tars because cheesecake is the "pie family." I had no idea there were kingdoms of desserts, but it's certainly an interesting debate.

My grand theory? Well ... I eat pie with a spoon and cake with a fork. I eat cheesecake with a spoon, therefore it is pie.

Heh. Also, as Kathleen pointed out, it has a crust. Which is probably a deciding factor. Do cheesecakes rise?

Either way, cheesepie doesn't quite have the same ring to it ...

Anonymous said...

Aggie Engineer,

Forgot to thank you for the use of heuristic yesterday!! You are now my verbose hero!!

Anonymous said...

I like TamiJean's idea of judging cheesecake by cheesecake. I propose the following criteria when judging cheesecakes:
(1) amount of flour used
(2) presence of crust
(3) texture
(4) deliciousness
(5) belly-ache effect

Cakes usually use several cups of flour, cheesecakes just a few tablespoons, if any.
Criterion (1): it's a pie.

I agree with Kathleen's observation regarding the crust.
Criterion (2): it's a pie.

Cheesecake's consistency is similar to that of a buttermilk pie, which is unequivocally a pie.
Criterion (3): it's a pie.

Points(4) and (5) may not be necessary for determining if it's a cake or pie, but it is important if you want seconds!

I presume the cheesecake name arose from it's cake-like dimensions, not its inherent characteristics. It may also be a product of clever marketing.

Anonymous said...

Nick adds the following observation.


Cheesecake is a pie which is not a cake, but only a pie and it is always 3.14159265358979....and some more numbers that I don't want to type anymore!!

Moana Shake said...

I vote for pie. Though I have no justification for any of it.

They are delicious though. I love the cheesecake factory.