New York Cheesecake
- Howie Bulka
- 2 days ago
- 10 min read
Click Arrow to Skip to Recipe
Deadlines, even when they are self-imposed, are a bitch. Unfortunately, October has been a month short on inspiration and long on distraction. So, once again, I find myself in a panic trying to find a quiet moment in which to write a couple of paragraphs meaningful enough to provide the narrative direction, the momentum, I need to get October’s Recipe of the Month written and published. What is a cook with writer’s block supposed to do at a time like this? The devil on my shoulder whispers, ‘You’re a loser, sell the Restaurant, leave Town”. Not bad advice, but ambivalence has a better angel, and she says, “ Stop your whining. Jump into your stream of consciousness. Edit later”.
So, with your indulgence…
Last week my son Louis and I took a road trip to Los Angeles to visit my ailing brother, Stephen. We packed lightly for a long weekend and left Redwood City before dawn.
In the dark, with Louis asleep, the silence was soothing and centering. It’s a noisy world. Quietude has become such a precious thing. I am learning to find stillness internally, but meditation is a practice, and it takes time. The news of Stephens’ illness was unexpected and upsetting. A lump on his neck sent him to urgent care. My list of ‘besties’ includes at least two orthopedic surgeons, one cosmetic surgeon and a radiologist, so I was not without expert opinion when the conversation over cocktails turned to PET scans and thyroid glands.
Traffic is sparce on Highway 5 in the early morning and we arrived at my brother’s house before noon. There was a time when I traveled to Los Angeles almost every weekend. You could get a one-way ticket on Southwest airlines for twenty-eight dollars. I courted my wife, sweet Jennifer, in a long-distance romance, the stuff that movies are made of. She was a hippy chick, lived in Laurel Canyon and worked at the studios. Of course everyone was still alive in those days; my parents, her parents, Uncle Ben, John Sr. So many more. Holidays, birthdays, weddings and bar mitzvahs were big, boisterous affairs then. There were never enough seats at the table, never enough room under the tree. Norman, Jenn’s dad, kept a stash of wrapped presents in the trunk of his car because you never knew who might drop by on Christmas day.
Ilona Avenue runs from Beverly Glen to Fox Hill Drive. It is an idyllic neighborhood of tidy lawns and second story additions tucked up against the back gate of Twentieth Century Fox studios. To a real estate agent, it’s Rancho Park or Century City adjacent, which sounds very posh. But it isn’t really. Stephen lives in the house I grew up in; he bought my parents’ house when my mother passed away. I was in fifth grade when we moved to Ilona Street. I was the ‘new kid’ at Westwood Elementary, a dork at Emerson Junior High and an aspiring drug addict at University High when Ms. Fontes found me. She led me to Toni Morrison, Tom Wolfe and Yaqui way of knowledge. She Taught English and Spanish and served as faculty advisor to the school newspaper. She was a force of nature, and she had big plans for me. I wrote feature stories for the Uni High Warrior in exchange for the ‘Independent Study’ units I needed to graduate with my class. It was there that I found a community of switched on young people that knew, like Ms. Fontes, that it was time to speak up, to grow up.
Stephen was at a doctor’s appointment when we arrived, so I unpacked my cooler of provisions; Tomato sauce made with cherry tomatoes from my garden, minestrone soup from the restaurant, pints of Basil Pesto, dry pasta and good aged Parmesan-Reggiano into Stephens’ fridge and freezer. There were a few hard days of recovery coming. Hopefully just a few. Sometimes a nice bowl of soup is just what the doctor ordered. “It couldn’t hurt”, as my mother used to say. My mother was a good cook. She worked hard at it. There were five of us. A hot breakfast was on the tables every morning, lunches were neatly packed, and dinner was six days a week. Sunday was mom’s day off. Dad and I would run to the deli for cold cuts or smoked fish and pick up fresh bagels and shmear for brunch. In the evening it was most often Chinese food where we would gather a minion of mishpocha to eat sweet and sour pork, kung pow chicken and broccoli beef. The kids would binge the crispy Chow Mein noodles, drink Shirley Temples and get jacked on MSG. We’d be playing tag in the parking lot before the fortune cookies arrived.
My Mother went to market almost every day. She preferred the small grocery stores on Fairfax over the supermarkets closer to home. She would poke, pinch and sniff the poultry indiscreetly, make sure the corned beef was ‘not too fatty’ and talk in Yiddish with the cast of characters. There was always fresh bread in our house, cold cuts, cheese, stewed fruit, tomatoes on the window ledge, shmaltz in the fridge and chicken soup on stovetop. She was the oldest daughter and cooked for us the foods of her childhood, dishes she had learned at the elbow of her mother; Kasha Varnishkas, kreplach, latkes, kugel.
Louis and I drive down Pico Blvd, passing first the studio, then the park and then Hillcrest Country Club. Money migrates west in Los Angeles. We pass Mogen David, the synagogue where I was Bar Mitzvah and then Temple Isiah that served the young orthodox families that lived in the ‘Kosher Corridor’. We’re heading to Factors Famous Deli for lunch, one of the great Jewish Delis of Los Angeles. The are others of course, not as many as there used to be, but enough so that a discriminating fresser has options. If I was craving Lox and eggs and onions, for example, I’d go to Nate and Al’s. For Pastrami, Langer’s number 19, which is not dissimilar to Brent’s number 13, with coleslaw , Swiss cheese and Russian dressing is to die for. It’s worth a shlep to downtown, but not today. Canters on Fairfax has lost a bit of its luster in recent years. Order carefully and it’s good enough. The Mish Mosh, chicken soup with Matzoh Ball, Kreplach and noodles is the go-to dish. The smoked fish are impeccable, and the chopped liver is made in house.
The Beverlywood Bakery went out of business just a few years ago. My mother went twice a week, maybe more and often with me in tow. Aunt Betty lived down the street on Rexford. When driving got to be difficult, they would talk on the phone every afternoon, gossiping while playing Wheel of Fortune, in Polish. They met in the camps, started over again in Chicago and came out to California in the fifties with their young families. Always heading west. Betty’s husband Itzik was my father’s best friend. Itzik died young. You’d think that people who have suffered so much loss would become calloused to it, but they don’t.
If you needed rye bread or a pumpernickel on the west side, you went to the Beverlywood Bakery. On Friday afternoon the place was packed with the housewives in their babushkas, buying Challah for Shabbas and cakes for the weekend. There was always a cookie ‘for the kinder’ from the nice ladies behind the counter. The bakers in the back wore white tee shirts and paper hats. Oh, how I wished that someday that would be me. The bread was laid out on wire baskets on shelves above the back counter. A dazzling display of lost arts; Onion Rolls, Kaser Rolls, Bialy and Bagels, corn rye, seeded rye, pumpernickel and marble rye. In the display case was cheesecake, coffee cake, Danish rings, and blackout cake. On the bottom shelf , the stuff little boy dreams of are made of, butter cookies with chocolate Jimmies and Rainbow sprinkles, chocolate chip sweet rolls and rugalach, the world’s best rugalach, all the flavors, chocolate, cinnamon, raspberry, raisin and apricot.
Factors Famous Deli is mostly filled on this Thursday lunch. Louis and I take a seat at a booth in the main dining room. There is a little table set up in front of the restaurant, paying tribute to the families that have run the place for the last seventy years. First was Abe and Esther Factor who retired and sold to Lily and Herman Markowitz. Herman worked at Nate and Al’s before taking ownership of Factors. We ate Lox and Bagels, over-stuffed sandwiches and half-sour pickles with joyful abandon. We were defenseless when the server suggested cheesecake. It was served without fruit topping and two spoons. On the west coast cheesecake, even New York style, is made with a graham cracker crust opposed to the traditional east coasters that use a cake layer as a crust. A great cheesecake is dense and impossibly creamy. It’s almost like eating ice cream. Cheesecakes are not terribly sweet, but they need a dab of sour cream or a kiss of fresh lemon juice to cut the richness. A hint of lemon zest is nice. Factors Famous cheesecake was perfect.
As we left to go back to Stephens, I walked over to the bakery case, looking to offer my
compliments to whoever made that marvelous cheesecake. As I stood in front of the display of bread and pastries, I had a comforting feeling of familiarity, and then I saw them, the rugalach. Not any rugalach, these were the rugalach of my childhood. All the flavors. These were Beverlywood Bakery Rugalach. The nice woman behind the counter offered us a sample and explained that when the Beverlywood Bakery closed, the owners had passed along a some of their recipes to the Factors bakers, including the cheesecake and the rugelach. I ordered two dozen rugalach, mostly chocolate, which she packed neatly into a pink box. In the old days the pink boxes were tied with string, which made them practically impenetrable to my chubby little boy hands, but now driving west on Pico Boulevard with my son Louis and all the ghosts that sit beside us when we come to the west side, there was nothing to come between me and a chocolate rugalach. They are as sweet and delicious as ever.
New York Cheesecake
Yields 1, 9" x 3" Round
4 lbs Philly cream cheese
400 g Sugar
Pinch Salt
3 tbl Flour
1 Teaspoons Fresh lemon Juice
2 Teaspoons Lemon zest, finely minced
1 cap Vanilla Extract
240 g Eggs
2 ea Egg yolks
60 g Cream
Note that this recipe is prepared in a 9 x 3 (9 Inch Diameter, 3 inches in height) cake pan. It was filled to the brim. See notes regarding the preparation of the pan for baking that follows.
Microwave the cream cheese for 1 minute or until softened and just warm to the touch
In standing Mixer fitted with the Paddle Attachment on a medium speed work the cream cheese and sugar until smooth, about a minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
Add the Flour, lemon juice, Lemon Zest and Vanilla. Work for another minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
Add the egg yolks. Work for half a minute
Add the eggs. Work for half a minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
Add the Cream. Work Briefly
Pour the mixture into the prepared pan.
Tap on the countertop to level the surface.
Bake in a pre-heated oven at 300. Use a probe thermometer to test for doneness. Internal temperature at the center of the cake should be 150 degrees. App. 2 hours.
Allow cake to rest until it is room temperature.
Refrigerate overnight.
Cut into Sixteen portions, cleaning the knife for each slice.
Graham Cracker Crust
Yields 1, 9 inch round
225 g Graham Cracker Crumbs
110 g Brown Sugar
110 g AP Flour
Pinch Salt
200 g Butter, melted
Combine all dry ingredients (by hand or machine)
Add melted butter. Combine
Press into prepared pan (see notes)
Bake at 300 for 15 minutes
Notes:
I’m not particularly fond of springform pans. They don’t have a place in a professional kitchen and so I just never got in the habit of using them. They have their uses and baking cheesecakes just might be one of them. If it’s your preference, you go girl. Even if you use a springform pan remember to spray the pan with nonstick aerosol.
I used a standard aluminum 9 x 3 cake pan for this recipe. The pan was filled to the brim. Taller baking pans can be found easily online. Most springform pans are three inches tall.
I start by spraying the pan with a non-stick spray. I cut a 9-inch circle out of bakers’ parchment and place it on the bottom of the pan. Then I cut a three-inch strip of parchment and place it up against the sides of the pan. The non-stick spray will hold it in place. It should be just a bit taller than the side of the pan. The whole process takes me less than five minutes.
After the cake is baked and cooled and ready to unmold, run the bottom and edges of the pan over a gas burner for a few seconds. Place a piece of plastic wrap over the top of the cake and then turn the whole shebang over, onto a plate. Bang the pan with the dull side of a knife to release the cake. Remove the pan. You’ll be looking at the (parchment lined) bottom of the cake. Remove the parchment. Place another plate, a carboard cake liner or the eventual serving platter, upside down over the bottom of the cake. In one smooth move, flip the whole shebang over. The cake will now be right side up. You can remove the plastic and paper now, or if the cake is going on the road, leave them on until you get to your destination and are ready to present and serve.
A Note From The Editor
My relation to cheesecake, deli desserts in general, and my father’s side of the family are all intertwined. Visiting Los Angeles always meant seeing my aunts, uncles, cousins, and my grandmother. But alongside my beloved family was always Jewish fare. LA hosts a smattering of Jewish delicacies simply unavailable in the Bay Area. LA meant family, yes, but also the pilfering of a box of rugalach from somebody's counter top and a guaranteed slice of cheesecake. More often than not, the culinary safari began within the walls of my Grandmother's kitchen. Grandma Eja, as I called her, passed away in 2012, I was barely 11 years old then, and now at 24, I am reminded by my father’s missive of the countless times our family was brought together at her table, Jewish pastry in tow.
My understanding of who my grandmother was grows deeper with each passing year; I learn through a continuing regalement of a history shared by many Jews, who my grandmother was: It's the story of utter, tireless perseverance, the building of a new life, and the holding together of a family. When I think of the woman I knew then, and the one I know now, both of whom I call "Grandma" I wish for nothing more than to spend another meal together at her table with her, perhaps over coffee and cheesecake. For the woman who refused to let any guest go unfed, who refused to let anyone go home without a slice of something wrapped in foil, I can think to dedicate no better recipe than this bona fide cheesecake. I know she would be so proud of her Chef-son and his accolades, I hope she knows how much we miss her.
Saving a slice for you,
L.B. The Editor
If you have questions, comments, or suggestions, we’d love to hear from you.
Shoot us an email at info@howiesartisanpizza.com.
Make these recipes yourself at home and let us know how it went!
Tag us on Instagram
