National Cheesecake Day on Friday, July 30, 2027, honors a dessert with a recipe in a Roman farm manual. Its modern form took shape in New York.
When National Cheesecake Day Arrives
Each July 30. It has never been made official.
Cato, Cream Cheese and Lindy’s
The food day’s origin is unknown. The dessert’s ancestry, however, reaches back to Cato the Elder’s De Agricultura, a Roman guide to farming.
Chapter 75 holds a recipe for libum. Pound 2 pounds of cheese in a mortar, he says, then add a pound of wheat flour and an egg.
Cato’s cake bakes slowly on a warm hearth under a crock set on leaves. His next chapter describes placenta, a bigger cake with 14 pounds of sheep’s cheese and 4½ pounds of honey.
Cream cheese, made in New York
Modern American cheesecake needs cream cheese. William Lawrence, a dairyman in Chester, New York, raised the cream content of a cheese he made, Billy Penn reports. The result was richer and creamier than Neufchatel, and Lawrence first called it simply “cream cheese.”
In 1880, cheese broker Alvah Reynolds started selling it as “Philadelphia Cream Cheese.” Philadelphia was then seen as the nation’s top dairy center, so the name signaled quality. The cheese itself came from upstate New York.
Historian Jeffrey Marx calls Reynolds “a marketing genius,” one of the earliest people to brand a food. Family claims that two Lithuanian immigrants, the Breakstone brothers, introduced cream cheese to America are mostly unsupported, he found.
Reynolds sold the brand rights in 1903 to the Phenix Cheese Co. of Cooperstown. As demand grew, Reynolds had brought in other dairies and produced the cheese at several upstate sites.
Phenix merged with Kraft in 1928, and the combined company supplied about 40 percent of the cheese Americans ate. In Spain, “Filadelfia” is now a common word for cream cheese.
Deli rivals
New York delis made the cream cheese version famous. Arnold Reuben, a deli owner, claimed he was the first to serve cheesecake, Saveur notes.
Leo Lindemann, founder of Lindy’s, answered by hiring Reuben’s pastry chef. Lindy’s is gone now, but Saveur still calls its zesty cake a classic New York-style cheesecake. The recipe it printed uses 5 whole eggs plus 2 yolks and chills at least 8 hours before slicing. It serves 8 to 12.
A Dessert With Deep Roots
Cheesecake links a Roman farm manual to an 1880 marketing idea. Along the way, it picked up a brand name from a city that never made the cheese.
It’s also a test of technique. King Arthur Baking found that recipes with sour cream or heavy cream crack less often.
Baking a Crack-Free Cheesecake
- Bake it in a water bath, with water halfway up the pan, which King Arthur Baking rates as the best option.
- Bring cream cheese and eggs to room temperature first.
- Mix gently, since extra air weakens the structure.
- Pull it when the center reaches at least 150°F.
- Cool it in the turned-off oven with the door open a few inches.
- Refrigerate it within 2 hours.
Frequently Asked Questions
What leaves did Romans bake cheese cakes on?
For placenta, Cato laid the crust on oiled bay leaves and heaped hot coals over the crock.
How much cream cheese is in a Lindy’s-style cake?
About two and a half pounds, in the recipe Saveur ran from Arthur Schwartz’s Cream of New York.
How hot should the edge get?
Roughly 175°F, measured an inch in from the side.
What lowers the risk of cracks?
Bake a thinner cheesecake. One made in a pie pan is less likely to crack.