I have gotten into many arguments over this one

    • spicy pancakeOP
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      156 months ago

      I lived in NYC for a few years and tried a wide range of cheesecakes both in restaurants and homemade by talented bakers. Good or bad what they all had in common was that plain was best, and flavored were always disappointing and unenjoyable.

      • @frickineh@lemmy.world
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        176 months ago

        You’re always disappointing and unenjoyable!

        Sorry. Don’t know what came over me. Maybe it was thinking about how good key lime cheesecake is.

      • @SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world
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        26 months ago

        What sort of flavors are we talking? What was it about them that you didn’t enjoy?

        All of the cheesecakes I make are “flavored” in some way, but I go out of my way to use real ingredients, not just “X flavoring.”

        • spicy pancakeOP
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          16 months ago

          Off the top of my head I can remember trying: chocolate, raspberry, cherry, peanut butter, coffee, salted caramel, coconut, red velvet, and yuzu. Disliked all of them because they all tasted like:
          [how good the base cheesecake is] - [how good a cake of this flavor in not cheesecake form would be]

          So basically the stronger the flavor the worse it’d be, even though I like all those flavors very much (hence having a list that long before figuring out I just don’t like flavored cheesecake)

          • @SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world
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            26 months ago

            Sounds like the flavors were too strong, possibly using flavorants rather than (or in addition to) the real thing. Peanut butter cheesecake with an Oreo crust, for example, has an amazing but subtle flavor.

      • @MarmaladeMermaid@lemm.ee
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        16 months ago

        Flavored is bad, but toppings can be good. Adulterating the actual body of the cheesecake is wrong. I do like some goopy cherries on top though, the tartness offsets the sweet, creaminess of the cheesecake.

  • Counter-argument: Cherry topping.

    Also: What kind of “plain” cheesecake? Cuz there’s still variety even there. I would assume New York because it’s the most common (in the US anyway).

  • Mister Neon
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    6 months ago

    So does that include toppings? I can understand cheesecake with strawberries in it not being your thing, but does that include plain cheesecake with a strawberry glaze on top? Does any sort of fruit, powdered sugar/cinnamon, or cookie ruin it?

    I’m from The South so my favorite cheesecake was one that had a key lime pie on top of it, does that count?

  • @deegeese@sopuli.xyz
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    66 months ago

    That is the dilemma:

    Why would you flavor cheesecake with something that doesn’t taste as good as cheesecake?

    • spicy pancakeOP
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      36 months ago

      Hm I would argue that caramel and coffee for example are flavors that are better than cheesecake. But flavoring cheesecake with them makes the result much worse than the sum of its flavor parts.

      I think vice versa too. I would not enjoy cheesecake flavored caramel nor cheesecake flavored coffee

  • @vexikron@lemmy.zip
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    46 months ago

    I agree with you.

    I had had all kinds of cheesecake for a long time in my life, all kinds of different flavors.

    Then at one point I had /good/ cheesecake.

    And immediately realized everything up to that point was garbage. Did some research and the old stuff I had had before was not even really cheesecake, basically just a fast food level cheesecake analog.

    Real cheesecake is quite good.