Let Them Eat Cheesecake

On one of Clay and I’s early dates, we discovered a mutual love/obsession for fantastic cheesecake. He promised to introduce me to the best cheesecake I’d ever had--and he took me to Claim Jumper. I’ll tell you what--after sampling the divinity of the White Chocolate Raspberry dream-on-a-plate at Claim Jumper, I’m telling you that if you can’t eat this piece of cake, should just fast for the rest of your life rather than subject yourself to another slice of Sara Lee or Cheesecake Factory.

A few months later, during our first visit to San Antonio, I discovered that Clay’s mother shares our love for cheesecake. This was discovered during a great evening around the dinner table discussing “Great Cheesecakes We Have Known.” It was all too fitting that the next afternoon, at our stop in Fredericksburg, Texas, I picked up a fantastic recipe book called, The 50 Best Cheesecakes in the World. It was like--there was so much cheesecake love in our midst--that the book just couldn’t help but reveal itself to us.

I am now endeavoring to make them all.

I started with a Marzipan Raspberry Cheesecake. And for the record--anytime there’s an option for a light alternative, I make a substitution...if there are the 50 best cheesecakes to be made, we have to save enough room for all of them. So using low-fat cream cheese, low-fat sour cream, and low-fat cottage cheese, I made a slice of heaven. The raspberry sauce was a little intimidating, requiring me to strain freshly blended raspberry puree through cheesecloth in order to remove all the seeds. (messy!) But when I sprung the cheesecake onto some unsuspecting friends at a dinner party, it resulted in 6 of us consuming an entire cheesecake in one evening, my friend Jimmy eating three pieces and saying, “I don’t even normally like cheesecake, but come on--this is lowfat.”

Today, Clay and I were introduced to cheesecake #2--a ginger pear delight with freshly grated ginger and freshly grated pear. When my roommate saw it sitting on the counter, she actually thought it was store-bought. The result--absolutely delicious.

So why do I share all of this? Because a wedding is a perfect excuse to share what you love with 250 of your best friends...and what do Clay and I love? Cheesecake. So be prepared, because on August 2nd, you will not be served just any plain old white or chocolate corn syrup and white flour mumbo-jumbo...you will partake in a fine array of dazzling cheesecakes.

Okay, I’m not going to handmake 50 cheesecakes for you to try the 50 best...that would be obsessive...but I bet there are at least 50 of you reading this, so...if you all schedule a visit to the Utley home in the fall and request a cheesecake as your parting gift, I bet we can check every one off the list in a hurry.