[Sca-cooks] OT/OOP: Wazzup with "Red Velvet Cake"

[Sue Clemenger]

Well, okay...I did like the movie version of The Stand.  But I hated The 
Shining (except for the "heeere's Johnny" bit...that was funny). I've 
always enjoyed King because it seems like his books make you scare 
yourself (I read some short story of his as a teenager and I *still* 
can't go down "open" stairs into a basement!)
I dunno about cheesecake colors.  Mine are always a sort of creamy 
color, whether they're cream-cheese based or ricotta.  The only really 
white ones I've ever seen have been store-bought.  Maybe it has 
something to do with the respective yellowness of the egg yolks?
The whipping/heavy cream must be regional...I don't think I've seen that 
one.
By the way, for those of you watching fat calories, you can make a 
pretty damned good cheesecake with lo-fat/no-fat cream cheese or 
fat-free ricotta, and fat-free lebna instead of the sour cream.  I 
haven't played with sugar substitutes, though....
--maire, *really* giving herself a cheesecake jones (can we blame it on 
Kiri, with all those tortas?)

Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius wrote:

> Also sprach Sue Clemenger:
> 
>> I'm actually a minor Stephen King fan (books, not movies), although I 
>> think the only books of his that I actually have at the moment are a 
>> couple co-written with Peter Straub.  And there *may* be a copy of The 
>> Stand around here somewhere....
> 
> 
> You mean you're not a fan of the excellent movies made based on... uh... 
> there was... ummmm... well, okay, we've got... "The Dead Zone". Then 
> there were the made-for-TV adaptations of "The Stand" and "The Shining", 
> which latter, while flawed, had the advantage of a producer, 
> screenwriter, and director who had read the book shortly before 
> production...
> 
> A typical cheesecake, at least a cream cheese type cheesecake, as 
> commonly found on or near the East Coast and elsewhere, will consist of 
> cream cheese, some kind of dairy additive like heavy cream or sour cream 
> to thin it down and make the batter "whippable", eggs or egg yolks to 
> set it like a custard (never mind that the end product is denser than a 
> custard), plus sugar and flavorings, and an optional pastry (or other) 
> crust/liner.
> 
> The classic New York cheesecake, of the Lindy's or Junior's variety, 
> always used to contain sour cream, but I've been noticing recent recipes 
> calling for heavy cream instead. Clearly the acid content, and therefore 
> the tang, is going to be higher when sour cream is used, over the same 
> recipe using heavy cream.
> 
> One thing about cream cheese cheesecakes (as opposed to things like 
> ricotta cheesecakes) that I notice as I go westward from the East Coast 
> (note the small sample size) is the almost astonishing whiteness of the 
> cake. I'm not sure how this is achieved, but the classic New York 
> cheesecake is kind of yellowish, or maybe ivory-colored, because of the 
> eggs, I assume. Not yellow like an omelette, just distinctly off-white.
> 
> Now, I figure a no-bake cheesecake would tend not to contain eggs (the 
> salmonella thing being what it is), and I guess they do tend to contain 
> gelatin. But how do they get baked cheesecakes so white? Just a minimal 
> amount of egg, or no egg, or whites only?
> 
> Adamantius
> 
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