Just a few weeks ago, Mom asked me for ideas on dessert. She was planning a dinner party – some out-of-town cousins were coming to visit. I said, “Cheesecakes!” Alright, I’m biased. I just love cheesecakes, especially those using Cheesecake Factory restaurant recipes. I vetoed the New York cheesecakes and sour cream cheesecakes, though. Not that I didn’t like them, I do. But they are so easy to get in cake shops and restaurants. When Mom bakes cheesecakes, I want one which I can’t get in the local restaurants and shops – something using the Chicago or Pennsylvania Dutch recipes. Some of you will tell me that these aren’t uncommon. While that may be true where you live, this isn’t the case in my neighborhood.

Everyday

Mom says I’m way too fond of cheesecake, but so what? Is there any reason I need to wait for a holiday or special occasion to eat this dessert? If Mom bakes it, I’ll eat it. If I feel like having cheesecake, I’ll just go pick up a slice at the cake shop or restaurant. What’s the big deal?

I’ll admit that when I first got my copy of the Cheesecake Factory cheesecake recipes, I may have gone a little overboard. In the space of one month, Mom baked one, Sis baked another, and I baked two. I don’t boast to my drinking buddies about it, but baking cheesecakes is no big deal. The recipes are pretty clear and simple to follow. So what if I wrecked my first one? The next few didn’t look too good, but tasted just fine. Experience is a pretty good teacher.

Thanksgiving

This past Thanksgiving, I bought a couple of slices of swirled pumpkin and caramel cheesecake from my favorite cake shop. Mom also made pumpkin cheesecake. I didn’t think she could find the space – her oven was supposed to be stuffed with turkey. But she said she followed the no-bake recipe with pumpkin.

Desserts for Christmas

Mom put her foot down and said, “No cheese for Christmas.” So she made fruitcakes. Darn it, the chef at my favorite restaurant went on a long holiday to visit his family – so I hadn’t had cheesecake for nearly a month. Fortunately, I had my own oven. I decided to try a new recipe – frozen peppermint cheesecakes from my Cheesecake Factory restaurant recipes. The peppermint jived well with the spirit of Christmas, and everything went off smoothly.

Birthday Celebrations

I surprised my niece with a Dutch/Belgian cheesecake for her birthday. It was flavored with melted bittersweet chocolate. She’s a cute kid – she and her friends certainly enjoyed the cake. Good thing she had invited plenty of friends, though. Otherwise there would have been too much cake. In hindsight, I should have checked with her mum, my cousin. Oh well, everything ended OK, so no complaints here.

Overall, it’s great to have my own Cheesecake Factory restaurant recipes. They are detailed enough that Mom and Sis can make most of the stuff in them. And anything I really like to eat, I can learn how to make for myself. This sure came in handy when my favorite restaurant shut down for a month.

Do you have a copy of Grandma’s cookbook? Or Mom’s? I’m no cook, but I have a photocopy of Grandma’s cookbook anyway. It has a few extra recipes from Mom, as well as some additional notes. Like all old family cookbooks, it has these three problems:

• The ink is faded, so the recipes are difficult to read.
• Many recipes are incomplete – meant to be notes and reminders. How to cook the actual recipe is handed down from Mother to Daughter. As a practical matter, Mom only remembers about two dozen of these recipes clearly.
• Not much in the way of desserts. Most of the dessert recipes are limited to jellies and sherbet. I’ve seen some old cookbooks with recipes for brownies and various cookies, but never have I seen a family cookbook with my favorite dessert – cheesecake!

This makes it pretty tough when you need to plan the menu for a dinner party, especially when your guests have eaten at your table in the past. Cooking the same old dessert again doesn’t seem to be an acceptable solution. Almost everyone seemed to serve some form of jelly or brownies at their dinner parties. Mom used to subscribe to cooking magazines, and their recipes were alright for family dinners. Unfortunately, all of Mom’s friends and our neighbors bought the same magazines, so she still had the same headache when she needed to invite guests over to the house. If you wanted to be different, you needed to buy your desserts from the bakery. Or serve ice cream. Kids never complain about ice cream!

Luckily, we live in the Information Age now. We can find almost anything on the Internet, even cheesecake recipes, if we only know where to look. What type of cheesecake do you like best for dessert:

• American – New York Jewish style (most popular recipe, baked by most restaurants), sour cream (2nd most popular, baked by most factories), Chicago, Pennsylvania Dutch, Philadelphia, farmer’s cheese, country style
• British – biscuit base, usually served chilled
• Italian
• French – light
• Greek – uses cheese made from sheep’s milk
• Swedish – served warm with jam, whipped cream or ice cream
• German – slightly sweet and sour, melts in your mouth
• Dutch/Belgian – flavored with melted bittersweet chocolate
• Brazilian

You can google the recipes for any of these cheesecakes. If you patiently look through the results, you should be able to find a few good recipes for each type of cheesecake.

But why bother? Cheesecakes are a very popular dessert. Other people have already collected the recipes together and published them. There are even people who have worked out the 50 Cheesecake Factory cheesecake recipes. Are they really the exact same Cheesecake Factory restaurant recipes? I honestly have no idea. But I’m not a gourmet – to me, they taste the same, or close enough that there is no difference.

The greatest point about these Cheesecake Factory restaurant recipes is their step-by-step instructions. No more squinting at faded ink. No more incomplete recipes. Every ingredient, every step, is there in black and white. Even I can make my own cheesecakes.

If you truly love cheesecakes, that means you can never get enough of them. Unfortunately, good cheesecakes do not come cheap. Very few of us cheesecake lovers can afford to eat as much cheesecake as we like. There are three or four restaurants which make good cheesecakes, but I can only afford to eat there once a month (at least, if I want to save enough money to retire by 60). Fortunately, cheesecake factory restaurant recipes came to the rescue. Since both Mom and Sis like to cook, that’s very good for me!

Now I get to indulge in a different type of cheesecake every week. With so many different cheesecake factory restaurant recipes available, I am spoiled for choice. I’m no longer limited by what my favorite restaurants offer. I am now able to try cheesecakes from 4-star and 5-star restaurants not within easy driving distance.

With a cheesecake factory cheesecake recipe, I know the cheesecake is going to taste great! I can’t help eating one slice after another, non-stop, because everything is so smooth and well-blended. There is no lumpiness or sour taste common in cheesecakes from lower quality restaurants. It’s practically like having a cheesecake factory right at home.

Both Mom and Sis love to cook. Most weeks, at least one of them will make cheesecakes. All I need to do is step over for a slice there and then, and grab a few more slices of cheesecake for the rest of the week’s dessert. No more driving downtown or even out-of-town for my dessert. Oreo cheesecakes, New York cheesecakes, Chicago cheesecakes, English cheesecakes – you name it, I have the chance to try it.

With so many great recipes available, I can eat as many different kinds of delicious cheesecake as I like, as often as I like, without having a long drive and even longer wait at the restaurant. No more service charges, taxes and tips for hoity-toity waiters. Just drop in at Mom’s or Sis’ place for dinner.

Do you like cheesecakes? Then you know that finding a recipe which satisfies your taste buds is no joke. Sure, you can hunt for cheesecake factory restaurant recipes on Google. But do you know how many of these recipes are lying around? At last count, I found over 500 references in English! Good luck hunting through them to find your recipe.

For a cheesecake lover, looking through magazines, cookbooks and your grandmother’s recipe collection is no answer, either. Sure, you’ll find some decent cheesecake recipes. One or two may even be good. But will it be the cheesecake recipe you are looking for?

An easier way is to look for a collection of cheesecake recipes from well-known restaurants. You might find one or two in your local library, if it is well-stocked. You can probably find something on Amazon, although they may not have a copy in stock.

Or you can look for an online collection of restaurant recipes (you just need to know where to look). Where do these recipes come from? Honestly, you could also ask where some chefs get their recipes from! Jokes aside, some of these cheesecake recipes are shared by master chefs, while others were “reverse-engineered” by cheesecake lovers.

What’s great about these cheesecake factory cheesecake recipes is that they guarantee you will like what comes out of the oven. Even if you can’t find a recipe from your favorite restaurant, these cheesecake factory restaurant recipes are the same ones used by well-known restaurants, so you know they will be good.

You no longer need to serve a 10-year apprenticeship at the feet of a master chef to learn how to make world-class cheesecakes. All you need is a basic ability to cook, the ability to follow instructions and cheesecake factory restaurant recipes. (In my case, I share my appetite while sis does the cooking.)

With a cheesecake factory cheesecake recipe in your own two hands, you no longer need to spend 1 hour in a queue at your favorite restaurant just because you feel like eating cheesecake. Ah! Life is bliss.