On Cream Cheese Pie

A treasured family recipe.

Welcome to the Friday Recipe post for paid subscribers, this time a family-favorite easy cheesecake riff. Next Friday, we’re diving deep into the world of bread, pasta, and pastry, so get excited! As always, you can learn more about my work here and browse past content here. Thanks for hanging out!

Editor’s Note: I’ve worked hard this past year to schedule out most of my Substack content in advance. It’s a weird sort of thrill to get emails from very organized past self! This past Friday, I waited for this email to be delivered. And waited. And around noon, I thought: “Huh. That should have come out by now.” Then I forgot about it until Saturday morning, when I checked my Substack dashboard and realized I had accidentally scheduled it for *November* 4. So, I fixed my mistake and you’re getting a fresh new recipe on a Monday!

I have written before about the recipes that drag me back through time like an edible time machine, and the one I’m sharing today is yet another one of those. Cream cheese pie, as it is called in the homebound, typewritten cookbook that I inherited from my Mammaw, was a summer staple at the lake. It was so frequently requested by my cousins and I, so beloved, that it became known simply as “Heaven on a Plate.”

As an adult, I turn to this recipe when I can’t be bothered to make cheesecake but still crave its tangy creaminess. This recipe, which I know for a fact still has a cult following from the food blog days of old, is the perfect solution. Here, I topped it with whipped cream and cocoa powder for a tiramisu-ish finish, but I’ve also swirled pumpkin puree into the topping for a festive fall finish. You do you!

Cream Cheese Pie