Huh. Well, okay, I guess I might have to try that. As someone who used to like dr. pepper though, it still seems absolutely strange and incomprehensible that a cheesecake (even with that recipe) would be anything like the drink.
Naturally the textures aren’t even remotely similar. It’s just that Dr Pepper to me has a very pronounced bitter almond flavour. I know a lot of people associate that with cherries, so I think for people like that, our cheesecake would probably taste more like cherries.
When processed, maraschino cherries often have bitter almond oil added as a flavour enhancer, hence the connection to cherries.
It doesn’t say that it’s not a cheese cake. It is a cake made out of cheese. It says that the two “shouldn’t be confused”, which honestly feels like that shouldn’t even be on Wikipedia. It’s stemming from a bit of a pet-peeve some people have here, when say a restaurant lists “ostkaka” and then an American cheesecake gets served.
When we say “ostkaka” (cheesecake) we mean the linked thing. When we say cheesecake, we generally mean the New York style cheesecake.
This sounds very much like, to most people, “cheesecake” is not the correct translation of ostkaka. It’d be like translating German “tintenfisch” as “inkfish” instead of “squid”.
No. Ost means cheese, kaka means cake. It can also mean biscuit or cookie depending on what type of English you speak.
It’s honestly a lot more like that. If you say biscuit in England, that generally conjures up a picture of a small-ish, often round, harder, dry pastry. In the U.S. a biscuit is closer to what you in England would call a scone.
When we use the Swedish word ostkaka, we refer to the Swedish cheesecake. When we use the English word cheesecake, no one expects a Swedish cheesecake. The cake is made by making cheese, so I don’t really know how much more of a cheesecake it could be.
So if I take a glass, fill it with cream, and put ice on top, am I now eating ice cream?
Even if I decided to call it that, you’d probably tell me that no one else would think of that as ice cream, even if I call it such or even if it’s the technically correct name, and that arguing that it is ice cream is very pedantic for no discernable reason.
That would apply with the yoghurt biscuit thing, but not in the case of Swedish cheesecake.
Do you know how cheese is made? Generally, cottage and cream cheese is made by heating it, adding a coagulant, and separating out the curds from the whey. Generally the difference is that cream cheese has a higher amount of milk fats, that is cream.
The reason we differentiate between American cheesecake and ostkaka in Swedish is because both entities exist simultaneously within the same cultural context. Ostkaka isn’t really prevalent in the anglosphere, hence just calling it “Swedish cheesecake” makes the most sense. If I walked up to a random anglophone and said “I’m going to make an ostkaka today” they’d have no idea what I’m talking about.
How does this argument not work with “tinte means ink, fisch means fisch, therefore tintenfisch means ink fish”? Or maybe a better example would be translating “Warenhaus” as follows: “Ware means ware, Haus means house, so Warenhaus means warehouse” when the actual translation is “department store”. (The difference between the two examples is that “ink fish” is not an English compound word, whereas “warehouse” is, yet it’s still the wrong translation).
So, I still think that translating “ostkaka” as “cheesecake” is dubious.
Well, I don’t know what to tell you. You’re allowed to be wrong, I guess.
Ostkaka is a type of cake made from cheese, ergo cheesecake is a perfectly fine translation. In Swedish we have a distinction between the two, but I also would likely say “Swedish cheesecake” if I’m specifically talking about one originating from Sweden.
It’s hard to actually have a conversation about this if you don’t respond to the things I’m saying. Do you think it’s reasonable to translate Warenhaus as warehouse? If not, what’s the difference?
Because I’m not sure how much clearer I can be. Smålandsostkaka as well as Hälsingeostkaka are both types of cheesecake on account of both being cakes made out of cheese. In Swedish we distinguish between the words cheesecake and ostkaka, but that’s a cultural thing.
You’re essentially saying that spätzle isn’t a type of pasta because people differentiate between spätzle and penne rigate. Or that brie isn’t a type of cheese because there’s a difference between brie and gouda.
I’ve never actually made the cheese variant myself, so I can’t really recommend a recipe. I found this one though, and it’s very from-scratch. I saw a few others that used store-bought cottage cheese but given that this recipe calls for mixing the flour in with the milk when making the cheese I’m not 100% sure that’d work out as well.
Ingredients
3½ litre (3500ml) milk
2½ decilitre all purpose wheat flour (210 gram)
1 tablespoon rennet
30 gram sweet almonds
4 bitter almonds
1½ decilitre whip cream (that’s generally 40% fat here)
1 decilitre granulated sugar
3 eggs
grease for the pan
My own notes:
It probably doesn’t have to be specifically rennet, but if you use a different coagulant adapt the cheese-making portion of the recipe to match that.
I’d pour some of the milk into the flour, and mix that until you have a smooth batter, before pouring that mixture into the milk, rather than mixing the flour directly into the milk. Just to avoid lumps.
Speaking from experience making paneer, milk that’s been pasteurised at a high temperature (I think usually referred to as ultra pasteurised) to extend its shelf-life is trickier to get to coagulate properly. I’d recommend avoiding that.
Directions:
Heat the milk to 37C (98.6F). Mix in the flour and add the rennet. Stir and let sit for approximately 30 minutes. Stir again so the whey separates out, and let sit for another 30 minutes.
Dampen a thin kitchen towel/cheese cloth and put in a colander. put the colander in a large bowl. Pour the cheese into the colander and let drain for approximately 8 hours in a refrigerator.
Turn the oven on 200C (392F).
Finely chop the sweet almonds. Grate the bitter almonds finely.
Put the cheese mixture in a bowl. Mix together cream, sugar, and egg in a separate bowl and combine the mixture together with the almonds with the cheese mixture. Grease a pan (2½ litres) and pour in the batter. Cook in the oven, preferably in a water bath, for approximately 55 minutes. Let the cake cool and set, you can do this in a refrigerator.
Serve the cheese cake lukewarm with whipped cream and jam.
–
This looks to me like the Småland variation recipe. There’s one from Hälsingland which I’ve never had. It sounds like it’s quite different and it’s generally served with cloudberries or a “juice sauce.”
According to the tradition from Småland, one always starts eating ostkaka from the middle. One theory for this is that in the old days, it was baked in a copper pot with a tin lining. If cracks appeared in the tin, the cheesecake would mix with the toxic copper. This way, the more distinguished guests would at least not ingest as much of the poison. Others claim it’s because the cheesecake is creamiest in the middle and a bit drier and more burnt at the edges, which were saved for the children and the servants.
Awesome thanks! Even not having a recommendation, you at least know what’s probably supposed to be in it which is plenty of guidance for me :) cheesecake is such a varied thing anyway… like I have my recipe base that I modify for everything, and I flat out dislike most other base recipes (esp. if they use flour in the filling)
I’m excited to try this! Thanks for taking the time!
I’m eventually hoping to get a couple goats, supply my own dairy needs and all (and goats are hella useful farm animals!) so this seems like a fun thing to try even if the flavor gets shifted a bit.
This kind. Main flavour is bitter almond and almond. Dr. Pepper has a very distinct bitter almond flavour. Ergo, it tastes like cheesecake to me.
Huh. Well, okay, I guess I might have to try that. As someone who used to like dr. pepper though, it still seems absolutely strange and incomprehensible that a cheesecake (even with that recipe) would be anything like the drink.
Naturally the textures aren’t even remotely similar. It’s just that Dr Pepper to me has a very pronounced bitter almond flavour. I know a lot of people associate that with cherries, so I think for people like that, our cheesecake would probably taste more like cherries.
When processed, maraschino cherries often have bitter almond oil added as a flavour enhancer, hence the connection to cherries.
That article says it’s not cheesecake, just if you calque it into English you get cheesecake.
It doesn’t say that it’s not a cheese cake. It is a cake made out of cheese. It says that the two “shouldn’t be confused”, which honestly feels like that shouldn’t even be on Wikipedia. It’s stemming from a bit of a pet-peeve some people have here, when say a restaurant lists “ostkaka” and then an American cheesecake gets served.
When we say “ostkaka” (cheesecake) we mean the linked thing. When we say cheesecake, we generally mean the New York style cheesecake.
This sounds very much like, to most people, “cheesecake” is not the correct translation of ostkaka. It’d be like translating German “tintenfisch” as “inkfish” instead of “squid”.
No. Ost means cheese, kaka means cake. It can also mean biscuit or cookie depending on what type of English you speak.
It’s honestly a lot more like that. If you say biscuit in England, that generally conjures up a picture of a small-ish, often round, harder, dry pastry. In the U.S. a biscuit is closer to what you in England would call a scone.
When we use the Swedish word ostkaka, we refer to the Swedish cheesecake. When we use the English word cheesecake, no one expects a Swedish cheesecake. The cake is made by making cheese, so I don’t really know how much more of a cheesecake it could be.
So if I take a glass, fill it with cream, and put ice on top, am I now eating ice cream?
Even if I decided to call it that, you’d probably tell me that no one else would think of that as ice cream, even if I call it such or even if it’s the technically correct name, and that arguing that it is ice cream is very pedantic for no discernable reason.
That would apply with the yoghurt biscuit thing, but not in the case of Swedish cheesecake.
Do you know how cheese is made? Generally, cottage and cream cheese is made by heating it, adding a coagulant, and separating out the curds from the whey. Generally the difference is that cream cheese has a higher amount of milk fats, that is cream.
Now look at the recipe I linked. You make cheese and turn it into a cake.
It’s a cheesecake.
The reason we differentiate between American cheesecake and ostkaka in Swedish is because both entities exist simultaneously within the same cultural context. Ostkaka isn’t really prevalent in the anglosphere, hence just calling it “Swedish cheesecake” makes the most sense. If I walked up to a random anglophone and said “I’m going to make an ostkaka today” they’d have no idea what I’m talking about.
How does this argument not work with “tinte means ink, fisch means fisch, therefore tintenfisch means ink fish”? Or maybe a better example would be translating “Warenhaus” as follows: “Ware means ware, Haus means house, so Warenhaus means warehouse” when the actual translation is “department store”. (The difference between the two examples is that “ink fish” is not an English compound word, whereas “warehouse” is, yet it’s still the wrong translation).
So, I still think that translating “ostkaka” as “cheesecake” is dubious.
Well, I don’t know what to tell you. You’re allowed to be wrong, I guess.
Ostkaka is a type of cake made from cheese, ergo cheesecake is a perfectly fine translation. In Swedish we have a distinction between the two, but I also would likely say “Swedish cheesecake” if I’m specifically talking about one originating from Sweden.
Would you say that a basque cheesecake isn’t a cheesecake?
It’s hard to actually have a conversation about this if you don’t respond to the things I’m saying. Do you think it’s reasonable to translate Warenhaus as warehouse? If not, what’s the difference?
Because I’m not sure how much clearer I can be. Smålandsostkaka as well as Hälsingeostkaka are both types of cheesecake on account of both being cakes made out of cheese. In Swedish we distinguish between the words cheesecake and ostkaka, but that’s a cultural thing.
You’re essentially saying that spätzle isn’t a type of pasta because people differentiate between spätzle and penne rigate. Or that brie isn’t a type of cheese because there’s a difference between brie and gouda.
Now I’m tempted to try this, or a variation of it anyway… I like dr pepper and I make a mean cheesecake…
Can you recommend a recipe? Half the ones I’ve looked at don’t even mention almonds.
I’ve never actually made the cheese variant myself, so I can’t really recommend a recipe. I found this one though, and it’s very from-scratch. I saw a few others that used store-bought cottage cheese but given that this recipe calls for mixing the flour in with the milk when making the cheese I’m not 100% sure that’d work out as well.
Ingredients
My own notes:
Directions:
Heat the milk to 37C (98.6F). Mix in the flour and add the rennet. Stir and let sit for approximately 30 minutes. Stir again so the whey separates out, and let sit for another 30 minutes.
Dampen a thin kitchen towel/cheese cloth and put in a colander. put the colander in a large bowl. Pour the cheese into the colander and let drain for approximately 8 hours in a refrigerator.
Turn the oven on 200C (392F).
Finely chop the sweet almonds. Grate the bitter almonds finely.
Put the cheese mixture in a bowl. Mix together cream, sugar, and egg in a separate bowl and combine the mixture together with the almonds with the cheese mixture. Grease a pan (2½ litres) and pour in the batter. Cook in the oven, preferably in a water bath, for approximately 55 minutes. Let the cake cool and set, you can do this in a refrigerator.
Serve the cheese cake lukewarm with whipped cream and jam.
–
This looks to me like the Småland variation recipe. There’s one from Hälsingland which I’ve never had. It sounds like it’s quite different and it’s generally served with cloudberries or a “juice sauce.”
The wikipedia page for ostkaka also has this note, which I think was kind of fun.
Awesome thanks! Even not having a recommendation, you at least know what’s probably supposed to be in it which is plenty of guidance for me :) cheesecake is such a varied thing anyway… like I have my recipe base that I modify for everything, and I flat out dislike most other base recipes (esp. if they use flour in the filling)
I’m excited to try this! Thanks for taking the time!
I’m eventually hoping to get a couple goats, supply my own dairy needs and all (and goats are hella useful farm animals!) so this seems like a fun thing to try even if the flavor gets shifted a bit.