A Guide to Different Types of Cheesecake

Cheesecake is a widely popular dessert with origins that date back to the Ancient Roman and Greek empires. Basically, it is made with eggs, sugar, and soft cheese, like ricotta, mascarpone, cream cheese, etc. Cheesecakes often have a layer of pastry, crumbled crackers, or cookie crust. Simple ingredients make them easy to customize. These cakes may come in a variety of flavors and consistencies.

5-Minute Crafts prepared a short guide to show you 9 popular cheesecake types (plus one bonus) and their characteristics.

1. New York-style cheesecake

New York-style cheesecake is also known as classic cheesecake. It is likely the most well-known and beloved dessert made of cheese.

Ingredients: New York-style is a baked type of cheesecake made with a graham cracker crust and cream cheese filling.

Taste description: It is rich, dense, firm yet silky, and creamy.

Life hack: Create a perfect New York-style cheesecake by baking it at a high temperature for several minutes and then switching to a lower temperature. The cheese filling will stay creamy inside.

2. Caramel cheesecake

Ingredients: The cheese filling here is mixed with caramel sauce, which is also served as a topping. The bottom layer is made with a graham cracker crust.

Taste description: It is salty and sweet.

Life hack: Caramel sauce can be made at home by melting on medium-low heat and mixing brown sugar, butter, salt, heavy cream, and adding vanilla extract at the end.

3. Japanese cheesecake

Japanese cheesecake is also called cotton cheesecake because of its soft, soufflé-like consistency.

Ingredients: The dessert gets its texture from whisked egg whites that are added to the filling.

Taste description: Japanese cheesecake tastes like classic cheesecake since the main ingredient of the filling in this type is cream cheese.

Life hack: To make this cake rich and soft, the egg whites should be beaten until they form firm peaks.

4. Pumpkin cheesecake

Pumpkin cheesecake is a popular fall dessert.

Ingredients: The basic filling is mixed with pumpkin purée.

Taste description: The pumpkin flavor is enhanced by spices typically used for pies, like cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves.

Life hack: Pumpkin cheesecake is served with whipped cream and chopped pecans as a topping.

5. No-bake cheesecake

As it can be understood from the name of this type of cheesecake, it doesn’t need baking. This dessert has a more homogeneous texture than baked types that are creamer in the center and bottom and drier (and almost grainy) on the edges.

Ingredients: Another distinctive feature of no-bake cheesecake is the absence of eggs. The filling here is usually mixed with gelatin and put into the fridge.

Life hack: Condensed milk, sour cream, or whipped cream can be used instead of gelatine in different variations of the dessert.

6. Chocolate cheesecake

This is a special variation of cheesecake for chocolate lovers.

Ingredients: The cheese filling is mixed with melted chocolate or cocoa powder, and the crust is often made with chocolate cookie crumbs.

Taste description: This dessert has rich chocolate notes combined with tangy and sweet hints of cream cheese.

Life hack: A good topping for chocolate cheesecake can be made from chocolate chips, brownie crumbs, and chocolate ganache.

7. Vegan cheesecake

Vegan cheesecakes are made with non-dairy equivalents to products of animal origin.

Ingredients: Some variations are possible here, and in order to mimic the cheese filling, one can use soaked cashews in a mixture with coconut milk, tofu, hydrated flaxseed meal, or store-bought vegan cream cheese.

Taste description: To make the taste more traditional, one may add citrus since this makes the flavor more tangy and sour.

Life hack: For the crust, one may try digestive biscuits.

8. Key lime cheesecake

A key lime cheesecake is a hybrid of key lime pie and classic cheesecake.

Ingredients: This dessert is made by mixing the cream cheese filling with lime zest and key lime juice.

Taste description: The rich flavor of classic cheesecake is combined with the tart and sweet taste of key lime pie.

Life hack: Key lime slices and whipped cream may be used for the topping.

9. Peanut butter cheesecake

Peanut butter cheesecake is a creamy dessert with peanut products in every layer.

Ingredients: The traditional filling is combined with creamy peanut butter, and the crust is made with graham cracker crumbs and crushed peanuts.

Taste description: It has a sweet and salty flavor.

Life hack: It’s nice to decorate the dessert with peanut butter chips or icing.

Bonus: savory cheesecake

This type of cheesecake is not actually a dessert. It can be served as an appetizer or as a first course.

Ingredients: The standard cream cheese filling is combined with a mixture of other types of cheese in addition to garlic, caramelized onion, and different spices. The crust can be made with breadcrumbs, panko, or cracker crumbs.

Taste description: This savory cheesecake resembles a quiche but is cheesier and less eggy.

Life hack: It can be decorated with a variety of products, like roasted fruit, honey, sun-dried tomatoes, pesto, roasted nuts, etc.