Off the Fork: Remembering Catherine Becker with her Auntie’s Cheesecake

Usually when a friend gives me a recipe to try, I call while I’m making it to make sure I’m not screwing it up. A recipe is just a plan, and success goes beyond (my) ability to follow directions. Sadly, in the case of Catherine Becker’s recipe for her Auntie’s cheesecake, Catherine passed away before I could try my hand at it.

When I met Catherine in the summer of 2014, she had been living on Shelter Island longer than I had been alive and was already well into her 90s. We met so I could interview her for a profile in this newspaper, but by the end of lunch we were friends. She was irresistible, with a self-deprecating sense of humor and she loved telling stories. She even joked about her age and the possibility of losing her marbles, which was funny since she not only had a full set of marbles, she had enough additional marbles to field a Chinese checkers tournament.

One of the things we had in common was our love of cake, both baking and eating it. One day she told me about her favorite recipe, a cheesecake that her Auntie used to make in an iron skillet in the days before the Great Depression. She invited me to come over and make the cake with her, but when I called to make a date, she wasn’t feeling well enough.

“I wish I had met you 20 years ago,” she said.

So did I. That was the last conversation we had.

Auntie’s recipe called for pot cheese, an unaged soft cheese that is similar to cottage cheese, farmer cheese or ricotta; any one of which could be substituted. Pot cheese used to be made at home with whole milk and vinegar in a pot on the stove, which is how it got its humble name.

Catherine told me that one of the tricks to this cheesecake is to get the pineapple as dry as possible, so it doesn’t make the crust soggy. I use fresh pineapple, since it isn’t soaked in sweet syrup like the canned stuff. I’m not sure Catherine would smile on this substitution, but I smile every time I make this lovely cake and think of her good friendship.

Auntie’s Cheesecake

Makes one 10-inch cake, 10 to 12 slices

The crust:

1 tablespoon butter

½ cup sugar

1 egg

½ teaspoon baking powder

2 tablespoons water

1 cup flour

12 ounces of fresh pineapple, cut into 1-inch pieces or 20 ounces canned pineapple chunks, with all the liquid drained off

The filling:

3 eggs, separated

1 pound farmer cheese or whole-milk, small-curd cottage cheese

4 tablespoons melted butter

¾ cup sugar

1 cup sour cream

2 tablespoons cornstarch

½ teaspoon lemon juice

2 teaspoons vanilla

¹/₈ teaspoon almond extract

6 or 7 blueberries or raisins to decorate the top

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease a 10-inch iron skillet generously with butter, and place a piece of parchment on the bottom of the pan.

Make the crust:

Mix the tablespoon of butter and the ½ cup sugar together until completely blended, add the egg, baking powder and water and then fold in the flour until the mixture is just blended.

Spread the mixture into the greased skillet to cover the parchment on the bottom evenly.

Make sure the pineapple is well-drained and dry. Arrange the pineapple over the crust.

Make the filling:

Mix the 3 egg yolks, farmer cheese, butter, sugar, sour cream, cornstarch, lemon juice, almond and vanilla extracts.

Whip the egg whites to soft peaks. Fold them into the cheese mixture and pour into the skillet, over the pineapple.

Place a few blueberries or raisins on top as decoration.

Bake for 55 to 60 minutes, until the edges are brown and pulling away from the sides of the skillet.

Cool it in the skillet, run a sharp knife around the edges and use a pancake spatula to slide the cake carefully onto a cake plate to serve, or just serve it out of the iron skillet if you can’t wait to eat it (like me).