Ahead of the Shavuot holiday this Thursday evening and Friday, Jamie Geller led a small group of journalists on a three-hour cheesecake crawl in central Jerusalem that included seven kosher establishments and bakeries and 14 slices of cheesecake. The outing moved through a city where food traditions, retail pricing, and religious custom all meet in a polished little circuit of consumption, with the most expensive slice on the tour priced at NIS 62 ($21) at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.
Who Gets Served First
The tour began at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, where Geller said she had asked for one slice to share but was brought the hotel’s whole Shavuot collection of five different kinds. The hotel served two Basque cheesecakes drizzled with chocolate and pistachio sauce and three non-baked varieties: chocolate, wild berries, and lemon-passion fruit. The slices cost NIS 62 ($21) each, making them the most expensive items on the tour. Geller said the group would have to pace itself to make it through all the planned stops.
Geller, a bestselling cookbook author and kosher food influencer who is also the Chief Media and Marketing Officer at Aish, said the goal was to sample a variety of different styles of cheesecake ahead of the holiday and hoped the outing could become a new Jerusalem tradition. She compared the custom to the way many Jerusalemites sample sufganiyot donuts during Hanukkah.
The article said that for centuries many Jewish communities have embraced the tradition of eating dairy foods on Shavuot, with mystical and practical reasons suggested over the ages. It said that as early as the 13th century CE, Rabbi Elazar of Worms, Germany, referred to a custom of beginning the holiday meal with a bit of cheese before cleansing his palate and switching to a meat meal. It also said that in Israel, sales of dairy products rose more than 60 percent in the week before Shavuot last year, according to the Agriculture Ministry.
What the Market Calls Tradition
Many Jewish families around the world now observe Shavuot by serving festive meals filled with gourmet cheese platters, cheesy pastas and lasagnas, and desserts such as ice cream, buttery pastries and cheesecake. Geller said, “Every year at this time, people start calling me asking for my favorite cheesecake tips,” and added, “It’s one of the holiday’s most recognizable symbols.”
Geller described different cheesecake varieties. She said that in Israel, the most popular cheesecakes are baked with soft white cheese, typically 5%-9% fat, along with sugar, cornstarch and eggs, with a crumbly crust and crumbs on top. She said New York-style cheesecakes are typically much heavier and richer, baked with cream cheese and thick sour cream. She said no-bake cheesecake never sees the inside of an oven, relies on gelatin or other setting agents instead of eggs, is chilled until firm, usually on top of a cookie or biscuit crust, and tends to be lighter in texture and more refreshing, making it popular in warmer climates like Israel. She also said the Basque cheesecake, also known as San Sebastian cheesecake, is a recent variation originating in Spain, often baked with eggs and flour or cornflour and ideally served with a slightly burnt top. Geller said, “It’s fascinating to see how each of these cheesecake styles are so different.”
The next stop was Moulin Doré, a French bakery in the Friends of Zion Museum at Rivlin Street 14, which also has another branch on Emek Refaim Street. There, the cheesecake cost NIS 30 ($10) per slice or 190 ($65) for a whole cake, and the flan cost NIS 120 ($41). Geller said, “French immigrants have really taken over the bakery scene here in Israel. Particularly in the last five years, they have really elevated the culinary scene with their family-owned bake shops, each with its own signature flavor and style. I love how their pastries are so luxurious, decadent and rich.”
Luxury, Density, and the Price of a Slice
At Napoleon Patisserie at Yo’el Moshe Salomon St 10, the group sampled a slice of cheesecake for NIS 25 ($8.60) and a cheesecake-like pastry called cheese mousse for NIS 42 ($14.50). The cheese mousse was a round cake covered with caramel sauce and was described as delicious, dense and rich, and one of the best of the day. Geller said, “I’d say this is the closest we’ve had to a good, heavy New York-style cheesecake.”
At Helen Family Bakers at Agripas 6, a popular bakery that serves only one kind of cheesecake, white with berries and cream on top, for NIS 40 ($14), the group agreed it was the best cheesecake of the day, with perfect texture, sweetness and balance. Geller said, “I believe we have a winner.”
The final stops were near the Machane Yehuda Market. Yolo Bakery at Ki’akh 1 offered a creamy cheesecake for NIS 43 ($15) that the group felt tasted too strongly of lemon. Teller Bakery at Agripas 74 served a Basque-style cheesecake with a slightly burnt top and a berry cheesecake, both for NIS 30 each. Marzipan Bakery at Agripas 44, described as world-famous for its soft, chewy rugelach, offered a variety of frozen cheesecakes in different flavors. The group tried a crumb cheesecake at NIS 40 for a family-size cake, which Geller called “the quintessential Israeli cheesecake.”
As the tour ended, participants were slow to leave, enjoying their fat and sugar highs. Geller said she was already planning future food crawls and mused, “We can do cholent [a traditional Jewish stew] in the winter, maybe honey cakes before Rosh Hashanah. Enjoying traditional foods together is one of the best ways to get into the holiday spirit.”