Creole Cream Cheesecake With Caramel-Apple Topping

I have to confess that I spent the first half of my life not loving cheesecake. I just didn’t understand it. Then, lo and behold, at the farmers’ market in New Orleans, I was introduced to cheesecake made with Creole Cream Cheese.  

When I moved back to New Orleans after culinary school and landed the pastry chef position at Restaurant August, I was completely unqualified for the job. My real exposure to what folks were baking in New Orleans and the surrounding areas was more limited than I care to admit. I rode along with the chef de cuisine and a sous to my first farmers’ market on a Wednesday, right after I started in the kitchen. It was late spring, and I predictably bought all the Louisiana strawberries I could handle. One of the guys bought a cheesecake from a local dairy, Mauthe’s (now Progress Dairy), and we sat on the curb and dug into that Creole cream cheese cheesecake with the next best thing to silverware: strawberries. It is one of my fondest work and food memories, and now, some sixteen years later, the simplicity of that delicious moment is one I think about when I consider how I want people to experience the work I do.