“For those gloomy days,” write Charles Britton in 1992, “when everything seems to be turning into dross, I have a note of encouragement to offer: We are living in the great age of cheesecake.”
His column, which was syndicated in newspapers across the country, remarked on cheesecake’s 1980s rise to stardom, citing the two latest books on the subject, as well as “a popular Southern California restaurant chain called the Cheesecake Factory.” In that article, Britton shared six recipes for different cheesecake variations.
Ten years earlier, Patricia Turner wrote in the Bridgewater Courier-News about two cheesecake cookbooks that were out at that time. Turner was somewhat less exhilarated about the possibility of cheesecake. Perhaps the golden age had not yet begun. Or perhaps it was the fact that Turner was on a diet and admitted to not having tried any of the recipes shared in her column.
One of those recipes was for a Peanut Butter and Jelly Cheesecake – a different version than the recipe that I encountered in “Country Classics Vol. 2,” a 1980s cookbook put out by the Old Friendship United Methodist Church in West Post Office Maryland.
This recipe’s contributor, Delores Brown, was too hard to pin down amongst the population of Worcester and nearby counties, despite the small size of the historic church she may have attended. All I know is that she shared this fun and slightly oddball cheesecake variation.
