Episode 1
Cheesecake
People associate cheesecake with New York, but actually, it comes from Greece. The ancient Greeks served this rich delicacy to the athletes of the first Olympic games in 776 BC. The Roman conquest spread the dessert across Europe, and many centuries later, European immigrants brought it to North America. The ancient Romans even brought cheesecake to their temples as an offering to the gods.
The basis of a cheesecake is its rich, creamy filling made from ricotta, Neufchatel, or cream cheese.
But first, bakers need to make the crust, similar to a butter cookie. For a batch of about five dozen cakes, this bakery combines 50 pounds of butter with 10 pounds of sugar. Next, 16 egg whites. Then, 25 pounds of flour. After mixing just long enough to incorporate the flour smoothly, a conveyor belt shuttles the dough to a vat. Gravity pushes the blob of dough through a slot at the bottom, expelling a sheet less than a quarter inch thick. A dusting of flour prevents the dough from sticking, not just to the conveyor belt, but also to the rolling and cutting tools. This prickly roller preparates the dough sheet. The holes allow any trapped air to escape during baking, which prevents the dough from shrinking and ensures a flat, bubble-free crust. The next roller has plastic circles that work like cookie cutters, slicing the dough into cake-size discs. The leftover pieces go into new batches of dough. Each dough circle goes in a pan, then bakes at 375 for 16 minutes.
Meanwhile, the batter starts taking shape. For a batch of about 20 cakes, the bakery combines 25 pounds of cream cheese with two pounds of cultured sour cream. That sour cream processed a little longer than usual to give it extra flavor. After slowly mixing in 15 pounds of sugar and about 2 1/2 cups of flour, workers blend in 3/4 cup of vanilla extract. Now they get cracking with 1 1/2 dozen eggs. That's the recipe for plain cheesecake. Flavored versions come with extra goodies. This batter is caramel pecan. It's paired with a chocolate cookie crust.
As the baked crusts arrive, sprayers grease the inside of each pan with butter so that the cake will slide out easily after baking. Then a machine, called the depositor, shoots in just the right amount of batter. The pans now enter a tunnel-shaped oven that's almost 25 yards long. The temperature inside is a toasty 350 degrees. By the time the cakes exit the other end, they're fully baked. These 10-inch cakes take just under an hour. From the oven, the cheesecakes go onto a cooling conveyor, and by the time the hot cakes do the nearly hour-long circuit, they are at room temperature and ready to come out of their pans.
From there, most cheesecakes go straight into the storage freezer, but there are a few exceptions which detour to the decoration department. This Belgian chocolate cheesecake isn't complete without a big squirt of chocolate ganache, a decadent mixture of chocolate and cream. Workers spread it all over, then make swirls with a decorating comb. And now the final touch: a sprinkling of cocoa.
Some cakes go into an automated cutting machine that divides each cake into 14 equal slices and inserts parchment paper in between them.
Back at the decorating department, they're putting shards of chocolate on a mud pie, a combination chocolate souffle, chocolate cheesecake with pecans and coffee mousse topping. You might want to put off that diet just for one more day.
