I made the 15th century Italian cherry cheesecake from Max Miller’s recipe, and it was really good. I was mostly curious about how the black pepper would work with the cherry, rose, ginger, and cinnamon. Well, it worked very well, the spice from the black pepper almost made it taste like it had sherry in it.
I had made another 15th century cheesecake recipe from, I think, England before and it was a pretty similar texture. That one was saffron and rose, though, and no cherries.
One thing with both cheesecakes I noticed compared to modern cheesecakes is that they don’t have as much fat so they don’t make quite the same custard texture that we’re used to. The resulting texture is simultaneously more wet and maybe even more firm than we’re used to. Or maybe I just messed up the recipe both times, haha. But it is less rich than a modern cheesecake so I think it makes sense.
For the saffron and rose cake, I made the curds from milk myself and used those. But for this one, I was feeling lazy and so I just bought ricotta and used that.
I think I will try this flavor combination again sometime, but with some modern twists to improve the texture of the custard. But the cherry and black pepper was so surprisingly good that I will be using that again!
