And so it would begin. Holiday baking, that is. Mom was a homemade girl and the holidays were no different. There were molasses cookies to be made and cut into holiday shapes with what cutters we could find. An old silver bell was the easiest to get the dough out of once you cut the cookie.

There was also Santa with a sack of presents, an angel and the customary Christmas star. The cookies were carefully placed on the cookie sheets and alternately sprinkled with red or green sugar. The sugar couldn’t be seen all that well on the molasses but it was the taste and spirit of the season created by the sugar that kept us sprinkling.

Another treat that has a long history from the Hinckley household is the Company Cheesecake. It is a recipe with soiled pages from the “Betty Crocker Cookbook.” As a kid, I wondered about the title of the recipe. Did it mean it was cheesecake for a business-type company? Could it feed your company, the visitors coming for the holidays? The recipe was also written as one paragraph in the cookbook. That was another marker to remember the recipe we used.

Mini cakes, also

Sometimes, the recipe was crafted as a whole cake. It was made in the largest of springform pans we had. For individual gifts, Mom would buy pre-made graham cracker crusts to fill with the cheesecake batter. The mini crusts were for the mailman, the bus driver and the newspaper guy. She would glaze each one with her homemade glaze. We would then deliver them to our teachers and the bus driver, Jim, and mailman, Ivan. Our teachers must have been thrilled our parents had four girls. They knew the cheesecake was coming sooner or later.

The cheesecake was cooked in the wood-stove oven at a steady temperature of 375 degrees. It took a few good logs to get the oven up to temperature and then a few more good ones to keep it there nearly for an hour as the cheesecake cooked. The top was carefully watched while baking. The oven door could not be opened too many times or the heat would escape and warm the house more than the goods baking inside. The cheesecake had to bake until the edges cracked to know it was done through. We were careful to remove it from the oven as soon as the “cracking” stage or it might end up dry in the middle.

Many good smells

The glaze was carefully boiled in just the right spot on the top of the wood stove. On many a winter day, Mom had each pot in its proper place on the stovetop. This allowed the vegetables to be done when the roast was cooked, plus bread rising in the warming oven above and gravy simmering on the back of the stove. The glaze for the cheesecake was in the middle of the stove cooking. It needed to boil for a bit to thicken properly but not so much it would boil over. The glaze was a blend of frozen strawberries or blueberries, whichever we wanted and could find in the freezer. The fruit was blended with sugar and cornstarch and a bit of water for consistency, if needed. The cheesecake was not topped with the glaze until well cooled or even chilled, that way it wouldn’t mix into the cheesecake much before people got a chance to eat.

Other people dump a can of pie filling on top. I never liked cherries much and that’s what it always seemed to be. I found it just as easy to boil up the ingredients to make a glaze.

As a child, I lived for the cheesecake at the holidays but seldom had even a taste once it was handed out. The ones we’d made were given away, without one left at home to enjoy.

At Gram Jones’ house, the cheesecake was reserved for the adults, unless one of them passed off a bite. I’m sure we kids got our own special dessert but I never paid attention because I really just wanted one little bite of cheesecake. Gram’s cheesecake had a different consistency than Mom’s. Gram made a recipe that was refrigerated to get the right thickness to be sliced and enjoyed. I have since learned there are about a hundred ways to make a cheesecake.

Mom began the cheesecake tradition before I was old enough to pack the graham cracker crust into the edges of the pan but I have continued it still. I now have a nifty heart-shaped insert for my springform pan from which I crafted a cheesecake one Christmas. It was actually a gift for one of the teachers who was blessed to have received more than one when I was a student of his. He and his family live down the road from me, and I wanted to treat them once again. I even took a picture of my masterpiece before I delivered it.

I don’t recall any major cheesecake mishaps through the years, although I know it would make for a funnier story if I had one. I have ventured into other flavors, one being a chocolate cranberry swirl cheesecake, a recipe out of an Ocean Spray cookbook. It is tasty, but nothing beats the plain old-fashioned cheesecake cracked on the edges with a hint of almond extract, dripping with just enough strawberry to make your mouth water. And actually getting a piece to enjoy before it is gone before your very eyes.

Hannah Hinckley is a writer, veterinary technician, whitewater guide and Pampered Chef kitchen consultant. She lives in Winthrop and may be reached by e-mail at [email protected].