Philadelphia Cream Cheese

As that bakes, mix the following ingredients together: one cup sugar, three tablespoons of flour, one tablespoon of vanilla, and eight ounces of Philadelphia Cream Cheese (softened). Once it's all blended, mix in a cup of sour cream. Then, with the mixer on low, add four eggs one at a time. Make sure you add the next egg after the previous egg has been fully blended.

Once all four eggs are in, and you've blended everything together, pour the mixture into the pan (after it's been in the oven for ten minutes). Then put the pan with the mixture back into the oven for another 40 minutes or until the center is nearly set.

While it looks good, it's not quite ready to eat yet. You need to place it in the refrigerator for four hours so it can completely cool. Once the four hours have elapsed, use the "foil handles" to lift the dessert from the pan and onto an appropriate serving dish. You are now ready to dish up your Philadelphia New York Cheesecake.

We thought a recipe for cheese cake would be the perfect way to start an article that's all about that soft, sweet, mild-tasting, ashen foodstuff known as cream cheese. In particular, Philadelphia Cream Cheese, the most popular cream cheese in the world. Manufactured by Kraft Foods, Philadelphia brand cream cheese accounts for about 70 percent of America's cream cheese market.

Besides being the main ingredient of cheesecakes, the tasty cream cheese is a probably best known as a spread for bagels. It's also smeared on breads, used in salads, and employed as a substitute for butter.

Cream cheese is also the main ingredient in crab rangoon (crab cakes)—deep fried dumplings stuffed with cream cheese, crab meat, scallions, and garlic. There are countless other uses for Philly Cream Cheese and all of them are delicious.

It's appropriate that we started this article with a recipe for "Philadelphia New York Cheesecake" because cream cheese is linked to both of those places.

Cream cheese was invented in 1872 by William Lawrence. He was a dairy farmer in New York State. He called his new product "Philadelphia Cream Cheese" because at the time the City of Brotherly Love was synonymous with good food. It's similar to the way we now think of Hollywood as being synonymous with the entertainment business or Seattle being synonymous with coffee.

In 1903, the Phenix Cheese Company bought the trademark from Lawrence. That company merged with the Kraft Cheese Company in 1928. The first thing Kraft did with its new cheesy asset was improved its manufacturing process.

Cream cheese is very difficult to make—mainly because milk wants to stay a liquid. Therefore, during the fermentation process it's important for makers to kill the lactic acid bacteria at the precise moment. Makers kill the bacteria by heating the cream cheese mixture to 125-145° Fahrenheit. If the timing is off then you won't have cream cheese but a big pile of goo. Yet, small changes in the timing process will still produce cream cheese but alter its texture and flavor.

Cream Cheese also has more fat than other cheeses. Since fat repels water (which is bad for cheese) cream cheese makers will add thickeners and gelling agents like guar and carob gums. These additives prevent cream cheese from turning into a hard glob of gel.

Of course, that's the gist of how one makes generic cream cheese. The actual manufacturing process for Philadelphia Cream Cheese is kept in a vault in the city of Chicago. It's one of the food world's most guarded secrets.

Going back to its fat content, let's take a closer look at cream cheese's nutritional values. One ounce of Philadelphia Cream Cheese contains 100 calories (81 calories from fat), 9 grams of total fat (6 grams of saturated fat), 2 grams of protein, 1 gram of carbohydrates, 105 milligrams of salt, and 30 milligrams of cholesterol.

Originally, Philadelphia Cream Cheese came in a brick wrapped in foil. You can still buy it that way but Kraft has rolled out a variety of other Cream Cheese products. They have soft cream cheese, whipped cream cheese, "Philly minis," and ready-to-eat cheesecake filing.

Each of their products, with the exception of the ready-to eat cheesecake filing, comes in a variety of flavors. For example, you can get pineapple soft cream cheese, chive whipped cream cheese, and Strawberry "Philly minis." The company also offers 1/3 less fat and fat free versions of many of their most popular products.

Originally used as a spread for beagles and as the main ingredient in cheesecake, Kraft is now trying to expand the use of Philadelphia Cream Cheese into a versatile recipe ingredient. The company rolled out a line of Philadelphia Cooking Crème designed for well, you guessed it, cooking.

To further promote cream cheese as a cooking ingredient, Kraft launched an original internet series called “Real Women of Philadelphia,” hosted by famous cook Paula Deen (who's from Georgia). The show asked users to submit recipes involving Philadelphia Cream Cheese. There were more than 5,000 recipes submitted and more than 40,000 people registered on the Kraft Web site to participate in online discussions.

The promotion was incredibly successful. Not only did Kraft launch a second season of “Real Women of Philadelphia” but the promotion increased their bottom line. After several years of ho-hum sales, Philadelphia Cream Cheese saw a 5.6 percent jump in revenue in 2010.

Philadelphia Cream Cheese is marketed with the slogan "Philly is a little taste of heaven." If you've ever had the stuff you know that motto is completely accurate. Thanks to PhiladelphiaSmarts, you now know a little bit about the history and manufacturing process of one of America's favorite cheeses.

Copyright 2011 PhiladelphiaSmarts