Cakes are everywhere. Just because something is a cake does not mean it isn’t also something else. A cake of soap is still a bar of soap. The problem comes with pastry because cake means something specific, which is generally a baked good, primarily made of flour, sugar, fat, and eggs, leavened in the oven during the baking cycle. Nobody should argue that crab cakes should be allowed in a wedding cake competition, because they are clearly different things. The name only takes you so far.

There are a few of classes of pie. Most standard pies (as opposed to pocket pies) are round, not much more than a couple of inches tall, and wider at the top than at the bottom. More often than not, pies are 8-10″ in diameter, though there are some mini-pies that are closer to 3-4″ in diameter.

Pies, traditionally, have two types of crust: the pastry crust and the crumb crust. The pastry crust we’ve covered before, and is a combination of flour, water, and fat, combined properly using, and baked. The crumb crust is a pulverized cookie or cracker that’s mixed with fat and baked just to set.

Inside a pie can be just about anything, but when I think of pie, two categories stand out: fruit and custard. Fruit pies are things like apple, blueberry… you know what a fruit pie is. A custard pie is milk or cream mixed with sugar and egg yolk and some additives, and usually baked. As I say, there are other variations (pecan, peanut butter, pudding, etc.), but fruit and custard are the heavy hitters.

Given all of the above, let’s talk about cheesecakes. Generally cheesecakes are cylindrical, 4-6″ tall or more, have a baked custard center, and a crumb crust. With a minor change in appearance, any pastry that is a crumb crust filled with custard and baked, in my mind, is a pie. The addition of cream cheese is no more a disqualifier than the addition of bourbon would be.

So, in short, a cheesecake is a pie. It can also be a cake, but it can’t not be a pie.