Cheesecake: Pie or Cake?

Is a cheesecake a pie or is it a cake?

Someone please settle this for me.

Comments

[IAmInASnuggie]

It’s a cake. It literally says in the name that it’s a cake. How is this an argument?

[Grungar3x7]

Is a cheesecake a pie or is it a cake?

Yes.

[Jack_Ranger]

From what my research tells me, it is a pie.

This guy goes into further detail: http://www.finecooking.com/article/cheesecake-or-cheesepie

[chillbook1]

4565004
Cheesecake has a crust. Cakes do not.

[Von Voctavia]

Neither. It’s a tart.

[CBM8]

It's a pie, and a damn good one.

[dj-pon3fan]

It's a cake. I have always been told it was a cake.

[Butterscotch Moonglow]

Cheesecake is a weird sort of pie. It has a crust, and it's actual cake-part is more of a creamy ice-cream-custard thing that a crumbly, sweet cake. Not to mention you can put, say, whipped cream or strawberry syrup on it and not be regarded as a crazy person; try to put ice cream on a slice of banana creme cheesecake and see what happens. (Actually, please don't. That's an insult to the chef in how wrong that is.) Ergo, Cheesecake is a pie.

[Polyplonus]

Hmm, you can bake a cake and a pie but can you make one without the physical act of baking?. Cake is baked but can make a cake without baking?

Lets try to find the logical path in the past.

A continental cheese cake requires baking and it does rise like a cake. I think that was the origin of the first cheesecake because it is similar to a cake and requires a cake like process. A lot of those recipes are old. Crust was added later I think but then someone decided to make a no bake cheese cake out of sheer laziness or maybe their electric or gas stove was out using a pie crust and misnamed it a cheese cake even though it uses a pie crust. It evolved into the cookie or graham cracker base we have today as an addition but the original recipes I believe are cakes so I would have to go with cake. The references of a no bake cheese cake being used in the past seem to make it that the newer incarnations are an evolved version or adjunct or bastardization of the original recipe that has the name of cake.

In Wikipedia they say this :-

The earliest attested mention of a cheesecake is by the Greek physician Aegimus, who wrote a book on the art of making cheesecakes (πλακουντοποιικόν σύγγραμμα—plakountopoiikon suggramma).^[3][4] The earliest extant cheesecake recipes are found in Cato the Elder's De Agri Cultura, which includes recipes for two cakes for religious uses: libum and placenta.^[5][6] Of the two, placenta is most like most modern cheesecakes, having a crust that is separately prepared and baked.^[7]

A more modern version is found in Forme of Cury, an English cookbook from 1390.^[8] On this basis, chef Heston Blumenthal has argued that cheesecake is an English invention.^[9]

Modern commercial American cream cheese was developed in 1872, when William Lawrence, from Chester, New York, while looking for a way to recreate the soft, French cheese Neufchâtel, accidentally came up with a way of making an "unripened cheese" that is heavier and creamier; other dairymen came up with similar creations independently.^[10]

Modern cheesecake comes in two different types. Along with the baked cheesecake, some cheesecakes are made with uncooked cream-cheese on a crumbled-biscuit base. This type of cheesecake was invented in the United States.^[8]

So that seems to state the pie crust cheesecake is a cheese cake of albeit an altered modern construction.

Cake it seems is the best answer.