Best Cheesecake

Most impressive mail-order cheesecake

Unfortunately, some cheesecakes fall short of the creamy ideal. The Wall Street Journal's review pans 1-800-Cheesecake's two-pound New York Style cheesecake (*Est. $30; shipping not included) for tasting like "cotton candy" on a dry, "cardboard" base. In addition, reporter Troy McMullen got the company's president to admit that smaller cheesecakes are sometimes "overcooked."

Reviews of The Cheesecake Factory's plain cheesecake (*est. $43; shipping not included) are mixed. Cook's Illustrated's taste testers say that while the filling is fluffy, it isn't as flavorful as some, and the crust soaks up moisture during shipping. This problem plagues several cheesecakes in the Cook's test, including Cheesecake.com's Classic New York Style Cheesecake (*est. $39; shipping not included) and Dean and DeLuca's Gateau Nuage Cheesecake (*est. $70), which also suffers from a bland filling, editors say. In contrast, however, New York Magazine named this light cheesecake, which is topped with a sour-cream glaze, its top cheesecake of 2006.

Given the soggy-crust problem, it's not surprising that the highest-rated plain cheesecake, Junior's of Brooklyn, New York (*Est. $30; shipping not included), has a sponge-cake crust. This crust holds up to shipping, but the tough critics at Cook's Illustrated aren't sure it complements the filling, and some find it "stale." Other critics are more forgiving: The Wall Street Journal's review calls Junior's "the closest to a classic," and Ed Levine is taken with its "obscene" richness.

If a lighter, less sweet cheesecake is more your style, reviews point to Eileen's Special Cheesecake (*est. $65 for a 10-inch cheesecake, including overnight shipping), which Ed Levine calls "ethereally light" and "a tad more satisfying than Junior's." Eileen's receives four mentions in cheesecake reviews, but three of the four are from the same source: the cheesecake-besotted Levine. Eileen's has a very basic website that doesn't discuss how cheesecakes are packaged for shipping and doesn't list the ingredients in each cake. Eileen's 10-inch cheesecakes are more expensive than the 8-inch cakes from Junior's or Eli's Couture line.

If you find classic cheesecake too plain, several bakeries have come up with variations, including chocolate mousse, pumpkin, triple-cheese and turtle. The Eli's Cheesecake Company of Chicago calls its line of eight creative cheesecakes "Cheesecake Couture," and reviews say that these cakes live up to their fancy billing. The Triple Fresh Cheese (*est. $40; shipping not included), which contains goat cheese, cream cheese and mascarpone, accented with lemon curd, wins over Marion Burros of The New York Times, who included it in her annual roundup of holiday treats. She's equally taken with the Burnt Caramel Flan variation, which gets its "salty edge" from an almond crust.