Celebrate Shavuot with New York cheesecake and flan

In Israel, Shavuot is the dairy holiday. As the festival approaches, advertisements flood the media, urging shoppers to try this or that luscious cheese recipe. Supermarket dairy aisles overflow with seasonal delicacies and specialty cheeses that seem to appear only at this time of year. The major dairy companies release free recipe booklets filled with glossy photographs designed to make your mouth water. There’s mascarpone, burrata, crème fraîche, stuffed pastas, regional cheeses, and flavored butters, enough to satisfy every dairy-loving Jew.

I’ll be the first to admit that I love dairy foods and look forward to a festive dairy meal myself. Still, I sometimes wonder how healthy the typical cheese-heavy Shavuot menu really is: blintzes, lasagna, ravioli, noodle kugel, and kreplach, with perhaps a leafy salad tucked in at the side as a token gesture toward vegetables.

A cheese overload, apart from being expensive, does not make the holiday more meaningful. In fact, eating dairy on Shavuot is not technically a mitzvah, but rather a beloved and long-standing custom. Even so, the custom has deep historical roots. First embraced by French and Ashkenazic Jewish communities during the 14th century, it reflects traditions and ideas connected to the giving of the Torah at Har Sinai.

Learn more about the Jewish-American origins of New York cheesecake (and other iconic snacks) here

According to tradition, when the Israelites received the Torah, they immediately became obligated to observe its laws. Because the revelation took place on Shabbat, they could neither slaughter animals nor kasher their cooking utensils according to the newly received laws. Instead, they turned to dairy foods, most likely cheese and fermented milk products such as labneh, which they already had prepared in their tents. Eating dairy on Shavuot became a way of commemorating that moment.

Other traditional Shavuot foods connect to the holiday’s agricultural roots and the bringing of the first-fruit offerings to the Temple. These offerings centered around the Seven Species associated with the Land of Israel: wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates. The “honey” mentioned in the Torah was traditionally understood not as bee honey, but as the thick, sweet syrup produced from dates. Since only plant-based foods could be brought as first fruits, date honey fit naturally into the ritual.

Israel itself is famously described as “a land flowing with milk and honey,” making dairy-and-honey combinations especially fitting for the holiday. Modern recipes often reinterpret that ancient imagery with a touch of sugar and culinary creativity.

And so we come to cheesecake. This version is light, with a homemade crust that gives it a rustic charm. The flour in the crust can even serve as a symbolic nod to the wheat brought among the first-fruit offerings to the Temple, a lovely detail to mention when serving this delicious cake to family and friends around the Shavuot table.

Flan is a silky milk custard baked in a water bath and finished with a glossy layer of caramel. Light, delicately vanilla-scented, and pleasantly sweet, it’s a welcome dessert any time of year. Its real moment of drama comes when the flan is inverted onto a serving plate, allowing the amber caramel glaze to cascade over the custard like liquid gold.

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The dessert traces its origins back to the ancient Romans, who are believed to have created early custards as a practical way to use up surplus eggs. Centuries later, the Spaniards refined the recipe, transforming the simple mixture of eggs, milk, and honey into the caramel-topped flan recognized today.

Today, using canned evaporated and condensed milk, you can whizz up the custard in the blender.