Every September (well, the past two) I've made a Huckleberry Cheesecake for my fiance's birthday. By all accounts, it's his favorite dessert. It's also one of his favorite childhood special occassion foods.

Which of course means that I am determined to get it right.

I've discovered that this is a tall order. Last year, before I knew his family, I thought that a Huckleberry Cheesecake was obviously a cheesecake, made in a springform pan, with a huckleberry topping. So I borrowed a pan from the test kitchen, tweaked a blueberry cheesecake recipe, and ordered in canned huckleberries from Montana. Guess what? I soon learned that the dish he grew up eating was a no-bake cheesecake, which is a ridiculously simpler version of what I made.

So this year, I used his mom's recipe, which I was lucky enough to eat myself over the summer. Hers was delicious. Bright lemon flavor coming through the filling, just enough topping, and a satisfying graham cracker crust. Mine? Cloyingly sweet. I honestly can't say where I went wrong, but it is making me wonder if I should stop trying to make someone else's dish...maybe I should start a new tradition? Keep trying?

What are your thoughts on keeping family food traditions alive? And what do you do when you can't seem to get it right?

And while we're on this topic, I would like to remind you of our Community Cookbook project. We've been loving all of the energy and recipe sharing in our online food community that we thought we'd capture a bit of that in our very own cookbook. Which means that you have the chance to submit a recipe for inclusion in the book, which will be modeled on traditional community cookbooks and will give a portion of its proceeds to charity. Find more information about it right here.

[Image: Tara of Seven Spoons, who made this amazing looking Blackberry Creme Pie to celebrate the end of summer.]

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