Is National Cherry Cheesecake Day the same as National Cheesecake Day?

No. They are two separate days: the cherry version falls on April 23, and National Cheesecake Day falls on July 30.

Who started National Cherry Cheesecake Day?

The dessert can be traced in print to 1947, but the day cannot be traced to anyone: no founder or establishing record was located in the indexes checked.

Was cream cheese invented in 1872?

That date circulates widely, but California newspapers were already advertising cream cheese for sale in the 1850s. The phrase, and a product sold under it, ran about two decades ahead of the invention story.

National Cherry Cheesecake Day

Next celebratedFriday, April 23, 2027

A cherry cheesecake is mostly about what sits on top, a bright red layer that hides everything underneath. On National Cherry Cheesecake Day, make one and do not go easy on the cherries.

See how to celebrate

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Last updated September 7, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATEApril 23

OBSERVED INUnited States

CATEGORYFood

SUBCATEGORYDesserts

ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY

Not documented

FIRST OBSERVED

Not documented

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

A dessert day with no documented founder.

No founder, sponsor or establishing record for National Cherry Cheesecake Day was located in the indexes checked. The name returns nothing in the Federal Register and nothing in HathiTrust's digitised run of Chase's Calendar of Events.

+ Know the story? Submit a founder Help us complete this holiday

INTRO

Shaken from the tree straight into cold water

National Cherry Cheesecake Day sits on top of an American crop that is almost never eaten as fruit. Of the 141.0 million pounds of tart cherries put to use in 2025, processors took 140.8 million. The fresh market took 0.2 million pounds.

Sweet cherries run the other way. In the same year the fresh market took 286,800 tons of them, against 85,060 tons sent to processing.

So the fruit in the can has a different job from the fruit in the bowl. Tart cherries are sold frozen, canned and dried for cooking and baking, and it took a promotion push to move them beyond pie filling. National Cheesecake Day, the general one, is a separate observance that falls on July 30.

ORIGINS

Cherry Cheesecake Day history

INTRODUCTION

Almost no Michigan tart cherry is picked by hand. A machine grips the trunk and shakes, and the cherries drop straight into a tank of 48 degree water. Each tank holds 1,000 pounds.

It stays there six to eight hours under a constant cold flush before it reaches a plant to be pitted and canned or frozen. That is the ordinary route for nearly all of Michigan's red tart cherries.

CHAPTER 01

Why the orchards sit where they do

Michigan's cherry country runs up the western side of the state, concentrated in Leelanau, Grand Traverse and Oceana counties. The orchard soils are sandy, glacially deposited and low to moderate in fertility.

Lake Michigan does the rest. Its eastern shore gives the orchards long frost free autumns and a delayed spring bloom, and growers plant on sloped sites to avoid spring frosts.

CHAPTER 02

A crop the government counts and caps

A 2003 crop profile put Michigan's tart cherry acreage above 30,000. It counted 3,420,000 trees. The trees need five to eight years to reach reasonable production, so an orchard is a long bet on a fruit almost nobody buys loose.

The federal government has had a hand in it since 1996. A marketing order took effect that September over tart cherries grown in seven states, and it created the Cherry Industry Administrative Board.

The board meets on or about July 1 each year. It reviews sales, inventory and crop forecasts, and sets an optimum supply for the season ahead.

CHAPTER 03

The dessert shows up late

The phrase cherry cheesecake does not turn up in California's digitised newspapers until the autumn of 1947, and when it does it is not a recipe.

It appears five times between late October and mid December, in two Southern California papers, always inside dialogue. One character orders a double portion for a friend. In another it is simply a detective's favorite.

No founder or establishing record for National Cherry Cheesecake Day was located in the indexes checked. Whoever started it picked a dessert that runs on a can.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Cherry cheesecake reaches newsprint

The phrase first appears in California's digitised newspapers that autumn, in five items across two Southern California papers.

Cream cheese gets its current text

The federal standards for cream cheese and Neufchatel take their current form in a Federal Register document of August 4, amended in January 1993.

A federal order covers tart cherries

The marketing order for tart cherries grown in seven states took effect on September 24, creating the Cherry Industry Administrative Board.

A crop profile records the harvest

A January crop profile set down how Michigan takes the fruit off the tree, with mechanical shakers and tanks of chilled water.

Commerce rules on Turkish dried cherries

Commerce found that dried tart cherries from Turkey were sold below fair value, on rates it drew solely from the petition after applying adverse facts available to the two examined producers.

The grower price more than doubles

Michigan growers were paid $0.517 a pound for tart cherries, up from $0.194 the year before.

AT A GLANCE

The tart cherry at a glance

Species: Generally classified as Prunus cerasus
Michigan's main cultivar: Montmorency
Other tart types: Amarelle, Kutahya, Lutowka, Morello, Oblacinska
Michigan harvest: Typically by the third week of July
US bearing acreage: 27,900 acres in 2025

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about National Cherry Cheesecake Day

Federal law allows one pit per 20 ounces

The standard of quality for canned pitted cherries says not more than 1 pit is present in each 20 ounces.

A blemish is measured against a small circle

A cherry counts as blemished when skin discoloration covers more than the area of a circle 9/32 inch across. No more than 15 percent of the cherries in a can may be blemished.

Cream cheese stops being cream cheese at 33 percent

Federal standards set a minimum milkfat content of 33 percent by weight for cream cheese. The same soft white cheese with 20 to under 33 percent milkfat has to be sold as Neufchatel.

Syrup labels mean different things by cherry

The canned cherry standard runs separate density ladders for the two kinds of fruit. Heavy sirup starts at 22 percent by weight of sucrose for red tart cherries and at 20 percent for sweet ones.

Four ingredients carry a can of cherry topping

A can of Comstock cherry pie filling and topping opens its ingredient list with cherries, water, high fructose corn syrup and modified food starch.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Cherry Cheesecake Day

SUPPLY

Nineteen percent of the 2024-2025 crop was designated restricted.

For the crop year that began on July 1, 2024, USDA designated 81 percent of the tart cherries handled as free and 19 percent as restricted. Restricted fruit has to sit in a handler's reserve, be diverted, or go to an exempt use rather than into normal commercial outlets.

GEOGRAPHY

One state grows most of the crop

Michigan produced 130.5 million of the 197.8 million pounds of American tart cherries in 2023, about two thirds of the national crop. USDA discontinued its New York, Washington and Wisconsin estimates the following year.

SCALE

The whole supply comes from a few hundred farms

USDA counts roughly 330 tart cherry growers and about 30 handlers under the marketing order. It valued the utilized 2025 crop at $66.0 million.

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Cherry Cheesecake Day

Bake one the night before

Make the cheesecake a day ahead and give it the refrigerator to itself. Then the day belongs to eating it rather than to baking.

TASTE

Taste a tart cherry on its own first

Open the can and try one before it goes anywhere near the cake. Federal rules call them red tart, or alternatively red sour, and the second name is the honest one.

READ

Read the federal standard for canned cherries

The rules that govern what goes in the can are short and oddly gripping. Look up the canned cherry standard and read the quality section.

PUT

Put a whole cheesecake in front of company

Set the uncut cake down with a knife beside it and let people take their own. A cherry topping looks better whole than it does portioned out in advance.

TRY

Try the topping on something other than cheesecake

The can is sold as pie filling and topping, and it will sit on almost anything. Spoon it over ice cream, yogurt or a bowl of oatmeal and see which you prefer.

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