The Secret to New York Deli-Style Cream Cheese Is Seltzer

I don’t claim to be a big authority on roguelikes. I didn’t even know they existed until I moved from Aberdeen, Mississippi to Los Angeles at the tender age of six. I’m also not a very good baker, even with a good recipe , so I tend to take whatever New Yorkers tell me when it comes to those boiled then baked bread rings.

So when I saw this TikTok by @brooklynbagelblog , I immediately believed his claims.

According to the video, the “secret” to New York deli-style cream cheese is, as they say, in “yes cotton.” Seltzer, to be exact. The video shows a pair of gloved hands sloshing seltzer water into a cream cheese mound (and a few other inclusions), with Brooklyn Bagel Blogger’s voice explaining how: “Canada Dry helps whip hard cream cheese into a smooth, creamy texture. and that they “see it all the time in the back of all the best bagel shops.”

And while Canada Dry is technically a soda and not pure seltzer , it’s still carbonated water, and it seems to get the job done. Though TikTok doesn’t elaborate on why seltzer is able to turn cold hard cream cheese into a fluffy, almost glossy paste – and without a mixer or any other special equipment! — I can guess what’s behind it: the addition of moisture and carbonation, which (theoretically) softens and aerates the cream cheese.

A little seltzer will really transform your cream cheese.

To test this hack, I took a cold chunk of cream cheese out of the fridge, unwrapped it, gave the wrapper to my dog ​​to lick, and put the chunk of cream cheese in a large bowl. I swirled it with a large serving fork, then added a teaspoon of seltzer and folded it in with the same fork. The cream cheese immediately became a little softer, which is logical because if you crush a high-fat substance with a fork or other object, the fat will heat up due to friction, but it also became a little more shiny and fluffy. I added three more teaspoons of seltzer, this time stirring with a silicone spatula after each addition. I then added some thinly sliced ​​green onions. In the end, I was left with a fluffy, soft handful of cream cheese that looked, tasted, and acted exactly like deli-style shmear.

But then the pedantic part of my brain started making noise: would this work with plain water? Is carbonation really necessary?

Waiter, there’s carbon dioxide in my cream cheese.

Carbonation is measured in “volumes”, and sparkling water is typically in the range of 3-4 volumes of CO₂ per liquid volume . (This means that for every milliliter of water there are 3-4 milliliters of dissolved carbon dioxide.) When I added one tablespoon of soda to cream cheese, I also added somewhere around 3-4 tablespoons of carbon dioxide.

Putting a larger volume of gas into a smaller volume of liquid may seem physically impossible, but the amount of gas you can put into a liquid depends on temperature and pressure. The volume of a gas refers to the volume of space it would take up at standard temperature (32°F) and pressure (one atmosphere) which are controlled during carbonation.

However, you start to lose carbonation the moment you open a bottle, and you lose a little more with each manipulation, from pouring to stirring (that’s what fizzing is – carbon dioxide is released). So I really can’t tell exactly how much CO₂ goes into cream cheese, at least not in my kitchen. Although it doesn’t really matter; I’m less concerned about microscopic phenomena and more about noticeable macroscopic effects.

Plain water works almost as well as sparkling water.

I repeated the above song and dance with a new block of cream cheese, only this time I used plain tap water instead of Canada Dry Club soda. I added a tablespoon of water to a cold block of cream cheese, a teaspoon at a time, as well as some chopped green onions, and the cream cheese was softer and creamier when I was done.

I tried two cream cheeses side by side, each on its own half of a bagel and each on a pretzel cracker (an underrated cracker). Visually there was no difference, but not in taste and texture.

If I had just used plain water and stopped there, I would have been delighted: the extra moisture combined with mixing and stirring did give the cheese mass a creamier texture, but the cream cheese mixed with seltzer water was a little more airy and smoother. . The plain cream cheese on the water was also slightly denser, but again, the differences were subtle and (I suspect) only noticeable if you look for them.

Bottom line: the trick really works. Adding a tablespoon (or more) of seltzer to a block of cream cheese is an easy way to whip it up and make it more juicy and creamy. If you don’t have seltzer, plain water can help, but the bubbles seem to add something else. (That something is gas, and in this case, gas is great.)