Lightest, Easiest, Quickest Cherry Cheesecake recipe ever

Have you ever prepared a recipe, and has it turn out totally different from what you were expecting?  But you wound up really liking it?  I was a bit careless while preparing this recipe and made a little mistake.  As a result, this quick and easy Cherry Cheesecake recipe produced a unique, light texture that I really wasn't expecting from a no-bake cheesecake.  The airiness made it actually very little like cheesecake and more like a mousse.  But everyone who tasted it absolutely loved it.  It won't be replacing my favorite cheesecake recipe just yet, but when you want something quick and easy (no baking involved!) and light, this might be the cheesecake for you.  (And no, by "light" I do not mean low in calories. Sorry!).  

Quick and Easy Light Cherry Cheesecake, adapted from Nigella Lawson
Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
2 tablespoons sugar
3/4 stick unsalted butter, soft
10 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
1 cup heavy cream
1 (1o-ounce) jar black cherry spread (or conserves)


Grease an 8 inch springform pan.  
Pulse the graham cracker crumbs in a food processor turning it into crumbs, then add the sugar and butter.  Pulse again to make the mixture clump.  Press the graham mixture into the bottom and slightly up the sides of the springform pan.
Beat together the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla and lemon juice until it is smooth.
Whip the heavy cream until it is the consistency of whipped cream (**See Note Below)
Fold the cream into the cream cheese mixture.  Spoon the cheesecake filling on top of the graham cracker crust and smooth with an offset spatula.  Refrigerate for 3 hours to overnight.
When ready to serve, un-mold the cheesecake and spread the black cherry conserves over the top.


**(This is where I strayed from Nigella's recipe.  She only lightly whipped her cream, but I got careless and overbeat it.  I think this is what added to the lightness of my cheesecake.  If you want it light, beat the cream until stiff peaks form.  If you'd like a more traditional texture, only lightly beat the cream).   

Sweet Melissa Sundays: Black Bottom Brownies

I have seen Black Bottom Brownies in so many blogs and magazines. Brownies with Cheesecake on top? Sounds delicious! But for some reason I've never got around to making them. For me, cheesecake is one of those things I'll eat and enjoy if it's on the holiday dessert table, but other than that it's not something I crave. Maybe that's why I've never made them. So I'm glad that this week for Sweet Melissa Sundays Cynthia of Bakingtherapist picked Sweet Melissa's Black Bottom Brownies as the recipe for the week. It forced me to finally try these goodies!



I baked just as the recipe stated. I was trying to think of a fun way to flavor the cheesecake (coffee? caramel?), but I couldn't come up with anything that really struck me so I made the basic cheesecake recipe. Melissa said to just pour the cheesecake mixture on top and sprinkle with chocolate chips, but I decided to swirl it together a little bit. By the way - What did your chocolate chips do? When I put them on top they just sank! I used less than half of the chips she called for in the recipe (12 ounces!) and it was more than enough.
Fortunately I had read the P&Q on the SMS site, and saw that some people baked for only an hour. I'm glad I saw this because mine were ready to go after 60 minutes rather than the 75 stated in the book.

The result was great. The brownies are very dense (maybe because I swirled it a bit) and the chips add a nice occasional crunch. If I try these again, I might do what I originally intended and flavor the cheesecake... mmm maybe bailey's???

Check out Cynthia's blog, Bakingtherapist, for the recipe. And take a peek at the other Sweet Melissa Sunday bakers' results here!

SMS: Lemon Cheesecake with Cornmeal Crumble Crust

What do cupcakes and puppies have in common? Itty bitty! Mini-sized. Wouldn't most of us agree that small versions of things are just cuter? Most of the desserts I make for SMS tend to be small. There are only two of us here, so to have an entire cheesecake would be a little silly. This time around, I quartered the recipe for Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake with Cornmeal Crumble Crust that Eliana of a Chica Bakes selected. The only other change I made was to omit the blueberry topping (Dan's not a big blueberry fan) and to UP the amount of lemon juice and lemon zest in the recipe -- I find that most lemon recipes tend to have too subtle a lemon flavor. So I just about doubled the amount of lemon that should have been in there.

Just how small was my lil cheesecake? Use the spoon for scale:

Eep! So cute! It is about 3 inches across.



This came out quite delicious. Though I didn't totally love the cornmeal crust so much, we really really enjoyed the cheesecake filling part. In the end, I was glad I upped the amount of lemon - it had a perfect lemony flavor.

Thanks to Eliana for picking this one! Make sure you visit everyone else's blogs to see how they did!

Lots of Christmas Baking

Finally getting to posting all the Christmas baking we did over the past few weeks. For Christmas Eve, we were at my Dad's house. One of his all time favorite desserts is Tiramisu, so I wanted to make that for him. But Daniel doesn't like traditional tiramisu with chocolate shavings/cocoa powder and espresso...and I didn't want to make two desserts for Christmas Eve. Luckily, I found a Giada De Laurentiis recipe that was the perfect solution. I just changed her raspberry version into a strawberry version and everyone was happy. I followed her recipe exactly, other than switching out strawberry jam and fresh strawberries for their raspberry counterparts.

Strawberry Tiramisu...


By icecreamb4dinner
Ladyfingers & Jam/Grand Marnier layers


By icecreamb4dinner
Creamy sugary mascarponey layer & fresh strawberries


Finished product, before confectioners sugar dusting.

The last and only other time I have made a recipe of Giada's, it turned out quite good, but it was a royal pain in the butt to make. Me and Daniel decided to make her recipe for Turkey Sausage Pizza Pockets but working with the dough was so difficult, we nearly killed each other. I attributed this to the prepackaged pizza dough, though, and gave her another shot. This recipe for Tiramisu came out so good, I think I'll keep her in mind for other recipes in the future.

Next up, for Christmas Day, I wanted to make these Austrian Shortbread cookies to bring to my grandmother's house. The only difference between the epicurious recipe and mind is that I used Self Rising flour (and left out the salt and baking powder the original recipe called for) and used Cherry preserves instead of Raspberry. The tough dough nearly burnt out the wee motor of my dad's hand mixer, and the process of hand grating all that frozen dough gave me, my sister, and Daniel's biceps a serious workout. I began to have my doubts that all this work would pay off, but the finished product was amazing. After it sat over night, everyone agreed it was great. I think next time I would put only half the confectioner's sugar on right after coming out of the oven (as the recipe says) and save the rest for after it has cooled completely, because the confectioner's sugar turned yellow from the heat and looked more like grated cheese than sugar. And I might take their suggestion and substitute 1 cup cocoa for 1 cup of the flour for chocolate shortbread.

Austrian Shortbread with Cherry Filling...

(Don't mind the unflattering pictures)




The Bake-A-Thon Continued as we prepared 2 bailey's cheesecakes: One for my dad to bring to work, and one to split between my Dad's family and my Mom's. I have no idea where I got this recipe from. I've had it for a while and I've gradually made changes to it since I started using it. But its a favorite recipe, and even people who don't like Baileys tend to like this cheesecake. This time, we used Caramel Bailey's instead of original, and I changed the crust a little bit.

Marble Bailey's Caramel Cheesecake with Hot Cocoa Nilla Wafer Crust...

Crust Ingredients:
Box of Nilla Wafers or graham crackers
1/2 stick of unsalted butter, melted
1/4 c sugar
1 packet hot cocoa.

Combine butter, sugar and hot cocoa mix. Stir in the nilla wafers or graham cracker crumbs. Press into the bottom of a greased & parchment-lined 9" springform pan. Bake 10 minutes at 350. Let cool and grease the sides of the pan.

Filling Ingredients:
3 8oz pkgs cream cheese, softened
3/4 C sugar
3 eggs
3/4 C bailey's caramel
2 Oz melted chocolate.

*Preheat to 450 and put in a shallow baking dish filled with water (prevent's cracking!)
*Beat cream cheese until smooth.
*Slowly beat in the sugar, then the eggs one at a time. Then Bailey's.
*Pour 1/3 of mixture into a bowl and stir in the melted chocolate.
*Pour most of the plain cream cheese mixture into the prepared pan.
*Drizzle with the chocolate cream cheese mixture.
*Pour the rest of the plain mixture on top.
*To make marble, take a knife and gently swirl.
*Bake 10 minutes at 450, then lower to 250 and bake for 55 min.
*Let cool all the way before putting in the frig.

Cheesecake Experiment

We had had the idea to make this for a while, and last night we finally got around to executing it since Daniel's family was coming over for dinner and we had an excuse to make it. Are you curious what it is? Ok, I'll give you a hint, it is quite possibly the most indulgent dessert in history (and maybe one of the tastiest). Still can't figure it out? Another hint? Fine. Ok, what is better than cheesecake? Chocolate covered cheesecake, you say? Yes, you'd be right. And how can you make THAT even BETTER? Put it on a stick, of course!! Yes, we made chocolate covered cheesecake on a stick, with the help of Dan's sister.


First, we had to start with the cheesecake. We made a very very simple cheesecake recipe with a yummy sugary nilla wafer crust.

Crust Ingredients:
3/4 of a box of nilla wafers
1/4 c sugar
a little more than half a stick of butter.

1. Preheat to 350.
2. Lay parchment paper in the bottom of a springform pan, and butter the top of the paper and the sides of the pan.
3. Combine all ingredients together until fully incorporated, and has a crumbly texture.
4. Press firmly into the bottom of the springform pan, and bake for 10 minutes, until slightly golden around the edge.

Simple Cheesecake Ingredients:
2 eight oz packages of cream cheese, softened
2 eggs
1/2 c sugar
1/2 t vanilla extract

1. Beat all ingredients together (yes, its that easy).

2. Add to crust, and bake about 35 minutes.

3. Leave it in the springform pan until it has cooled, then pop open the springform, and drag the parchment paper onto a cutting board.

4. Cut small slices, and then either lay them on a parchment lined cookie sheet,


or take the slices and roll it into a ball, and lay on a parchment lined cookie sheet.


5. Stick sticks into them (as far as you can go so it won't slide off your stick when you're chocolate dippin' em)


6. Let them set in the freezer for at least an hour


7. If you're not as lucky as us to get to have a candy store at your disposal, melt chocolate in the top of a double boiler.

8. When your slices/ballies have frozen, hold the slices by the stick, and dip into the melted chocolate. After dipping, return to the parchment paper to go back in the freezer to set the chocolate.


9. Swizzle & garnish as desired, and Enjoy!!


It makes quite a pretty presentation, too


So, in conclusion, cheesecake is good, but chocolate covered cheesecake is better.