An Infamous Cheesecake Indeed...

***I wrote this last night and figured I'd post today once I took some photos of the the 2 new varieties I made yesterday, but with the way my day is already started, who the heck knows when I'll get home to take photos - so I'm posting right now and ya'll just have to come back again to see the CAKE FROM HELL and the 2 new varieties. MUAHAHAHAHAA!*** Yesterday, I made a cheesecake. It was going to be a GLORIOUS cheesecake. One to be envied from every inhabitant of Cheesecake Land. I thought about this cake for a MONTH before even shopping for ingredients. I made LISTS people. I might have even sketched the cake it all of its MAGNIFICENCE. What a true beauty she would be. I was so proud of what I hadn't even started yet. I was PSYCHED. I was watching what the other members were showing off on our private forums and I was left breathless each time.. the creativity of their cakes was AWESOME. But still.. I kinda chuckled to myself thinking "Wait until they see MINE. They're gonna CRAP." Oh yeah, full to the gills with cockiness I was. MUAHAHAHAA! And in true Lisa form.. Allow me to present to you - the first Official Kitchen Disaster of 2009. *sigh* Oops.. first.. gotta take care of bidnezz. ;) The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge. Okay disaster or not - this is now my go-to cheesecake recipe. I've never had such a creamy cheesecake.. to die for, kids.. simply to die for. I said this before and I'll say it again.. HUGE pat on the back for Abbey for tweaking this recipe until she found cheesecake perfection.. and an equally HUGE hug for Jenny for bringing us this recipe. Bless both of yas cotton socks. ;) So there.. there you go - now it's documented, stamped, triplicated and carved in granite - LISA screwed this recipe up. LISA managed to take the perfect cheesecake recipe and totally noobed it right into the circular file cabinet. LISA is a cheesecake MURDERER. My favorite commercially made ice cream is Haagen Dazs Caramel Cone. You've got your sinfully rich caramel ice cream.. you've got a salty caramel ribbon running through it.. you've got chocolate covered sugar cone pieces throughout.. it's so good I could just BATHE in it. As a matter of fact, when the day comes that I stop breathing.. I'd like to be buried, completely submerged, in Caramel Cone ice cream. HEY YOU PEOPLE THAT LIVE IN MY NECK OF THE WOODS.. DON'T YOU DARE! GO BUY THIS ICE CREAM. IF I GO TO BUY IT AND IT'S SOLD OUT I WILL HUNT! YOU! DOWN! AND! BEAT! YOU! ABOUT! THE! HEAD! AND! SHOULDERS! WITH! MY! HUSBAND'S! DIRTY! TUBE! SOCKS! ***crickets*** So yeah.. what was I saying? RIGHT! I wanted to recreate my favorite ice cream flavor into a cheesecake. Caramel cheesecake, with a salted caramel ribbon running through it.. but instead of the chocolate covered sugar cones throughout, I thought they'd make a smashing presentation by crushing them up to wee lil pieces and then sticking them to the outside of the entire cake. Maybe even bring it up as a ring around the very top of the cake to use as a "dam" for a salted caramel "pool" on top. ARE YOU FUCKING DYING WITH THE ENVY YET??? Are ya'll writing this down?? Can you even imagine a more STUPENDOUS cheesecake EVER?? OHMYGOD. Figuring out how to make a caramel cheesecake was easy.. sub brown sugar for the white sugar the recipe called for. Easy. But if you're LISA you can't settle for easy so you start the Googling. And you read 1 (ONE) recipe that used DARK brown sugar and the author of the recipe said it was even more caramel-y than using light brown sugar so you are like.. OHYES! I WILL use DARK brown sugar for a more caramel-y cheesecake flavor! SQUEEEEEE! And you even tell a friend what you are going to and the friend will write back in a very supportive and just as excited way and say that the cheesecake will taste like "salted molasses" and she even DROOLED. And all I comprehended was the DROOL and how excited she was for my soon-to-be TRIUMPHANT cheesecake!!!! Salted molasses? One word. Eww. Unfortch for me, that I didn't figure out that lil gem until after my cake was baked. But even before that!! I had to make a caramel ribbon, right?? I had tried once before a long time ago, by using a very thick caramel sauce - but it baked into the cake and gave it a nice caramel flavor, but didn't give me the liquidy/fluidy ribbon I was hoping for. So my lovely friend suggested maybe making a batch of soft caramel.. rolling it into a rope and then arranging it over half the batter, topping with the rest of the batter and then another rope on top of that.. surely the caramel will cook and get melty and form a ribbon. And I'm sure she is right, but this batter is extremely thin, so there's no way it would have held the weight of the caramel rope, they just would have sank to the bottom. :( I got to Googling again.. and my search parameters brought up a commercial cheesecake store in Wyoming (I think?) who had described one of their cheesecakes with a caramel ribbon running through it.. but when I realized it was a site to BUY their cakes and not a site for recipes, I back buttoned to see what else the Googling brought to me.. it was slim fuckin' pickins, lemme tell ya. So in my DESPERATION, I went back to the cheesecake sellin' site and found their contact page and PLEADED with them to tell me the secret to getting a ribbon of caramel throughout a cheesecake. I PLEADED. I'm sure when they read it they thought I had gone batshit crazy to be asking them instead of PLACING AN ORDER like every SANE person would be doing with that contact form. (they never did write me back.. imagine.) I said screw it. We don't need no stinkin caramel ribbon. Instead I will make a rich, luxurious, salted caramel sauce. And I shall spoon that sweet/salty nectar over the crust of my cheesecake and then I will put that pool of pure heaven on the top of my cake and I will still get the flavors of my beloved ice cream. (Do you think I chucked this idea after I made the caramel sauce using golden syrup (following the recipe from November's Golden Caramels) that might have been bad because the caramel sauce had a chemically ass-like taste to it? Read on, naive people.. read on...) Well OF COURSE the caramel sauce baked into the crust!! OF COURSE IT DID. Because that's what fakkin happens. It's SENSIBLE. LOGICAL. RESPONSIBLE. PRACTICAL. And the baking Gods wouldn't be JOYFULLY. PLAYFULLY. WATCHING ME. Nor would they be laughing and pointing at me. Fuckers. And finally.. my genius idea of the chocolate covered sugar cone bits hugging my DELICIOUS cheesecake did not work out either. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? I thought I was making a wise decision by going to a very popular chain ice cream store and purchasing their chocolate covered wafer cones. They were cheap, and it would be more convenient than buying a box of regular sugar cones and dipping them in chocolate myself, right? Wrong. Wafer cones, apparently, are way different from sugar cones. And anyone with ONE eye would know this. They obviously don't even look the same. But this did not stop Lisa. Oh hells no. I bought several of those wafer cones and didn't even taste one until after the cake was ready for them.. They were hideous. Gaggable. They were wrong. First the cone was so fake vanilla tasting that I did gag. I really am not a vanilla fan.. lil vanilla here and there I'm okay with.. permeated through whatever a wafer cone is made of is just wrong. And the chocolate the cone is dipped in? Not chocolate, my friends. Oh noooo.. it's that chocolate flavored substance that leaves a waxy mouth feel if you eat it. My guess is they also use this substance as some kind of water-proofing mastic for basements and rooftops. Shame on you Popular Ice Cream Chain! Shame on you for cutting corners on your wafer cones! I have never ate your ice cream and I will NEVER eat your ice cream now. SHAME ON YOU! And also, I'd like my $4.35 back please. So said wafer cones hit the garbage can tout de suite. But I still needed something for the "dam" damnit. After checking out cupboards and pantries.. nothing jumped out at me, so I grabbed more graham crackers.. crushed 'em up and made a ring around the top of the cake, then half-assed spreading them on the outside edges just because I had so much left. I then poured the noxious caramel sauce on top. And then I watched the noxious caramel sauce break through the graham cracker dam and slide down the side of the cake, over the edge of the plate an onto my counter top. I just about imploded at that point. I picked up the plate, used my finger to wipe off as much of the sauce as I could, then just FLINGING it in the direction of my sink because I DIDN'T CARE ANYMORE and threw the fuckin' thing in the fridge. Even after all of this, I had hoped that the flavors would meld and mellow out after a long chill. Yeah no.. that didn't happen either. The one and only TRUE THING that I did WRONG with this cake is to NOT look at it and scream "YOU ARE NOT A MILLION DOLLARS" because for everything I thought was right about the cake, was so pitifully wrong that SURELY had I screamed those words it would have magically turned into a huge fucking pile of $100 bills. GOOD DAY PEOPLE. GOOD DAY. xoxo I made a boatload of mini's.. the first one is for Hubbs.. plain with a simple blueberry & orange compote on top (fakker wouldn't thicken for me like it usually does) And for moi! Orange cheesecake with a seriously thick layer of semi-sweet chocolate poured over it. *slurp* xoxo

Everything is Better on a Stick!

So I'm on this diet lifestyle change.. I recently hit 40 and well.. I think it's starting to hit me that I'm no longer on the uphill climb, but rather on my way downhill. Not that it's a bad thing, just makes me realize that if I don't really get serious, the next 40 years are going to be miserable. I don't like miserable. Yanno? The diet lifestyle change has been going okay.. lil iffy in spots, but rather well - surprisingly well in other areas. Such as cutting out all sugar. I KNOW. I can't believe I'm saying this let alone living it. But it's a true story.. no sugar, no chocolate.. and.. okay well.. some of you might want to look away for a minute, what I'm about to say next is not going to be pretty.       No butter. ***crickets***     Tell me. I've most assuredly lost my everfluffin' mind. I'm now all about low-fat cheeses and reduced fat mayo, olive and canola oil in place of my beloved butter.. fish and ground turkey - salads and fresh fruit.. dear sweet jebus somebody hold me. So knowing myself as well as I do, I knew there'd be no fakkin way I could make this challenge without inhaling half of it. I mean c'mon.. it's cheesecake on a freakin' stick. Covered in chocolate. It's Brilliance in the form of a lollipop is what it is. I'm weak and only human.. and as a co-founder of this amazing group, well I knew I had to take one for the team and get all of my cream cheese bricks and chopped chocolates in a row, if yanno what I mean. And I think that you do. I threw on an apron so that my thighs, hips and ass wouldn't see what I was about to do and got to it. This started as a New York style cheesecake.. no crust. It's just creamy heavenly cheesecake baked until just set - frankly, one of THE BEST cheesecakes I've ever had. And the recipe was really easy.. this is a time consuming and kinda messy recipe, but all in all, no problems and I really enjoyed making them. I kept 90% of them at 2 ounces.. but after counting 35 of them and still having a boatload of cheesecake left, I took out my big star cookie cutter and made a few big whammer jammers.. those I used for quality control. Because our Daring Bakers mean the world to me and I'd do anything to protect them, including eating a giant star shaped cheesecake lollipop double dipped in first peanut butter coating and then dark chocolate to make sure they were NOT poisonous. Well I am here today to tell my story, so I guess we can all assume the cheesecake is safe for consumption! (Actually, they are more than just safe... they are BIG DEE - lil licious) :D These cute lollies were brought to our attention by two of the sweetest and most kind hearted women that I've had the pleasure of meeting, Elle from Feeding My Enthusiasms and Deborah of Taste and Tell. Excellent choice, gals! Thank you so much! Elle and Deborah found the recipe in Jill O'Connor's Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey: Desserts for the Serious Sweet Tooth. By this recipe alone, this book has got to be good! Ya'll must give the blogroll a good clickin' this month, the creativity used in making these pops - both in flavoring and decorating - is going to blow ya'll away! Bake on Daring Bakers! Bake on! :D xoxo

Hey Hey It's My First Donna Hay Day!

I had no idea who this Donna Hay gal was until my dear friend Morv filled me in.. come to find out she's the Aussie version of Martha? Say what you will about The Martha, but I heart her - oh yesss I do - so I knew I'd like Donna very muchly. Unfortunately, though, I've never submitted to the HHDD event - until one of my partners in crime, Gracie won the event last month with her beautiful souffle. I knew this month, I could not let her down. 'kay well I almost let her down.. life comes at ya fast, as the saying goes - and my life has been runnin full speed these last few weeks, so I almost ran out of chances to make my cheesecake. Thank the baby Jebus, Peabody gave me a day's grace.. so I'm posting my submission today. You rock, Gracie! :D Okay.. cheesecake, cheesecake, which one shall I make?? I read mountains of cheesecake recipes - cookbooks strewn everywhere; online recipe sites hit once, twice, thrice; magazines flopped open all over my office - in search of the perfect cheesecake. Stunned, I realized not one damn recipe floated my boat, tripped my trigger or knocked my cotton socks off, so to speak. I was bummed.. I wanted a different kinda cheesecake for this event.. something that would live up to my growing reputation as an Evil Culinary Genius. (Laura Rebecca, you mark me larf out loud) I don't really agree with the genius part, but I'm okay with the Evil part.. it suits me. har! So as I was sitting in one of the many, many doctor's waiting rooms earlier this week, I started thinking about the cheesecake I ALWAYS order at The Cheesecake Factory. I realize that TCF kind of bastardizes cheesecake with all of their sinful additions and kooky concoctions - but I just can't help it.. their "Adam's Peanut Butter Cup Fudge Ripple" sends me into orgasmic shock each time. I know! It's barely a cheesecake what with all the luscious caramel and peanut butter swirled through, not to mention the huge hunks of Reeses Cups and Butterfinger bars embedded in the rich and creamy cheesecake base.. oh and can I forget the peanut butter frosting layer on top? Oh hells no.. No I can not. Thank God, I don't get to TCF often. *sigh* So.. there I had it.. I wanted to recreate my favorite cheesecake abomination in my own lil kitchen - but I wanted to make it my own as well. And I think I accomplished just that. My version of this decadent cake is a chocolate cookie crust, covered by a rich layer of dark chocolate cheesecake, covered by a thick layer of peanut butter cheesecake dotted with crushed up Butterfingers and a butterscotch-caramel swirl throughout. If that weren't enough Evilness, I've also made a peanut butter sauce to drizzle over each slice. I know! I AM Evil, aren't I? MUAHAHAHAAA!! My evil version of this already sinful cake was most delicious.. and if I am allowed to pat myself on the back a lil.. I think it's even better than TCF's version. Only for the simple fact that the one thing I don't like about their version is the big hunks of candy.. if you aren't paying attention you could break a damn tooth on a rock hard chunk o'Butterfinger! (not that that's stopped me from devouring a slice) So I decided to pulverize my Butterfingers. The flecks of the crushed up candy give the cheesecake a nice texture that's still melt in your mouth good. The dark chocolate layer isn't as sweet as the peanut butter layer, which makes a nice combination that won't send shivers through your teeth. Although not necessary, but the sauce? Well.. okay, let's just put it this way. I'd put this sauce over broccoli and it'd still be delish. hahaa! As for a recipe, I ended up just making a basic cheesecake from bits and pieces of various cheesecake recipes that I found in cookbooks and online, flavoring the base recipe as I liked. Again, I'm VERY happy over how this cake turned out, but I think next time I decide to make the batter from different recipes, I should put a lil more thought into it - as I ended up making wayyyyyyyy too much batter for a 9" springform pan. Oops! Luckily for me, I got to break in my brand spankin new tiny lil springform pans, leaving me with 2 mini cheesecakes that I will freeze for a later date. Keep this in mind if you'd like to make this cheesecake.. you might want to cut the recipe down to a 1/3rd for a 9" springform pan, or leave recipe as is and bake in a 11" springform pan. Party on peanut butter lovers! Party on! I'd like to thank Barbara for starting this terrific event and Gracie for not only hosting this month, but for coming up with THE BEST THEME EVER. I can not wait for this round up.. I suspect that I'll never have to go in search of a cheesecake recipe again after seeing everyone's delicious creations. =) Lisa's Decadent and Ohhh So Evil Peanut Butter Dark Chocolate Caramel Ripple Cheesecake - or LDOSEPBDCCRC. (I should at least win for the longest named cheesecake!) For the crust: 2-3 c. chocolate wafer cookies, crushed finely (I like a lotta crust) 1/2 c. salted butter, melted + butter for greasing pan(s) For the cheesecake: 2 lbs. cream cheese, softened 1 1/3 c. white granulated sugar 4 eggs, room temperature 1 c. sour cream 1/3 c. whipping cream 1 tsp. vanilla 1 c. peanut butter 10 mini Butterfinger bites, crushed in food processor 1/2 jar of store bought butterscotch-caramel ice cream topping 3.5 oz. semi-sweet chocolate, melted For the peanut butter sauce: 1 can of sweetened condensed milk (Whenever I make this sauce [great for apple dipping!] I use the fat-free sweetened condensed milk and it works well.) 1/3 c. peanut butter 1 tsp. vanilla 1/2 tsp. cinnamon (optional) Combine milk & peanut butter in a heavy sauce pan and cook over low heat, stirring often until thickened. Remove from heat, stir in vanilla and cinnamon. Drizzle over cheesecake slices. Leftover sauce can be refrigerated for up to 3 weeks in an airtight container. Either crush the wafer cookies in a food processor or put the wafers in a large ziplock bag and beat the bejesus out of them with a heavy rolling pin, such as I did. =) Set aside. Repeat process with the mini Butterfinger bars, crushing them as finely as you'd like - I went for a very fine texture. Preheat the oven to 350º F. Place a rack in the middle of the oven. Grease 11" springform pan with butter. Double layer foil wrap the bottom of the pan. Mix the crushed wafer cookies with the melted butter and press into the bottom and up the sides of your springform pan. Set aside. Blend the cream cheese until it's creamy. Gradually add the sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, and only blend until each egg is incorporated. Add the sour cream, whipping cream and vanilla. Remove 1 1/2 c. of the cream cheese mixture and set aside in a bowl. Add the peanut butter to the original mixture and blend until incorporated. Add the crushed Butterfinger bites. Blend the melted chocolate into the reserved 1 1/2 c. batter and then spread evenly over the cookie crust. Pour the peanut butter batter over the chocolate layer and spread evenly. Dollop the butterscotch-caramel sauce over the top and then using a toothpick or the tip of a thin knife, swirl the sauce into the batter. Place the springform pan into roasting pan then fill the roasting pan with 1 1/2 - 2 inches of hot water. Carefully place roasting pan onto middle rack and bake for 1 hour, 5 minutes or until the cake is set and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Be careful to not over bake. Cool the cake at room temperature for about an hour, then using a very thin knife, run along the edges of cake to loosen it from the springform pan. Remove the ring of the springform and place cake on dish or serving platter and chill over night. To make the sauce: Cook the milk and peanut butter in a heavy saucepan over low heat, stirring often until thickened (less than 3 minutes). Remove from heat, stir in vanilla and cinnamon. Drizzle over slices of cheesecake. Leftover sauce can be kept in the fridge for up to 3 weeks in an airtight container.

I Did It! I Finally Did It! Also.. Peabody Rocks!

For the past 3 (or is it 4?) years I've been trying, very unsucessfully, to recreate my Dad's Christmas Calamari Sauce. And lemme just tell yas.. this process has been very lonnnngggg, disasterous and heartbreaking. So let this lil post be a lesson to all you kids out there - Life is short! Do not take ANYTHING for granted! My Dad made this sauce every single Christmas Eve of his life (well his life with his family) and my Mother and I never, ever watched him do it. We never asked him to show us how to make our most favorite sauce in the world. And then he was gone.. and although we didn't even want to celebrate Christmas without him for a few years, when we were ready to bring back the traditions the way he would want us to.. we had no way of making the sauce. *sigh* After last year's disaster, I decided that I would research any and all old Italian seafood sauces that I could get my hands on.. surely there is some Italian family out there that enjoys this sauce, eh?? By God, you'd think not after all of my failed attempts to find anything. And then one day, my Mom said to me, "You know, he cleaned squid for hours and when he boiled it, the water turned purple." Bingo! I had no idea he cleaned his own squid.. I had been buying it already cleaned and all I had to do was slice it. Duh! So this year, I bought whole squid and Hubbs and I spent an hour or more cleaning about 3 lbs. of it. Now THAT was an experience. If you've never cleaned squid before, you have no idea how many steps there are to it - as well as the ick factor. Nothin' like chopping heads off right below the eyeballs, my friends! heee! Okay - without getting into more gorey details.. after we cleaned the squid, I managed to save a few very tiny ink sacs. We boiled the tubes and the tentacles with the ink sacks until we saw that the water was turning purple! Woo!! Frankly, I don't think the ink sacs had much to do with it though, as after I took the pieces out of the water, the sacs were pretty much still intact. I believe the color comes from the skin left on the tentacles. Anyhoo.. the rest of the process was quite easy. My family's marinara sauce calls for tomato puree and after you dump the puree into your pot, you fill each can up with water to dilute it a bit. So I did that with this sauce as well.. only I used the water that we boiled the squid in to fill up those cans. I know he didn't season it like he did our regular marinara so I only put in salt and pepper along with all the calamari pieces parts.. and after a good 5 hours of simmering.. I had my Dad's Calamari Sauce. Finally. This picture was taken only after an hour or two of simmering so the sauce was still bright red.. when it was finished it had turned a beautiful dark red and the calamari was melt in your mouth tender. Rather than post this recipe here, because I realize not many people are going to be interested in a tomato sauce that features squid, hehehe, and because the steps are quite lengthy to type out - I will offer to type it all up for you and send through e-mail if you are interested, just drop me a line. This sauce really is magnificent :D And now on to the appetizer and the dessert! Both recipes are from Peabody so I will just link you to her beautiful pictures and recipes.. but I just had to share how mine turned out.. both were a smashing success and both recipes were asked for by everyone who attended. Thank you, Peabody - I am now addicted to bread pudding (which I'd never had before) and that excellent bleu cheesey/oniony-peary jammy spread! Oh! I also took the remainder of the cheesecake to work so it wouldn't go to waste and everyone there loved it as well! =) This large wedge was plenty for a crowd of 9 people, I served it with butter crackers and toasted slices of baguette.. Peabody's Bleu Cheese Cheesecake with Onion-Pear Jam 1 3/4 lbs softened cream cheese 8 oz shredded Asiago cheese 8 oz blue cheese, crumbled 5 large eggs 1/3 cup heavy cream 1/4 tsp white pepper Grease a 9-inch springform pan. Preheat oven to 350F. Cream cheeses together until smooth. Add eggs one at a time. Add cream and pepper. Combine. Bake uncovered in a water bath until golden brown and center is set.About 45-50 minutes. Cool Completely, remove sides of pan. Onion Pear Jam 4 cups onions, diced 1 tsp olive oil 2 cups pears, peeled, chopped 2 TBSP fruit vinegar 1 cup brown sugar 1/4 tsp kosher salt 1 pinch cayenne pepper Saute onions in oil until brown. Reduce heat and cook until glazed. Add pears, vinegar, sugar, cayenne and salt. Cook till pears are crispy tender. Remove mixture ans simmer juice utnil a thick glaze. Mix pear onion mixture with glaze. Cool. Cover cooled cheesecke with jam and serve with bread or crackers. And here are the individual bread puddings.. when making this, I had to leave out the alcohol and the nuts. I subbed vanilla for the alcohol and MY GOD it was delicious! If making individuals like I did, the baking time was reduced by only 10 minutes or so.. just until the middles felt firm when inserting a thin knife. Half way through devouring mine I realized I forgot to take a picture with the dreamy toffee sauce drizzled over it.. so this is all ya get to see. hehee Peabody's Croissant Bread Pudding with Pecan Toffee Sauce 4 large croissants or 6 small ones 1 pint heavy cream 4 egg yolks ½ cup of sugar 1 teaspoon nutmeg 1 cup raisins Preheat oven to 350F. 1.Tear croissants into pieces and place int o baking dish. Sprinkle bread with the raisins. 2.Mix the egg yolks, sugar and nutmeg together in a bowl. Then stir in the heavy cream. 3.Pour the custard over the bread. Press down the bread pieces until the bread is soaked with the custard. You will most likely have extra custard depending on how stale your crossiants are. Don’t feel like you have to use all the custard. 4.Place pan into another pan that will hold a water bath. Bake the bread pudding for 45 minutes until golden on top. Cool 10 minutes and serve warm. Pecan Toffee Sauce 3/4 cup packed brown sugar 1/3 cup unsalted butter 1/3 cup whipping cream 1 TBSP Amaretto 1/2 cup chopped pecans, toasted 1.Stir brown sugar and butter in heavy medium saucepan over medium heat until melted and smooth, about 2 minutes. 2. Add cream and Amaretto and bring to a simmer. Simmer for about 5 minutes and then add pecans. To see gorgeous shots of these two recipes, check out the loverly Peabody's site for the Bleu Cheese Cheesecake with Onion-Pear Jam and the Croissant Bread Pudding with Pecan Toffee Sauce - I can't describe how good both of these were.. you have to try them for yourselves! :D

Double Layer Pumpkin Cheesecake with Salted Caramel Sauce

This has been quite an uneventful week in the kitchen. Well, what I should say is uneventful for my blog as I've already blogged about pretty much everything I've made this week. With the change in weather temperatures (holy crap it snowed here - it's only October for crissakes! Have I mentioned how much I love Cleveland winters? No? Yeah well cuz it SUCKS. Okay.. well it doesn't suck as much as New York winters.. sorry to complain about our dusting of snow when some of you NY'ers got a COUPLE FEET of the nasty stuff) we've both been craving comfort foods. Cooking in your kitchen when your teeth are chattering and you are bone weary from working in the cold (Hubbs) doesn't make for easily coming up with new and exciting dishes. All we've wanted is the stuff that makes you feel cozy, warm and happy to have a working furnace. ha! Hubbs did make one request yesterday morning. He'd really like cheesecake. Who am I to say no to such a request? I was torn between a peanut butter and chocolate cheesecake or a pumpkin cheesecake. My sis, who is up from Toledo for a 5 day visit, helped me decide. She wants to go to the Cheesecake Factory today for lunch, and I KNOW after perusing and drooling over all their different cheesecakes, I will still end up ordering my favorite peanut butter slice of heaven. Therefore, I went with the pumpkin variety. I've made many pumpkin cheesecakes in my life and do have a couple favorites, but decided to go with one I've never made before. This double layer cheesecake is so easy to make. It's quite pretty once you've sliced it and see the creamy white layer below the pumpkin layer. The original recipe did not call for a crust, which I found odd.. so I just made a simple graham cracker and cinnamon crust that went really well. This cake is not very sweet although it is very creamy and delicious. But that was a good thing because I had decided to pair the cake with a caramel sauce. I've never made caramel before but after watching an episode featuring sugar on Alton Brown's Good Eats the night before, I really wanted to try my hand at it. Where Alton gave me the push I needed to finally try this sauce, I went with a recipe from Gale Gand. Gale is an accomplished pastry chef, who is quite popular in America. She has her own show on the Food TV channel called Sweet Dreams and she's fun to watch. After finding her recipe for caramel sauce I was a little worried. Her ratio of sugar to water was much different from the other caramel sauce recipes I had looked at. Ultimately though, I believe my first caramel experience was quite hairy because I think I chose too small of a saucepan. Where the cheesecake was a breeze to put together, the caramel was another story all together. Hee! Alton, if you are reading this.. please avert your eyes. Right off the bat, I threw out all that I had learned from the guru of science meets food. Gale's recipe called for 2 1/2 cups of sugar and after I piled all of that in my too small of a saucepan there was no way the sugar wasn't going to touch the sides. Did I get out a bigger saucepan and just dump the sugar in like any other sane home cook would do?? Nooo... I just poured the water in around the sides and figured I knew more than Gale and Alton and hoped for the best. Sometimes my stubborness and ignorance amazes me. As soon as the sugar mixture came to a boil a thin layer of crystals formed on top. Well duh. But I just let it go until it turned amber in color. I took it off the heat and added the heavy cream and kept stirring while watching in terror as the bubbles got vicious and threatened to overflow that small saucepan. I stirred faster and then faster and finally it stopped boiling, but there were HUGE lumps of crystalized sugar floating all through the pretty sauce. Before adding the butter and the fleur de sel, I switched my spoon for a whisk and soon most of the lumps dissolved. Most. I ended up just straining the sauce into a glass bowl and discarding the lumpy lumps. Alton would have stroked out had he seen what went on. I don't think Gale would have been too pleased either. hehee The remaining unlumped sauce did turn out fabulous and although I was embarrassed for being such a nard, I was quite impressed with it. It was of a perfect consistency, not too thin and not too thick. The salt addition produced exactly the taste I was hoping for. It was creamy and 90% perfection. And really.. what's a few lumps between us? For those wondering about the salt. Thanks to Haagen Dazs, I no longer can tolerate your basic sweet caramel sauce. The caramel they use in their ice creams is quite salty and divine. And with my love of all that is salty/sweet and sweet/savory, I can not go back to your plain jane caramel. If the thought of a salty caramel turns you off, simply omit the fleur de sel from this recipe and you will end up with a beautiful caramel sauce (hopefully less lumpier than mine). Double Layer Pumpkin Cheesecake with Salted Caramel Sauce For the cheesecake: 2 (8 oz.) packages cream cheese, softened 1/2 cup white sugar 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 eggs 1 (15 oz.) can of pumpkin puree (NOT pumpkin pie filling) 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1/4 tsp. nutmeg (freshly grated if you can) 1 recipe for graham cracker crust (See below) For the crust: 1 package of graham crackers (1/3 of a regular sized box of graham crackers) 2 TBS. sugar 1 tsp. cinnamon 3 TBS. melted butter For the salted caramel sauce: 2 1/2 c. white granulated sugar 1/2 c. water 1 c. heavy cream 2 TBS. unsalted butter, room temp 1 1/2 tsp. fleur de sel (or a good quality sea salt) Preheat oven to 325º F. For the crust: Ground the graham crackers in a food processor until all medium to large pieces are gone. Dump the crumbs into the bottom of a 9" springform pan, add the sugar and cinnamon and mix well with a spoon. Add the melted butter and mix well. Pat the crumbs down so they are even and come up the sides of the pan by one inch. Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes or until starting to brown. For the cheesecake: In a large bowl, combine cream cheese, sugar and vanilla. Beat until smooth. (If you are using a stand alone mixer, use the paddle) Blend in eggs one at a time. Remove 1 cup of batter and spread into bottom of crust; set aside. Add pumpkin, cinnamon and nutmeg to the remaining batter and stir gently until well blended. Carefully spread over the batter in the crust. Bake in preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until center is almost set. Allow to cool, then refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight. For the salted caramel sauce: In a LARGE heavy sauce pan over medium heat, pour the sugar into the middle of the pan being VERY CAREFUL not to allow the sugar to touch the sides of the pan. CAREFULLY add the water around the pile of sugar MAKING SURE the sugar does not touch the sides of the pan. Do not stir; gently draw your finger through the center of the sugar to moisten it. Over medium heat, bring to a boil without stirring. Cook until light caramel in color (This took about 15 minutes for me. I do not have a candy thermometer so I went by sight. If you have a candy thermometer you want the mixture to reach 350º F.) and immediately remove from the heat. Carefully (it will bubble up and may splatter) stir in the cream with a wooden spoon until smooth. Add the butter and fleur de sel and continue stirring until butter melts and salt dissolves.

Key (not) Lime Cheesecake Pie

This is one of the reason's for me choosing Rachel at Coconut & Lime as this week's Blog of the Week. She posted a most mouth watering, draw dropping recipe for her Coconut Key Lime Pie a while back and I've been thinking about it ever since. I've been a huge fan of Key Lime Pie since I was a little girl back in the 70's when my parents would take us for a month long vacation to Florida each winter. Back in the day when the restaurant was booming and we could afford a month's vacation. I can't even fathom that luxury right now. Hell I've got a week's vacation coming up next week and I'll be travelling to.. well.. my back yard, mostly. *sigh* Anyhoooo.. We'd start our vacation somewhere in the middle of Florida and slowly work out way down to Key West for the last 2 weeks. It was heavenly.. poolside all day, exploring Florida's beaches with my Dad, eating at restaurants every night and being allowed to have lobster as much as we wanted!! Holy crap I want to be little again!! My most fond memories are of Key West. It was in this glorious tropical city (island?) that my mother introduced me to Key Lime Pie. At first I didn't want to try it.. it was not covered in chocolate, how could it be good?? But she persisted until I tasted it. She was happily surprised (as I was!) that I loved it and probably not as happy to watch me eat her entire dessert. Hey.. it was her fault. Since those years of vacationing in Florida, I've only had Key Lime Pie once or twice.. each time sorely disappointed when a slice of green pie was set before me. Green? Key Lime Pie is not green! Why, oh why, do some restaurants insist on adding food color to make a beautiful pie "more attractive"? Gah. For years I've wanted to make this pie myself, but finding Key Limes in this part of the woods is pretty hard. The one time I did see them for sale at a local grocery store, I snagged them up and then let them rot in my veggie bin of the fridge. What the hell was wrong with me?? Sheesh! Unfortunately, time got away from me in that instance and since then I've not seen a single Key Lime offered anywhere. Well, again, in reading Rachel's blog, Key Lime Pie has been foremost on my mind and yesterday I said to myself that I was going to make this delicious dessert regardless if I did not have any Key Limes. I also wanted to re-create her Coconut Key Lime pie in the worst way, but Hubbs put the kabosh on that the minute he saw me take a bag of coconut out of the pantry. There are only a few foods that he refuses to eat and coconut is one of them. :( I put the coconut back (reluctantly) and decided that when he goes back to Arkansas (yep.. they are sending him back for a week or two to take care of an issue that the corporation decided they wanted done - AFTER - our guys left.. bastages.) I will make Rachel's Coconut Key Lime Pie.. oh yesssss I will. I decided then to try the other Key Lime Pie recipe I had found on the Kraft Foods website, which was more of a cheesecake/pie recipe. The pie turned out to be absolutely delicious. Creamy and tangy, but not exactly as I remembered from my days in Florida. I'm assuming it's because of the use of your every day lime.. they are not as mellow as Key Limes and a bit more acidic, I believe. But still.. wow, what a fantastic summer dessert! I also made a raspberry sauce to spoon over it and the taste of raspberries paired with the lime was outrageous. =) Key Lime Pie 1 1/2 c. graham crackers, finely crushed (The original recipe calls for 1 1/4 c. graham crackers, but I like my crust to be thick, so I upped it a bit) 1/4 c. butter, melted 3 TBS. sugar 2 (8 oz.) pkgs. cream cheese, softened 1 can (14 oz.) sweetened, condensed milk 1/2 tsp. lime peel, grated (I upped this to a tablespoon) 1/3 c. fresh lime juice Preheat oven to 350º F. Mix crumbs, butter and sugar; press firmly onto bottom and up side of 9-inch pie plate. Bake 10 minutes. Cool. Beat cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Add peel and juice; mix well. Pour into crust. Refrigerate at least 8 hours or overnight. Store leftover pie in refrigerator. Raspberry Sauce 1 bag of frozen raspberries, thawed (or use 1 pint of fresh raspberries if you have them) 3 TBS. of sugar (Or to taste) Place both ingredients in a small sauce pan and cook over medium heat until the sugar melts and the raspberries start to break down. You can stop here, or if you prefer seedless sauce, mash raspberries through a sieve into a bowl, so that just the juice remains, discard pulp & seeds. Cool and then refrigerate. Spoon over slices of Key Lime Cheesecake Pie.