Pumpkin Cheesecake Bites

It's that pumpkin season that everyone so adores.  To celebrate?  Other than our favorite ermahgerd girl?? 

How about some pumpkin cheesecake bites?  Now, if you're like me, you might not be a huge cheesecake person, but give these a chance.  They are AMAZE BALLS.  F'realz.

Ingredients:
15 oz canned pumpking (not pie, just pumpkin)
3 eggs
1/2 C brown sugar
2 T cream
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 C granulated sugar
1 T cornstarch
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp salt
1.5 lbs cream cheese (room temp)
Ingredients (crust):
2 sleeves of graham crackers (18 crackers)
1 stick butter, melted
1/4 C sugar
* whipped cream to top

Directions:
1. Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees
2. In a large bowl, crush the graham crackers (or process them to make it easier). Add sugar and melted butter and mix well.  Press into a parchment lined pan and bake for 5 minutes until toasty.
3. Reduce oven temp to 325 degrees.
4. Mix together pumpkin, eggs, brown sugar, cream, and vanilla in a large bowl.
5. In a separate bowl, beat together cream cheese, sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and ginger.  Beat until light and fluffy.
6. Slowly pour in pumpkin mixture.  Continue beating until smooth and no lumps remain.
7. Pour batter onto cooked crust and bake for 50 minutes or until edges begin to pull away from the side of the pan.
8. Cool completely before removing from pan, then cut into small squares and top with whipped cream.

Another "cheater" dessert - HELLO, SUMMER!!

I really like doing as little work as possible in the kitchen.  We all know this by now, right?  Good, then I feel less guilty when talking about the dessert I served for a 9 adult (+1 child) party last week.  Thomas did the grilling, and some of the heftier cooking, but when I came up with dessert ideas, he shot them down repeatedly.  No cupcakes, cakes, pies, cookies, etc.

He wanted something "light."

*sigh*

 So, when he suggested fruit kebabs, I thought we could do one better - Strawberry Shortcake Kebabs!

Ingredients (for 9 bob kebabs):
27 Fresh Strawberries
2 Enteman's Butter Loaf (or any pound/angel food cake)
1 stick of butter
9 skewers
Assorted garnishes (we used fresh cream, mint, red gel, shaved dark chocolate and Tequila Rose)

 First, trim down your cake into easily cubed shapes.  We made four long rectangles from the two cakes.  Next, lightly brush melted butter over all sides of your cake.

Then, grill (in or outdoors) briefly to create your hatch marks on every side. On medium-high heat, it goes very quickly, so don't walk away!!

Then, clean your strawberries and remove the stems (should you so choose).  Cube your cakes.  Then, alternate strawberries and cakes on your kebab skewers

The most time consuming part of this entire process was plating it up to the boss' standard.  I actually let him do it for fear of messing it up.  He had originally wanted to serve our bottle of chocolate wine with it, but we also had Tequila Rose, and I thought that would be more fun.

Everyone enjoyed, and it looks like you worked hard, when really you're just assembling some one else's hard work!

Taste of Sweetness Saturday: Mini Pumpkin Cheesecakes!

For this week's Taste of Sweetness, I'll show you the easiest, most amazing recipe for pumpkin cheesecakes ever.  Not only is it ridiculously simple, but it also makes more than enough to earn you more friends than you counted on this fall!

First, the recipe.  Now, I wasn't sure what kind of snaps to get, since there were no Archways (as recommended) at my local grocery store.  I did find two different brands, however.

The fancy, all natural ones were too small, but the generic Nabisco hockey-puck looking ones were perfect! and they tasted good, too.  So, they're the ones that were thrown into the cups.  Perfect, perfect fit!  Now, if you are making these the day of, the crust will be crispy.  However, after a night in the fridge, they will be soft.  Both taste fantastic, just know if you're looking for a harder or softer crust to plan accordingly.  I liked them better softer, but I had a lot of compliments on the crispy, too.  Personal preference reigns.

 The recipe starts by mixing up the cream cheese until fluffy.  I'm used to doing this when you've mixed something in the cream cheese first, but never solo.  As it was, my paranoia ran the show and I spent a lot of time fluffing my recipe at every step.  At least it looked pretty!!

Have I mentioned yet how much I love having assistants at work?!  No wonder chefs can make it look easy.  With enough people working with you, any recipe is a breeze!  To be fair, this recipe really is simple, but when you have an extra pair (or two) of hands, it goes very quickly!!

Yep, this looks like a lot of batter.  Indeed, it is.  The recipe said if you fill up the cakes two-thirds of the way, you'll make 24 mini-cheesecakes.

I filled the first batch that way.  For the second set of 24, I filled up about five-sixths of the way.  Even still, I made 48 cheesecakes, and was giving them away like it was going out of style!   It worked out really well for my work party, but if you're not having 40 people, you may want to think about halving the recipe!!

The puffed up, cracked, and fell, as expected.  I only cooked them for 18 minutes, because they went a lot faster than the recipe said they would.  Just keep an eye on them and make your adjustments accordingly.

Since no one likes cracked cakes, we added whipped cream, and then on the final night we added a dab of cream cheese frosting.  Either way, these are to die for, and they contain everything that makes you think of Fall!

In a word...AMAZING!!!

Sweet Sunday!

c

 Oh, yeah!  It's a Nutella kind of day.  Thomas was gone for 36 hours and I wanted to spoil him horribly upon his return.  PLUS, I just landed a new job here, and I was in the mood for a cooking celebration!

So, I started mixing up the recipe for the Chocolate Hazelnut Torte, when I realized I used a regular size devil's food mix instead of the half-size.  Whoops!  I guess that just means I had to make two instead of one.   Luckily, I had enough of the other ingredients to double up without causing too much of a scene in our household.  Oh, and I only used 1/4 of the prescribed hazelnuts from the single recipe for the cake because I'm not entirely nuts about nuts.

 Now, I didn't have any Cool Whip in the house, and I wasn't really in the mood for their prescribed frosting, so I did a little search and found a Nutella Cream Cheese frosting that sounded OUT OF THIS WORLD!  Real talk.  Be jealous.

Now, I had two cakes, so instead of making two whole cakes, I decided to be a piggy make a double layered torte.  If you're going to make a cream cheese frosting, why let any of it go to waste?!  Also?  I think I used almost twice as much Nutella in the frosting and about half as much powdered sugar.  It made more sense to me that way.

I couldn't let the rest of the nuts go to waste, so I used the other 1/4 cup to sprinkle across the top.  I didn't want to save them for another day, so I figured that it was now or never.  Finally, I made up some strawberries to cut the richness (ha!) or at least add the goodness of strawberries and whipped cream.  How could you go wrong with a dessert like that?!  Quick tip?  Use the egg slicer+ to slice your strawberries beautifully for a dessert!

Oh yeah...  it was that good!

Ode to Summer

If I could encapsulate everything I hold dear about summer, it would be this:

That's right.  A whole bowl of strawberries (2 pints), cut neatly and sprinkled with some Splenda Blend for an extra oomph.  Straight out of the fridge, nicely chilled, after a long day out on the beach.

Ahhhhh...  Love the beach!

But, if you really want to make it taste like a dessert, then you have to add some whipped cream!

Or A LOT of cream, and then call it a day!  Happy Summer, everyone!!

Now THAT'S the ticket!!