First Time Coconut Cake

So one of my coworkers made a request for a coconut cake. I have never made one before, so it was fun to try and experiment a little. I enjoy making cakes, and I am getting better at spreading frosting, which is nice. This particular cake is a coconut flavored cake, using coconut extract and flaked coconut. I frosted it with a very fluffy vanilla cream cheese frosting, and garnished with a little flaked coconut. I think next time I will try to make it a bit bigger, the layers came out a little small, so maybe I’ll double it and make a three layer cake. Here is the final product.

This is the one I gave to my friend. I am waiting for him to give me a critique, and then I’ll post the recipe. Let me know what you think.

Getting in the fall spirit with…Pumpkin Pie!!

Hello everyone following my cooking adventures, or any curious passerby. Last night I decided that it was a good time to start making pumpkin pie for a couple of reasons. First, Autumn is here, and since I live in Hawaii I don’t get cold, so making my house smell like it should be snowing outside is quite enticing. And second, I am planning on selling pumpkin pies for the fall season in order to get exposure to my blog and to raise money to continue cooking. Great idea if you ask me.

So I have created and assembled my pumpkin pie as follows:

1 Flaky pie crust, nothing special other than it is delicious.

1 Pumpkin pie filling which I will explain in further detail soon. Also delicious.

1 Cinnamon streusel topping, a great twist to classic pumpkin pie, and a must have after you experience it

Home made whipped cream to garnish.

 

So, a few words about my pumpkin pie before I do the ol’ step by step.

First, I like to use a cake pan versus a pie pan for my pies. This recipe will create almost two pie pan sized pies. However, I like deep dish pumpkin pies, so I use a cake pan. Not to mention you only have to make one pie crust.

Second, Make sure you beat the egg whites well (more detail later) and I will show you how to tell if you have done it correctly.

Third, when making the pie crust, you want to do it quickly. It is important to keep the butter cold, so try not to handle it too much with your hands, and only pull it out of the refrigerator when needed.

Fourth, the whip cream I use is the same one I used for the Banana Cream Pie post (When Opportunity Knocks). Please reference that recipe if you plan on making home made whip cream.

Finally, I will tell you that this pumpkin pie is the only one that I have found that I can eat warm. If you think about it, most of the time people eat pumpkin pie cold or at the most room temperature. This particular pie, in my opinion, tastes better when has just been taken out of the oven and allowed to rest for 15 – 20 minutes. Goes great with a cup of coffee or milk. Yum!!

 

Ok, so let us begin with the creation of a down home amazing Pumpkin Pie.

 

Pumpkin Pie

 

Pie crust for one pie

1 1/4 cup All-Purpose Flour

1 stick butter

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 tablespoons ice water

1. Combine the flour and salt. Cut in the butter with a pastry blender or fork, or be like me and just add the flour, butter, and salt to the trusty food processor and give it a whirl. No matter what method you do, you should end up with a fine crumbly mixture.

2. Drip the water over the mixture and stir to combine. Once it is almost completely combined and starts to stick together, start using your hands to form it into a ball.

3. Place the dough on either a floured counter or use some wax paper. I prefer the paper, easy cleanup.

4. Roll the dough out with a rolling pin, using flour to coat the rolling pin to prevent sticking to the dough, until the dough is about 1/8″ thick, or until you think it will fit inside your pan.

Your finished dough should look something like this. Again, work fast so the butter doesn’t get too soft or else it will start sticking. If this happens, just put it in the fridge for a few minutes to harden the butter again.

 

So now onto the filling

Pumpkin Pie Filling

1 can (16 oz.) Pumpkin (Do Not get pumpkin pie filling, just plain pumpkin)

1 can (14 oz.) sweetened condensed milk

2 egg yolks

2 egg whites

1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (I highly recommend Saigon Cinnamon)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1. Mix together the pumpkin, sweetened condensed milk, and the egg yolks.

2. Add the spices and salt all at once and mix.

3. Now for the fun part. You need to beat the egg whites until they become frothy and soft peaks form. This can be accomplished in two ways. One, manual with a fork or whisk, or two, with an electric mixer. Just be sure to whip them well and only until soft peaks start to form. I use the manual method and this is what you are looking for.

Egg Whites Before

Egg Whites After

4. Now is the gentle step. I normally use a rubber spatula for this step. Gently fold the egg whites into the pumpkin mixture. You need to be gentle so that you don’t lose the air and fluffiness that you just finished whipping into the egg whites. Mix it all together just until the egg whites disappear.

5. Gently pour the mixture into the pie crust. Flute the edges of the pie crust if you wish, or do whatever works for you, how it looks has nothing to do with how it will taste.

6. Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, make the cinnamon streusel (recipe to follow) and after 15 minutes, sprinkle on top, reduce oven heat to 350 degrees, and cook for another 40 minutes.

 

Cinnamon Streusel Topping

2 tablespoons All-Purpose Flour

1/4 cup packed light brown sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 tablespoons butter

1. Combine all of the dry ingredients well.

2. Cut in the butter using a fork or pastry blender. Basically just keep pushing down on the butter until the mixture comes together and is crumbly, like so.

Now, one more pointer about baking this pie. With the addition of properly whipped and folded egg whites, your pumpkin pie will turn into a kind of souffle, meaning that if will have expansion that will help to make it a little lighter than other pumpkin pies you might have had. The best way to know whether or not your’s is baking good is to look at it in the oven, and see if it is rising, like a souffle. Here is how it should look.

And finally, once removing from the oven and allowing to cool off for a little while, and adding a little whipped cream garnish, this is what you end up with.

Now as I said before, I will be selling these for the Fall season and for Thanksgiving, so If you happen to live on Oahu and might be interested let me know. This particular pie was devoured at work today, and I am already receiving orders. I will sell a whole pie for $10.00 and one piece for $2.00.

Please leave any comments or questions below, and check back in often, I have more cooking adventures to pursue!

Decisions, Decisions…

So I am going to need some help with some ideas here. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to continue this cooking, documenting, and hopefully becoming a successful something journey. Let me explain in a little more detail

You see, I am very passionate about cooking, which you can probably assume from this blog. However, I am not able to just willfully make food and expect it to A) Disappear unless I just give it to all of my coworkers and anyone else who just happens to cross my path at the right time, and B) Be able to continue cooking for long without making at least enough money to cover my ingredient cost because it isn’t the smartest thing for me to just buy ingredients, cook, blog, and then give it away, as nice as that is to everyone else.

So, I am trying to figure out the most efficient solution to be able to cook at a decent enough pace to keep a vibrant blog and feed my cooking addiction. Right now, I am pretty much getting away with selling my baked goods to my coworkers in order to cover ingredient costs for future cooking, and making food for potlucks, dinner, and anything else that I can get away with in order for it not to seem like I am just cooking for no good reason other than to cook (I would if I could though, trust me).

I have thought of a few ideas like making some business type cards that can raise awareness to my blog, and hopefully word of mouth can help to get more exposure. My wife thinks it might be wise to create a page on this blog to try and sell food, but I am not sure how to structure that or exactly what to market.

I am hoping that you guys can maybe help me out with some brainstorming and creative ideas, hopefully without me having to go door-to-door to try and sell cheesecakes. I really just want to cook and talk about it, but I have to be realistic at some point. Let me know what you think, or whether I am just crazy and too ambitious. I am not much of a businessman yet, but I have to get there someday.

P.S. – I have a wonderful treat in the oven right now, I’ll definitely be posting about it tomorrow, so check back in. Thanks.

When Opportunity Knocks

So I was out with the family doing some grocery shopping, and I happened upon this little bundle of awesome.

Now, these were some bananas on sale at Target, and I think these are the best I have ever seen there, plus they were cheap. Great combination so far, eh? So, the first thing that pops into my mind is Banana Cream Pie! An absolutely wonderful dish that is a perfect way to end any Hawaiian day.

What makes things even better is that the very next day, my family and I get invited over to a friend’s house for a wonderful dinner, and low and behold, I have a perfect reason to make Banana Cream Pie! Man, does this just work out great or what!?

Ok, so on with the pie. By the way, it was a big success and loved by all. Here we go.

Banana Cream Pie

Now this thing is split into three parts to make it even more exciting. You have the crust, filling, and then a whipped cream topping (if you wish). A few tips to help along the way:

1. I like to use cinnamon in the crust, it adds a nice twist. Also, I normally make a vanilla wafer crust but for this one I used graham crackers. I’m thinking of doing the next one with some coconut.

2. For the filling, realistically you are just making a home made vanilla pudding and pouring it over bananas. So, if you are feeling less than inclined to make the filling from scratch, just use some Jello pudding.

3. The whipped cream topping is crazy easy to make, but once again, you can just use store-bought whipped cream if you prefer. Oh, and if you do make it from scratch, I recommend an electric mixer.

Graham cracker crust

1/4 cup white sugar

8 graham crackers, or one package if you use the same kind as me (Honeymaid). If you would like to use vanilla wafers, just make it 1 1/4 cup crushed wafers, and you can leave out the sugar.

6 tablespoons butter, melted

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1. Crush the graham crackers (I use a food processor) and then mix the dry ingredients together.

2. Add the melted butter and mix well. Press into a pie dish all the way up the sides.

3. Bake for 5 minutes at 350 degrees. Set aside to cool. It should look something like this.

Pie Filling

3/4 cup white sugar

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 cups milk

3 egg yolks, beaten

2 tablespoons butter

1 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

4-7 bananas, depending on the size (if you see the above picture, they were kinda small, so I used 7 of them)

1. Combine the sugar, flour, and salt in a saucepan. Slowly add the milk while stirring.

2. Cook over medium heat until the mixture becomes bubbly. Now here is one of the tricky parts, and why you might end up just using Jello pudding. You have to stir, and stir, and stir. And do not raise the heat because you get impatient. You need to keep the heat at medium and just keep stirring until the mixture boils, and making something boil at medium heat takes a while. Now you might be asking, “Well why does it matter so much that I stir and keep the heat at medium?” Well, the answer is sure to arrive in the gross flour layer that will form to the sides and bottom your saucepan if you let it sit, or heat it up too high too fast. This is because it takes time for flour to mix straight into a lot of liquid, like 2 cups of milk, and it is used to thicken the mixture. So be gentle and patient, it’s well worth it. Once it starts to boil and bubble, cook for about 2 more minutes, still stirring, and then remove from the heat. It should be looking something like this.

3. Now for the next tricky part, and the one I hate the most. You are going to put a little bit of the milk mixture into the eggs, and then add everything back to the saucepan. I know this sounds kinda weird, but it if very important to do this. It prevents Scrambled Egg Banana Cream Pie. If you just add the eggs to the mixture all at once, the temperature change if too fast for the eggs, and they scramble. Trust me, it is not fun. So, add a little bit of the milk mixture to the beaten egg yolks, and then immediately add the eggs back into the saucepan. Cook all of this for two more minutes, making sure you stir the whole time. You should feel the burn in your wrist around this time.

4. Remove the saucepan from the heat, add the vanilla and the butter, and stir until it is all smooth.

5. Now, set your mixture aside and get to slicing some bananas. Fill up the crust with delicious bananas. I prefer to just slice and then throw them in like so.

Once the bananas are in, give the mixture a quick stir and pour it on top. Then throw your pie in the fridge to cool off for at least one hour.

Whipped Cream Topping

1 cup heavy cream

1 teaspoon unflavored gelatin

1 tablespoon cold water

1 tablespoon white sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. This is really easy once you get it down, and especially if you use an electric mixer. So go ahead and mix the gelatin and water together, give it a stir and let it sit for one minute. Then, pop it into the microwave for 30 seconds to melt it.

2. Beat the cream on high speed or as fast as you can until it becomes very frothy and starts to create soft peaks.

3. While the mixer is running, add the sugar, and keep beating until stiff peaks form. This is when it’ll start looking like whipped cream.

4. Add the vanilla and the gelatin, reduce the speed a bit, and mix until it is all combined. you should have nice fluffy whipped cream now.

5. Place the whipped cream in the fridge for about 30 minutes before using, just to make it easier to spread.

Finally, just simply spread the whipped cream on top of the pie, and you have created a little bit of wonderful. Congratulations.

Here is my final masterpiece. Don’t think too much about the garnish, I am not very artistic when is comes to using bananas.

Please leave any comments or questions. This is a really wonderful pie, and it is quite exciting to bring everything together, and it tastes great!

Out of hibernation

Good evening good people who stumble through here wondering what this is all about. Well, it’s been a long while since my last post, but I am ready to start again. I am not really too sure why I haven’t posted lately, but I am pretty sure it has something to do with insecurity and my confusion with how to properly document myself. In short, I was scared that I wouldn’t do this blog thing right. However, after a series of events that have helped my self-esteem, I think I am ready to continue documented my cooking passion.

So, I have finally broken through a couple of my own walls and not only made money, but have been promoted and bragged about (thanks Mike). Nothing big, just at a party, but for a guy like me with everything to gain, it matters a lot. Here are a few of the creations that I have made recently. I still need to tinker with them a little bit before I put the full recipe up, but I’ll give you an overview.

So here I have a triple chocolate cheesecake that I made for my wife, which is always a good excuse to be able to make a cheesecake. It is basically a dark chocolate sponge cake crust with a rich chocolate cheesecake, then it is topped with a fudge ice cream mirror that is basically made with ice cream and corn syrup. It was quite rich and tasted exactly like a fudgesicle. Delicious. I was a little unimpressed with the center, it was a little soft, but I am working on it.

And here is a bit of wonderful that I have almost mastered, although I was profitable off of it at work and sold the whole thing! It is a cappuccino cheesecake. I used a chocolate graham cracker crust with some home made chocolate curls on top. This beautiful creation had two pounds of cream cheese in it, and I think everybody who had a piece either felt really full or guilty. Good thing it was delicious. Personally, I despise coffee flavored everything, so I had to trust my instincts on this one. I am very proud of the success.

I am planning to work a lot on my cheesecakes, I think they are my favorite thing to make. And I will be getting recipes up soon, so check back in.

Nighttime Brownies

I thoroughly enjoy making these brownies, mainly because they are crazy quick to mix up, and go perfect with a glass of milk before bed. If only I had more reasons to make a whole pan. Also, the ingredients are pretty basic, which makes them easy to whip up almost anytime.

So, I’ll make this post short since it’s late. Here we go.

Peanut Butter Brownies

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 large eggs

1/3 cup powdered baking cocoa

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup peanut butter chips

peanut butter for garnish

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Grease a 9″ square baking pan. Now let’s pause for a moment. There is something worth explaining. The pan MAKES these brownies. What I mean by that is that depending on the type of pan you use, you can create gooey brownies, or more cakey fluffy brownies. For the gooey type, use a plain metal pan, nothing fancy. For the cakier type, I recommend using a thick, heavy metal pan that displaces heat well. DO NOT use a glass pan. I’m not sure what it is, but something about the glass makes it take way to long to cook the middle and you will end up with nice border brownies and super gooey middle brownies that you can’t even get out of the pan without breaking them, or nice middle brownies and crispy border brownies. Just be safe and use a metal pan.

3. Stir together the butter, sugar and vanilla in a mixing bowl. Add the eggs and mix well.

4. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt in a separate bowl. This is very important not only for brownies, but a lot of baked goods of the sugar, egg, flour, baking powder type. Examples are cookies, muffins, banana bread, etc. The reason for this is mainly to have all of the dry ingredients mixed thoroughly together because no one likes to take a bite of a brownie and hit a salty spot. So keep the dry away from the wet until the end.

5. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until smooth. Do this slowly and don’t dump it all in at once. Trust me, your dry ingredients will fly everywhere. Also, don’t over mix, just make it nice and smooth.

6. Add the peanut butter chips and stir. Spread into prepared pan.

7. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or, for best results, check them and when the brownies start to pull away from the pan, that is when they are finished. Here is what they should look like.

8. Place on a cooling rack and allow to cool. Melt some peanut butter, and using a fork, drizzle the melted peanut butter on top.

Please Enjoy.

Artisan Bread with a Quickness

So it’s been a rough few days for posting. I blame the Navy, end of story. However, I was able to make some bread tonight using my trusty refrigerator dough. Basically, it’s a type of wet dough that is made in bulk and stored in a tub. Whenever you want to make some, just pull off a slab, shape it, let it rest and bake. The result is old fashioned artisan bread that will knock your socks off.

There are a few key items that are needed to successfully create a wonderful artisan loaf. They are as follows:

A tub that will hold you dough. It shouldn’t be airtight, and should be big enough to allow rising. I go with a five quart tub. Here is what my dough looks like.

The next item is not a necessity, but is highly recommended. A baking stone. Any size works, as long as it is big enough for your loaf. I can’t imagine making bread without one. However, if you have to you could use a baking sheet.

Along with the stone should be a baking sheet. This is for holding the water that you have in the oven. The water creates steam which ensures that your bread is wonderfully moist inside.

Oh yes. I also recommend getting a pizza peel. They come in handy for sliding the dough onto the stone. I used a cutting board for a while, and that works too.

Now, with the major items out of the way, let’s talk ingredients.

Free-form Artisan Dough

3 cups warm water

1 1/2 tablespoons active dry yeast (2 packets)

1 1/2 tablespoons coarse salt (I use coarse sea salt)

6 1/2 cups Unbleached All-Purpose flour

Cornmeal for the pizza peel.

That is it. Easy stuff. Now for the fun part.

1. Pour the water into your tub. Add yeast and salt. Stir until mixed.

2. Add all of the flour at once. All of it. Stir it with a wooden spoon, until well combined. If the dough becomes too hard to mix with a spoon, use your hands. I’m sure if you wanted to you could try a stand mixer or a hand mixer, but I never have. I’m a believer in the power of a wooden spoon.

3. Put the top on your tub and let it sit until it doubles in size, about two hours. After that you can used it right away, or place it in the fridge. It is good for up to two weeks.

Now, one note here. The longer you let the dough stay in the fridge, the stronger the taste of the dough becomes. Basically it’s a fermentation kind of thing. It’s just the process of having yeast, salt and flour sitting together for a long time. It makes it quite wonderful. I’ve gotten to the point now that I use the remaining dough from the previous batch as a starter for my new batch. This creates the more hearty bread taste faster. Realistically, it is as easy as not washing your tub after the dough is used, just mixing your new batch. I know that might sound a little gross to some of you, but I assure you that as long as you are using the same ingredients and not mixing different flours and such, it’ll be just fine.

Okay, now for the baking part.

1. Dust your pizza peel with some cornmeal. Dust the top of your dough with some flour. Put some on your hands too. Pull off the amount you want, around the size of a cantaloupe is good. Dust the dough with some more flour.

2. Form you dough into a ball by pulling and tucking the dough under itself while simultaneously turning it so it becomes a wonderful shapely blob.

3. Place the dough on the pizza peel and let it rest for about 45 minutes.

4. In the meantime, place your baking stone and baking pan into the oven. Preheat to 450 degrees.

5. Okay, now for the tricky part. First, dust the top of your dough with some flour, then cut a few slashes in the top. After that, pick up your pizza peel, and shake it around to make sure your dough will slide and that it isn’t sticking. If it is, carefully lift up the parts that are sticking and throw a little cornmeal under them to loosen. Now that you don’t have to worry about your dough sticking, quickly open the oven and slide the dough onto the baking stone. While the oven is open, pour a glass of water into the baking pan. Shut the door, and DO NOT OPEN IT AGAIN. You need the steam to stay inside.

6. Bake for about 25 minutes or until it is nice and brown. Remove from oven and let it cool.

This bread is really awesome. You should end up with a crust that is nice a crunchy with a moist inside. And the cool thing is that you don’t have to always go through the mixing and rising process, because you make it in bulk. Here is how mine did.

My New Masterpiece!

Cheesecake time again. This will be a quick post, as I am thrilled that I finally got my pineapple cheesecake right. However, I can still make it better. So, with that said, I’m not going to post a recipe just yet.

I’ve tried this recipe a couple of times now. The first time worked out ok. The flavor was great, but the consistency was off. The second time was a complete disaster. I attempted to put a sweetened sour cream topping on top, however it wasn’t cooked enough and the sour cream turned the whole cheesecake goopey. Pretty gross.

Now, I have gotten the consistency almost perfect. The only thing left to do is to make it bigger and a little fancier. I’m thinking of going with a toasted coconut graham cracker crust.

So here it is, and look for more pics from my next attempt at Pineapple Cheesecake.

My Kind of Comfort Food

So here’s the deal. We all have our own special dish that we consider comfort food. Think about it right now. I’m sure you have one. That one dish that just seeing it makes your mouth water, and you know exactly how it’s going to taste, and how wonderful you’ll feel after eating it. And no matter how many times you’ve eaten it in the past, it is still so amazing. It’s the kind of food that you don’t mind, and maybe even prefer, eating alone so that you aren’t bothered by anyone and for a while the earth stands still. Think about that kind of food. What a feeling to bite into your favorite comfort food and forget everything else. And once you are finished, you could go to sleep peaceful and not have any worries. Great isn’t it?

Well, that is how I feel about the cheeseburger I make in my awesome iron skillet. A word about iron skillets. Stupendous! I wish that I could make everyone in the world a Coursey Iron Skillet Cheeseburger. It’s something magical.

What is even better is how easy it is to make. Now, the only real reason I’m posting this is because comfort food is the best way to deal with Monday. It also helps that I just destroyed a cheeseburger and a baked yam and I am feeling pretty good. So let me explain why I love this cheeseburger meal oh so much.

First off, the iron skillet makes it somehow. I can’t really explain it, but I’m telling you what, a cheeseburger made right on an iron skillet will beat anything off of the grill, hands down. So, first make sure you have an iron skillet.

Next comes your meat. Now I know a little about cuts of beef, and I am a big fan of ground sirloin. Pretty much, it’s a sirloin steak that is ground up. Easy right. If they don’t sell it already ground up, chances are you can pick up a sirloin steak and have the butcher grind it for you. Sirloin is about the most tender cut I would go for hamburger meat without worrying about it falling apart or burning to a crisp. It also retains flavor and juices very well.

It becomes really simple after that, most of it is personnel preference. I normally just make a patty out of just beef. I don’t add anything to it or marinate it at all. Just straight beef. When I place the patty on the iron skillet, I normally sprinkle salt, pepper, some garlic powder and sometimes I add a little mesquite seasoning. Once you flip it, season again and top with cheese. Lately I’ve been enjoying Pepper Jack, but once again, personnel preference.

At this point I prepare my bun and toppings. I like a slightly toasted bun, something that isn’t too crunchy but won’t become mushy under all of the wonderful burger juices. I personally like tomato, lettuce and pickle. As for condiments, I like to put some Thai chili sauce on the bottom bun, then I use zesty honey mustard and ketchup for the top.

Here she is in all of her glory. Feel free to make the picture larger.

You may also have noticed the baked yam I had along with my little bit of heaven. This was super easy. Check it out.

1 Yam

Wash it with some warm water and dry it off. Poke a few holes all around it with a fork.

Now here is where I cheat (I’m impatient when it comes to baking potatoes). I throw this puppy into the microwave for four minutes, roll it over and cook another four minutes (go for five if it”s a bigger yam).

Once finished, slice open, add some butter and garlic salt, and Wall-a!  You have a wonderful superfood.

Please enjoy, and let me know what kind of comfort food you like. I would love to make it and post about it.

Tried and True.

So, cheesecakes happens to be one of my favorite desserts to create. I believe that making a cheesecake takes such a balance of patience and skill and heart that creating a good one is a very satisfying achievement. To make things better, having multiple people rave about the cheesecake you created is awesome.

Well luckily for me, I had the opportunity to make a dish for a church get together, and yours truly decided to make a cheesecake. Now, before I get too far, let me point something out. I LOVE potlucks. They are the greatest. I mean, just think about it. If you are a person who loves to cook (which I am), and also loves to try making new things or perfecting something you don’t make often (thats me), then potlucks are one of your best friends. There was once a time in my life when I was constantly trying new recipes for pies, and Genna was constantly giving me a hard time because I would make a pie almost everyday and would then take it to work. To her, it was just a waste of money giving my coworkers free food all the time. To me, it was my only outlet to experiment and not have to throw it in the garbage. Now, I just volunteer for any potluck around, also to include children’s school parties, parties at friends’ houses, whatever. Let me know when you need something made

With all that being said, let’s get to the nitty gritty. For our church get together, I decided this time to go with my trusty Peanut Butter Chip Cheesecake. It’s a recipe I’ve made before, and I’ve pretty much gotten it down pat to the point where I can make one almost automatically. It was also a great opportunity to try out my documentary skills and take some pics for everyone to see what I do.

A few more words about cheesecakes before we get started. First, you have to plan on making a cheesecake, it’s not something you can just whip up. It’s best to make one a couple of days before, or at the very least the night before so that you have time to put the cheesecake in the fridge and allow it to thicken. Also, when making a cheesecake, I cannot stress how important it is to have the cream cheese at room temperature. I’m sure lots of people know from experience, but trying to whip hard cream cheese, or even butter for that instance, is ridiculously hard to do, and you can also end up with bits of cream cheese that will not mix with the other ingredients. So make sure your cream cheese is soft. Also, making a cheesecake takes a little while if you want it to come out right, so be patient. With that being said, here we go.

Peanut Butter Chip Cheesecake

1/3 cup melted butter

8 graham crackers, crushed (should be one plastic package, unless your’s come in a different box than mine)

1/3 cup cocoa powder

1/3 cup sugar

1 cup peanut butter chips

2 packages (8 ounces each) cream cheese, softened (very important to have it at room temperature).

1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk

4 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Whipped cream and shaved chocolate (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.

One of the first things I do is wrap my spring form pan in aluminum foil, because I’m a fan of the water bath method. This keeps the cheesecake moist and creamy.

2. Combine graham cracker crumbs, cocoa and sugar in a medium bowl. Add melted butter. Press this mixture firmly into the bottom of a spring form pan. I use an 8 inch pan.

3. Place peanut butter chips in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave for one minute on High. The chips won’t look melted, just glossy. Stir them, they should melt. If not, microwave again for 15 seconds and stir again. Repeat as necessary until they are melted.

4. Beat the cream cheese in a large mixing bowl until fluffy. I use a wooden spoon (make sure it’s a short handle spoon, I’ve broken plenty of long handled ones), and I use the “Tuck the bowl under your arm and stir like crazy method.” Gradually add the condensed milk and the melted chips. Stir until smooth.

5. Add the eggs and vanilla. It’s ok to add all of the eggs at once, no need to add one at a time. Gently beat just until incorporated. You do not want to over mix the batter as it will not thicken up wonderfully. Pour over crust.

Ok, now here is where it gets tricky. Take a baking pan, and set your cheesecake into it. Pour a cup of hot water into the baking pan, making sure you do not go above the edge of the aluminum foil. This is what creates your water bath.

Place the whole thing in the oven and bake for about 50 minutes, or until you jiggle it and only the center kinda wobbles.

At this point, I turn off the oven and leave the cheesecake inside for about ten minutes. Then, I crack the door open and let the cheesecake stay inside for another 20 minutes or so. It’s a very slow process. What you are trying to is prevent cracking that can happen due to rapid temperature changes. Once it has set inside the oven for a while, remove it and place it on a cooling rack. Let it cool completely.

Take a whole 8 ounce tub of Cool Whip, or if you use home made whip cream, and pile it one top and smooth the top. Take shaved chocolate and sprinkle on top for garnish.

Place cheesecake in the refrigerator overnight or until it is nice and cold.

Here is how it looks without any topping, just cheesecake straight from the oven. Holes are ok, cracks are bad.

And here is the finished product that was consumed at our event.