Monday, January 23, 2012

Mini Cheesecakes and a new plan



This is another recipe I made for our New Year's party. I loved it! It's super simple and anyone (I mean anyone, even if you NEVER bake) can make it. It starts off with mini cupcake wrappers. You put a nilla wafer in the bottom of each one. I have made these like this before with success, but this time I just put some cookie crumbs in the bottom of each one because I wanted to make them gluten free, and I couldn't find gluten-free cookies that small. Over the "crust" comes a simple mixture of cream cheese, eggs, vanilla, and sugar (of course. what blog do you think you're reading??). They are baked for a few minutes and then topped with some sort of sweet deliciousness. I have made them with canned cherry pie filling like the recipe calls for, but this time I put a dollop of raspberry jam on top. They were delicious, and my best friend and I had fun making them. They are a great project to do with little kids, or just for a quick dessert. Enjoy!!

Mini Cheesecakes (from Allrecipes)
Ingredients
1 (12 ounce) package vanilla wafers
2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese
3/4 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (21 ounce) can cherry pie filling

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line miniature muffin tins (tassie pans) with miniature paper liners.
Crush the vanilla wafers and place 1/2 tablespoon of the crushed vanilla wafers into the paper lined miniature muffin tins.
Cream together with an electric mixer the cream cheese, sugar, eggs and vanilla. Fill each miniature muffin liner with this mixture, almost to the top.
Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 15 minutes. Cool and then top with a teaspoonful of cherry (or any other flavor) pie filling.


Now for the new plan. Remember when I was in Tuesdays with Dorie? I loved being in that group, and it motivated me to bake new things more often. Last year I had to drop out due to lack of time, and I just heard that they are starting a new book. I'm joining in again, SO here's my new plan:
I want to keep baking from BFMHTY. Sometimes. I love that book and it has been something I do for the past 2 years, but I realized that since I joined so late in, I'm not even halfway through with it. I love the recipes from it but don't want to have the goal of finishing it anymore. Maybe someday!
I bought Baking with Julia. I joined the new group! I'm not sure how far this will go - doing one every two weeks is definitely more manageable, so I think it will work out better this time. I'm excited to start from the beginning of a book with that group.
I may try to take up Daring Bakers again. I will keep looking at their challenges each month (somehow they still haven't kicked me out - I guess they don't check who posts each month), and I'll try to do them sometimes. I think this way I'll learn how to make things I wouldn't have otherwise. But no pressure on this one - baking new things isn't something I want to feel like I have to do.
So that's my plan. I hope you keep reading my blog, and follow along whatever crazy baking adventures I go on. <3

No comments: