Lemon Cheesecake...possibly the best dessert of all time

Ok, listen up people, this is worth paying attention to, despite the size of the recipe.

This dessert will blow your mind. You would pay $50 for this cheesecake, it is so good. I made it for my husband's family last year for easter, for a shower, then again this year for my family at Easter and each time it turned out pretty darn AWESOME.

So, I thought I'd share. The recipe comes from Cook's Illustrated, the home of so many fantastic things, but I tweaked it in a few spots. You can make the curd days in advance, and the crust the day before if you don't mind it being slightly less crisp. I also prepared the lemon sugar the day before too, right after grinding up the animal cookies into crumbs, avoiding washing the food processor more then once. The cheesecake itself comes together in like 15 minutes, so if you do the prep the day before it won't take much time, aside from baking time, cooling time, and then chilling in the fridge.

All that being said, here goes:
Cookie Crumb Crust
6 oz. Nabisco Barnum's Animal Crackers
4 TB. sugar
4 TB. butter, melted

Filling
1 & 1/4 cups sugar
1 TB. grated lemon zest
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 & 1/2 lbs. cream cheese (3 eight oz. packages), softened to room temperature
4 large eggs, at room temperature
2 tsp. good vanilla extract
1/4 heaping tsp. table salt
1/2 cup heavy cream

Lemon Curd
1/3 cup lemon juice
2 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
1/2 cup sugar
2 TB unsalted butter, diced and then kept cold
1 TB. heavy cream
1/4 tsp. vanilla
1/8 tsp. table salt

For the Crust: Adjust oven rack to lower middle position and preheat to 325 degrees. In food processor, grind cookies to fine crumbs, add sugar and pulse to incorporate. Add warm melted butter in a slow, steady stream while pulsing; pulse until mixture is evenly moistened and resembles wet sand. Transfer mixture to a 9 inch springform pan. Using the bottom of a cup, press firmly and evenly into pan bottom, keeping sides as clean as possible. Bake until fragrant and golden brown, 15-18 minutes. Cool about 30 minutes. When cool, wrap the outside of the pan with two 18 inch square pieces of tin foil. Set springform pan in a large roasting pan.

For the Filling: While the crust is cooling, process 1/4 cup sugar and the lemon zest in food processor until sugar is yellow and zest is broken down, about 15 seconds, scraping down bowl as needed. Add the remaining 1 cup of sugar and pulse until incorporated. Transfer lemon sugar to small bowl. At this point it can be refrigerated until you need it.

In a standing mixer, beat cream cheese until soft and broken up. Add lemon sugar in a slow, steady stream, increase speed to medium and continue to beat until creamy and smooth, about 3 minutes, scraping bowl down as necessary. Reduce speed to medium low and add eggs 2 at a time, beat until incorporated, about 30 seconds, scraping bowl again as needed. Add lemon juice, vanilla and salt and mix until just incorporated, about 10 seconds. Add heavy cream and do the the same thing, just until mixed in. Give batter a final scrape, stir with spatula and pour into prepared springform pan.

Set the roasting pan with cheesecake in it on your oven rack, fill a tea pot with hot tap water and then pour it into the roasting pan until it reaches halfway up the sides of the cake. Bake until center jiggles slightly, sides just start to puff, surface is no longer shiny and an instant read thermometer inserted into the center of the cheesecake reads 150 degrees, about 55-60 minutes.

Turn off the oven and prop open the door. Allow cake to cool in it's waterbath for 60 minutes. Transfer the springform pan to a rack and cool to room temperature, about two hours. Run a sharp paring knife around the sides of the cake to loosen it from the pan. Leave the sides of the pan on to store it.

For the Lemon Curd: While cheesecake bakes, or days in advance, heat the lemon juice in a small saucepan over medium heat until hot but not boiling. whisk eggs and yolk in a bowl, gradually add sugar. Whisking constantly, SLOWLY pour hot lemon juice into eggs, dribbles at a time. The key is not to do this too fast, or you will overcook the eggs, ending up with delicious lemony scrambled eggs. Then return mixture to saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until mixture registers 170 degrees on an instant read thermometer and is thick enough to cling to the spoon, about 3 minutes. IMMEDIATELY remove pan from heat and stir in cold butter until incorporated, then stir in cream, vanilla and salt. Place in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until needed.

To finish the cake: When cheesecake is cool, scrape lemon curd onto it while still in the springform pan, spreading curd evenly. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or up to 24 hours. To serve, remove sides of springform pan and cut cake into wedges. Serves 12-16 people.

The World-Is-Ending Blueberry Muffin

I'm not even kidding you, if I knew the world was ending I'd flip through our wedding photos one more time, make a few phone calls involving words of love to family and friends and eat as many of these muffins as I could.
Seriously, I've made my second batch in a week and they are heavenly, only involving two more steps then your average blueberry muffin recipe. With much credit and love to Cooks Illustrated.

Best Blueberry Muffins

Lemon Sugar Topping

1/3 cup sugar

1 and 1/2 teaspoons finely grated zest from one lemon

Muffins

3 cups fresh blueberries, picked over

1 & 1/8 cups sugar, plus 2 teaspoons

2 & 1/2 cups flour

2 & 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon table salt

2 extra large eggs

1/2 stick (4 TB) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 cup buttermilk

1 & 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

For the topping: stir together sugar and lemon zest in a small bowl until combined, set aside.

For the muffins: Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position and heat oven to 425 degrees. Bring 1 & 1/2 cups blueberries and 2 tsp. of sugar to simmer in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook, mashing berries with spoon several times and stirring frequently until berries have broken down and mixture is thickened and reduced to about 1/3 cup, about 6 minutes. Cool to room temp, 10-15 min.

Whisk flour, baking powder and salt together in large bowl. Whisk remaining sugar and eggs together in a medium bowl, add butter and oil until combined. Add buttermilk and vanilla to egg mixture until combined. Using a rubber spatula, fold egg mixture and remaining 1 & 1/2 cups of blueberries into the flour mixture just until moistened. Do not overmix.

Divide the batter evenly among about 14 muffin cups. Spoon one teaspoon of blueberry jam into the center of each and swirl slightly with a toothpick. Sprinkle lemon sugar evenly over muffins.

Bake until muffin tops are golden brown and just firm, 17-19 minutes. Cool in tins for 5 minutes, the finish cooling on a rack. They freeze well and can be reheated in the oven for a freshly baked texture.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins (Scott's Favorite)

I've been staring at the four brown bananas on my counter for the last couple of days, not having enough energy to do anything productive with them until today.  This recipe, based off Kathleen Tate's, is fabulous.  Moist, dense and tasty, you've got to use Ghiradelli semi sweet chocolate chips to get the full effect.  A four star recipe in our house, they freeze beautifully and you can heat them up in the oven for a few minutes to fool your friends into thinking they're freshly baked.  No one will be the wiser.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

2 cups flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

3/4 tsp. table salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1/4 cup white sugar

1 tps. vanilla

2 large eggs

1 & 1/2 cups smashed bananas (about 4 medium, you can squish them up right inside the peel and then squeeze them out into the mixing bowl...no need to dirty another dish!)

1/2 cup sour cream

1 & 1/2 cups Ghiradelli semi-sweet chocolate chips

About 2 TB. raw sugar for topping the muffins

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Prepare about 18 muffin cups, or use the fun medium sized white baking cups from Schweppe's, you don't even need a muffin pan then.

Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a small bowl.  Cream the butter and sugars in a mixer until light and fluffy.  Add the vanilla and eggs and mix well.  Squeeze in the bananas and mix in the sour cream.  Fold in the flour mixture, then the chocolate chips.

Spoon the mixture into the muffin cups.  Sprinkle them with raw sugar if desired, it gives them a little crunch on top which can be nice.  Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

The Upside Down Apple Cake that No One Got to Eat

Sigh.

Heavy sigh.  There is a story here my friends, a story of the past three weeks or so, but I am too tired to tell it.  Suffice to say it involved the stomach flu for all three of us, the computer crashing...$170 later, then being in the shop for five days, job issues and stress for Scott and continued uncertainty.  One thing I know though, besides the fact that God is good, is that this cake blew my mind.  

I pulled it out of the oven, along with homemade parmesan rosemary crackers, just an hour and a half before four of our friends were supposed to come out from the city for a cozy Saturday night dinner that I'd spent two days making.  At 4:15 pm I threw up, 12 hours after Sam had the flu.  We called off the dinner and most of it went into the freezer in the garage.  So sad.

This cake was too yummy not to share.

Rebekah's Glorious Upside Down Apple Cake

2 cups flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. kosher salt

2 eggs

1 & 1/2 cups sugar

1 tsp. good vanilla extract

1 cup heavy cream

4 TB. salted butter, melted

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 cup brown sugar

juice of one lemon

Beat the eggs with the 1 1/2 cups sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes or so.  Stir together the flour, salt and baking powder in a small bowl.  Add it carefully to the egg mixture, then add the heavy cream and mix just until it comes together.

In a separate small bowl, melt 4 TB. butter, 1 tsp. cinnamon and 1 cup brown sugar together. Divide the mixture into the bottom of two well greased 8 inch round pans.  Peel and slice about 4 cups of apples (I used Empire), squeeze the lemon juice over them and mix with your hands.  Lay the apples down on top of the brown sugar in a circle pattern.  Pour batter over top of apples.

Bake 350 degrees for 25 minutes.  Turn oven temperature down to 325 and bake another 15-20 minutes or until cake is done.  Cool cake for 5 minutes in the pan, then gently turn out.

Blueberry Nectarine Cobbler

It is high season for juicy nectarines, peaches and berries, what better way to put them to use then in a warm cobbler, fresh out of the oven with Hagaan Daz vanilla ice cream on top?  Not many, in my opinion.

Blueberry Nectarine Cobbler

8 large, ripe nectarines, peeled and sliced

2 cups fresh blueberries, rinsed and drained

1/2 cup cinnamon sugar

2 TB. water

1/4 tsp. almond extract, optional

1 cup flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp. kosher salt

6 TB. unsalted butter, cold

Arrange nectarine slices in the bottom of a 9X13 glass pan.  Top with blueberries.  Pour cinnamon sugar, water and almond extract over top, mix well with clean hands.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, brown sugar and salt.  Cut in cold butter with pastry blender until well blended.  Sprinkle evenly over fruit.  Bake in preheated 350 oven for about 50 minutes.  Serve warm or room temperature with vanilla ice cream.

May substitute peaches, raspberries or even pears in the fall.  Serves 8 to 10 people.

Cherries are here!

The French Market was teaming with delectable fruits Saturday, time to make a sour cherry pie!  Smitten Kitchen posted a great recipe for pie crust dough, it is utterly delicious and easy to roll out between two pieces of plastic wrap.  I ended up using all butter and 1/4 cup of sugar in it, froze the second crust and did a crumble topping instead.  The pie didn't last long enough for me to take a picture, Scott finished off the last slice (or I should say, the last QUARTER of the pie) late this afternoon without telling me.

Sniff.

A Day in the Life of Some Strawberries

Thank you Anna, for sharing the bounty of your handpicked strawberries.  Here is the story of what happened to them.

I decided these little fellas were screaming to be made into strawberry muffins, and this gem of a simple recipe needs more publicity.  It is just too good for me to hog.  Now normally folks, I am not into eating raw muffin batter.  Do yourself a favor and don't even taste this one...you won't be able to stop taking little swipes from the spatula.

Succulent Strawberry Muffins

1/4 lb. softened unsalted butter

1 & 1/2 cups sugar, divided

2 eggs

2 cups flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt, scant

1/2 cup whipping cream

1 tsp. good vanilla

18-20 medium to large strawberries, hulled and chopped

Cream butter and 1 & 1/4 cups sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time.  Add vanilla.  Blend well but do not overbeat.  Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl.  Add alternately with cream to butter, starting and ending with flour mixture.  Fold in strawberries.

Fill 16 large muffin tins with papers.  Fill them almost full with batter, then sprinkle remaining 1/4 cup sugar over top.  Bake in 375 degree oven for 25-30 min, or until lightly browned and a toothpick comes out clean.  Cool on rack.

Lemon Cheesecake Tarts

So I made these little lemon cheesecake tarts for my cousin's bridal shower...they turned out pretty well judging by the amount of recipe requests thus far.  I thought I'd save myself some typing and just share it here.  This recipe originated over at Cooking Light, but I adjusted it.

Lemon Cream Cheese Cookie Cups            Yields 2 dozen approximately

Dough

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup butter, softened

1 tsp. vanilla

1 large egg

1 1/4 cups flour

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

cooking spray

Filling

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp. grated lemon rind

1 tsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 large egg

8 oz. block of softened cream cheese

Topping

Homemade lemon curd (I used Ina Garten's from the Food Network's recipe.  Piece of cake)

 or store bought if you don't have time

Tiny mint leaves for garnish

To prepare dough, beat 1/2 cup sugar and butter at medium speed until light and fluffy.  Add vanilla and egg, beat well.  Mix dry ingredients in a small bowl and add to sugar/butter mixture.  Beat at low speed until well blended.  Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour, or freeze for 15 min.  Gently press dough into mini muffin tins coated with cooking spray.  Go as light as you can on the dough, it will puff up and swell as it cooks.  You want just enough dough to cover the muffin cup lightly.

Preheat oven to 350.  To prepare filling, beat 1/2 cup sugar and the next four ingredients in a mixer until smooth.  Spoon 1 TB. of filling into each prepared muffin cup.  Bake at 350 degrees for 23 minutes or until edges are brown and filling is set.  Remove cups from pans immediately, cool on a wire rack.  

At this point, the cookies will store well in the fridge for a couple days.  When you are ready to serve them, top with lemon curd and a mint leaf.

I know it looks complicated.  Believe me, it's worth the hassle.

Apple Cake-A Very Good Thing

Happy November! This month makes me joyful...Thanksgiving, our anniversary (5 years already!), Starbucks egg nog lattes, time for neighbors to put away the six foot hairy black spider that clings to the front of their house...ahh, good memories.

Ahem, anyways. Do you find yourself overwhelmed by a wave of apples that you don't know what to do with? Perhaps you inadvertently bought a bushel at the Farmers Market, not knowing that your fruit drawer was ALREADY full of Honey Crisps and Galas? Not that I can relate, but if this is YOU, you need to try this apple cake. It is the quintessential fall dessert, deliciously moist and warm with cinnamon spice, and with only a 1/2 cup of oil, it's not that bad for you.

Apple Cake

1 & 2/3 cups sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp. vanilla
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 & 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
5 cups chopped, peeled apples (Golden Delicious, Galas, Fuji, MacIntosh all work well)

In a large bowl beat sugar and eggs. Add oil and vanilla. Mix well. In medium bowl sift together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg. Add to sugar mixture. Blend well gently, being careful not to overbeat the batter. Stir in apples. Pour into greased 9X13 baking dish. Bake in preheated oven at 350 degrees for about 45-50 minutes. Check for doneness at around 45 minutes.

If the 1 & 2/3 cups of sugar in the cake aren't enough for you, then feel free to FROST the cake with the following:

6 ounces cream cheese, softened
3 Tablespoons butter, softened
1 tsp. vanilla
1 & 1/2 cups confectioners sugar

Combine cream cheese, butter and vanilla in a small bowl. Beat until well blended. Gradually add confectioners sugar until mixture reaches spreading consistency.

This cake is a great company dessert served unfrosted with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce.