Twixxxyy Cake.

So today was the dreaded NCLEX. Left the testing center feeling a little underconfident and proceeded to sing slightly angry tunes in my car on the way home. So what's the anticdote to playing the waiting game on potential job offers/NCLEX results? BAKE. CHEESECAKE.
In Leui of the days activities I decided to combine my favorite dessert with my favorite candy bar. So Twix meet Cheesecake. They sure look nice together.


INGREDIENTS:
(Crust)
-1 and 1/2 box of golden graham crackers (blended in the food processor)
-2/3 stick butter (melted)
-2 tablespoons granulated white sugar
-9 inch springform pan
-To make the crust add all ingredients until combined and press evenly onto bottom and up the sides of a 9 inch springform pan. Place the finished product in the freezer. (I dunno why I do this, just like things frozen I guess)

Filling:
3 8 oz. packages of cream cheese
1/4 cup of flour
3 eggs
1 and 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup granulated white sugar

To make the filling first beat the cream cheese until all lumps are gone (about 2-3 minutes). Add the white sugar and beat for another 1-2 minutes. Add vanilla and mix thoroughly. Then add your eggs, one at a time, mixing on low until each egg is incorporated in the batter completely. Add flour, again mixing on low speed. Walla you have cheesecake filling!
Garnish your filling with as many Twix bars as you can get your hands on.

Bake the cake after adding the mixture to the pan/topping with Twix at 350 degrees for about 1 hour. Refrigerate (preferably overnight) and ENJOY UM!

My favorite.

Strawberry Cheesecake

So as nursing school comes to an end I find myself delving into the grand finale: Senior Practicum. I am working the night shift on the Pediatric Oncology Floor and absolutely falling in love with this discipline of nursing. It's challenging, sad at times, don't get me wrong it's not easy. But at the same time I think we can find beauty in even the most ugly and hurtful of things. Long story short I made this cheesecake and brought it to clinical last week, this particular moment was beautiful. Lets just say this strawberry cheesecake was well received by patients/nurses alike:)...also this is pretty much the base cheesecake recipe...I suppose I am willing to share it.
Strawberry Cheesecake Filling:
3 8 oz packages of cream cheese
1/2 cup half and half
3 eggs
1 and 1/2 Tbs of vanilla
2/3 cup of flour
1 cup white sugar

Crust (make first, when done place in a 350 degree oven for about 7-10 minutes, then place in freezer whilst making the filling):
2/3 cup cold butter cut into small chunks
1/2 cup white sugar
1 Tbsp of salt
2/3-1 cup flour
First add the sugar to the cold butter and mix with a fork until it looks like a clumpy mess. Add the salt. Then add bits of flour at a time and knead with your hands in a tupperware bowl. Press onto the bottom of a 9 inch springform pan in an even layer.

Strawberry Mixture:
Ideally use a food processor to pulse up all ingredients (I don't have one and just mashed the strawberries up in a bag until really mashed.)
1 cup strawberries
1 Tblspoon sugar
1 cap full of vanilla
1 Teaspoon of lemon juice
1 and 1/2 Tblspoons flour

When making the filling beat the cream cheese for a good 4-5 minutes until there are no lumps. This no lump thing is important as lumps mess up the consistency of your cheesecake after its baked. Add the sugar and beat together until well mixed. Add half and half, vanilla and mix. Then add eggs, one at a time, mixing on low speed until well incorporated into the batter. Finally, add your flour and mix on low speed!
Take your crusted springform pan out of the freezer, add the batter. Drop the strawberry mixture in drops around the pan in an even spread out fashion. To make the strawberry look marbled in the batter drag a knife through the dots like you are playing connect-the-dots! Bake your cake in a water bath at 375 degrees for about 50 minutes to an hour. To avoid cracking leave in the oven with the door open for about 1-2 hours. Refrigerate overnight ideally! AND DEVOR YUM and yay for cheesecake!

This is unbaked, I forgot to snap a picture of the final!

Apple Pie, Oh My!

Spring Break 2011: New car (BRAND NEW, like woah this is a huge step for me, RIP Snapper!)+lots of homework+Hockinson Hills+hungry family=homemade apple pie YUM! Sorry but I won't even attempt to give you a recipe for this because this is yet another case of me not following a recipe. In all honesty it came out tasting a little floured down to me, but you betta believe that it's gone completely post 20 minutes out of the oven!

Unbaked Pie; looks better

Apple Pie Baked

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake FIGHT!

Ok so in lou of the fact that anxiety week is partially over, I have a few dollas to my name, and a chocolate craving that must have been caused by the DEVIL..I decided to make some Chocolate Chip Cookie Cheesecake bars for an after dinner dessert. Ummm can you say YUM people YUM. I really really like cheesecake. So for this adventure:

Crust Ingredients:
1 stick of melted butter
1-1 and 1/2 cups flour
1/3 cup granulated white sugar
1 teaspoon salt
Basically mix the flour, sugar and salt together well, add butter and you should have a dough-like clump after mixing/hand kneading well. Press mixture onto the bottom of a 9 inch round spring form pan and bake in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 8 minutes. Put into the refrigerator to cool while you perform subsequent steps...

I scoured the bottom of the crust with a fork before baking it!

Cookie Dough Ingredients:
1 cup of brown sugar
2/3 stick of melted butter
1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 cup chocolate chips
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup of flour
Mix brown sugar with melted butter in a medium sized mixing bowl. Mix in vanilla, salt, flour and then chocolate chips. Refrigerate cookie dough until cheesecake mixture is complete!

Cookie Dough guiltiest pleasure

Cheesecake Ingredients:
2 8oz. packages of cream cheese
3/4 cups granulated white sugar
1/2 cup almond milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 cup flour
2 eggs

Mix cream cheese until well-whipped with a hand mixer [or if you have a bomb.com roommate like Kiah a kitchen aide!]... mix in sugar and then almond milk. Add vanilla, mix, and then beat in eggs on low speed one at a time, add flour.

To assemble pour cheesecake mixture and spread evenly with a spatula on top of the crust mixture in the spring form pan. Add 1 inch thick mounds of cookie dough mixture in a uniform manner around the pan and re-even the top with spatula. Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until done in 350 degree oven. Refrigerate until completely cool and EAT umm like a cookie monsta!

So they turned out more like an actual cheesecake...no sadness to me over here. Cheesecake alsdkfjasdlkfj!

Cheesecake fights are the funnest

True to the Marion family name: Draedel at his finest, workin on those hips

Growing Up Blues

Results in what: serious anxiety. Formula to decrease or balance:
1)  Seriously good tunes...new favorite I'm a lady by Santogold...yeah it's probably one of those overplayed on the radio tunes but when you don't have a radio...
2) Dancing
3) Good old time favorite Smitten Kitchen Recipe
4) Favorite past time background motion picture

I know I know Mr. camera phone isn't cutting it for me either

 Chocolate Chip Banana Blondies:
 2 eggs
2 sticks of butter (yuck I know)
1 cup brown sugar
2 cups of flour
1-2 bananas
1 and 1/2 cups melted chocolate chips
-9 inch round or square pan
So mix all your wet ingredients together thoroughly and then add your dry ingredients a little at a time mixing in between each addition. Mash up the nanner's and add chocolate chips (you can melt these and swirl like I did if you want a marbled technique!!!). Mix these into the batch. Bake at 350 degrees for about 30-40 minutes or until done. And walla you will have the latest addiction. Gosh I love to bake. 

Sooo I get this a lot...

The typical A) how can you really be a "health freak" and B) how the askl;dfj do you stay in shape and bake like you do...[this is mainly from my mother, sister, people close within the kitchen's proximity]...you see it's complicated really. Here food can be a tool, we have it readily available and spend time perplexing over that ad we saw last night on the www.com about Organic Yummy Chocolate Truffles (only 100 calories), don't get me wrong it's not that the internet is a terrible thing. I'm really going to attempt to take the time to navigate myself around it [I have pop ups people...is this a bad thing?]. I'm just saying you have to make sure you trust where you're getting your infoinfo from. I'll admit it food freaks me out. There. Not scarred to say it, food freaks me out because there are things in it I don't want in my body, chemicals like the new corn sugar [aka high fructose corn syrup]. Food freaks me out because if you're lucky you can eat whatever you want, and if you're not so lucky...well that can be even worse, you'll eat what's around and what's cheap [that's not a bad thing, it's just that what's cheap is not good for you, we all know that when Taco Bell or a Ronald MacDonald I'm A Scary Clown Guy with fries sounds betta than anything else in the world at that particular moment]...guilty as charged...def not perfect over here. I dunno, guess what I'm really trying to say (personal Michael Pollan style) is, "Eat food, in the right amount". The smartest man I know once told me that everything is good in moderation. I believe him for sursies. I think that's what the Italians would say to this bomb Americanized-lets-add-strawberry-extract cannoli...eat 1 daily (QD,,,medical slang) or if you are PMSing 1.5.

Random Odds N' Ends

So figuring that I'm new to this whole blog thing I think I should be entitled 2 posts on my first night... this post features a bunch of baked goods I have made in the past...maybe it will inspire you to keep reading and stay tuned for when my next "I wanna bake" strike happens [don't worry I can't go more than a week without spending some quality time in the kitchen].

Chocolate Swirl Cheesecake

Chicken Marsala Pizza [Nick's Specialty], Espresso Swirl Cheesecake & Vino!

Pumpkin Swirl Cheesecake [Made this for Thanksgiving and the eggs were over a month old...we're still alive!]

Blueberry Compote Cheesecake

Handmade Mini Chocolate Chip Cannolis--->Italiano!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake [This one was HUGE!]

Blueberry Cheesecake Swirl Brownies

So tomorrow is officially Valentine's Day....I used to groan every time this holiday rolled around as I found myself in the depths of lamo relationship-less blues. However, this Valentine's Day is special because I find myself actually in a relationship, a gooooooodddd one at that:)...did you know that chocolate contains phenylalanine, aka the human body's natural antidepressant. No wonder almost everyone I know is obsessed with it...so in lou of these two concepts I decided to go ahead and make blueberry cheesecake chocolate chip brownies. YUM... I didn't really follow a recipe, but I'm hoping they turn out anyways. Oh btw the whole "I didn't follow a recipe" will be a pretty common posting in this blog but I will do my best to provide you with some sort of guideline for each post...so here goes.../also get yourself a new playlist to make these guys it's kinda time consuming and don't forget to dance folks:

For the Blueberry Cream Cheese Part:
1 pkg (8 oz.) cream cheese
1 egg
1/3 cup of granulated white sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla
2-4 Tablespoons of blood orange zest (depends on how tangy you want this)
8 oz. fresh blueberries
2 Tablespoons of brown sugar
1/3 cup all purpose flour

Kiah n' Cody Secretly Love Me

So first for the blueberry juice base; start by mashing the blueberries in a tupperware bowl with your hands or a fork (if hands freak you out). When blueberries are sufficiently mashed add brown sugar and orange zest, mix well then strain this mixture to separate out the juice. Refrigerate.
Next beat cream cheese until smooth, add your granulated sugar, mix well on a high speed for about 2-3 minutes. Then add your vanilla and egg mixing on a lower speed so as not to incorporate air (this will contribute to cracking your cheesecake). Finally add your flour and mix, then add the blueberry juice and stir to incorporate fully. Refrigerate.

Brownie mixture:
4 eggs
8 oz. semisweet baker's chocolate
1 and 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate
8 oz. salted butter
2 teaspoons salt
2 and 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1 and 1/2 Tablespoons baking powder
1 Tablespoon baking soda
2 cups granulated sugar
2 Tablespoons vanilla

Otay first things first melt the butter and bakers chocolate in a saucepan stirring the entire time over medium low heat. Pour this mixture into a bowl, add your granulated sugar, vanilla, and salt...mix about 2 minutes until completely blended together. Then add your eggs one at a time mixing after each addition. Add baking soda, baking powder and flour and mix until everything is together without lumps. Finally, add your semisweet chocolate chips to this mixture. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cover a 9 by 13 (or a little bigger if you have it...poor college kid=lack of proper sized pan) with tinfoil up the sides (this prevents sticking). Pour batter into pan and even out. Then dollop blueberry cheesecake mixture in circles around the pan and swirl with a knife [I messed this up hence the lack of proper swirl in the photos]. Bake in oven for about an 60 minutes until knife in center comes out clean. YUUUUMMMMM!!!!!!

Addition of chocolate milk courtesy Cody

So I'm supposed to bring these to school...I don't want to though!