This week I made my very first cheesecake. It was somewhat successful. I’ve been interested in making cheesecake for a while but never think about it enough ahead of time. Also, the calories per serving for many cheesecake recipes is staggering. However, as I was looking through Chocolate and the Art of Low-Fat Desserts I saw that there was a recipe for cheesecake that had only 200 calories/serving. I was excited and decided to make it. However, it was just a plain cheesecake recipe. There weren’t any suggestions on what to serve with it. I was browsing allrecipes.com when I came across a recipe for Chocolate Turtle Cheesecake. Unable to avoid changing recipes, I immediately stuck the two cheesecake recipes together with a couple of other modifications .

I made the batter for the traditional cheesecake and then added 1/2 cup melted chocolate chips and 2 tbs unsweetened cocoa powder. It turned out very good. To add the caramel part of the Chocolate Turtle Cheesecake, I used 1/2 of my mother’s caramel recipe instead of melting caramel candy and poured it into the springform pan. I then put the nut on top of the caramel and poured the cheesecake batter on top of everything.

I had read that I should bake the cheesecake in a water bath. However, I didn’t have many pans that were big enough to fit around my 9″ spring form pan. Finally, I decided that the cheap roasting pans I use for granola would have to work. I put the roasting pan in the oven, placed my spring form pan in the middle and then filled the space in between up with boiling water. I then gently shut the oven door and thought good thoughts.

About a half hour later, Jaeger comes into the kitchen and asks, “why is there water dripping from the oven?” Turns out my granola roasting pans had holes in them. After panicking for a couple of minutes, I discovered that my large frying pan would also fit around the spring form pan (it’s oven safe up to 350 degrees). I wasn’t sure if the cheesecake would survive the trauma but it didn’t appear to have suffered any lasting harm.

Finally the cheesecake was ready to take out of the oven. I let it cool and then stuck it in the fridge for the mandatory 12 hour cool down.

The next night, I got the cheesecake out and attempted to cut it. Unfortunately, the caramel had become brick hard. A war ensued between the caramel and I. I won but chocolate cheesecake ended up smeared all over my kitchen counters.

While the cheesecake was very good, I think it would be better not to include the caramel next time. Next time, I plan to use the main Chocolate Cheesecake recipe and then maybe top it with a raspberry whip cream topping of some sort.

My mom came to us this weekend. She’s tends to eat vegan so I thought it would be fun to try making a couple of vegan recipes. Friday night, I made Beet & 3 Bean Soup. This soup was very nutrient filled but was strange and didn’t taste terribly good. On the upside, I had concocted a vegan Lemon and Raspberry Muffin recipe that turned out remarkably good for just throwing ingredients together

Saturday I tried another experiment, a apple-pear pie in a low fat crust. The filling part turned out okay (though I had fewer pears in it than I originally planned) but the low fat crust was not good.

Sunday, I made Hummus with Roasted Vegetables. I originally got the idea from a meal we had in London at Hummus Bros. It’s pretty good but I think I should add some more vegetables (maybe onions and tomatoes?) next time.