Monday, June 21, 2010

Baking like Betty

This weekend I had a get together with my college girlfriends for one of our, what we like to call "wine days". It started about a year and a half ago as a time to get together just girls, cook good food, have a few drinks and just have a good time. Now with two of us married (and pregnant) one engaged and the rest of us finally having found good men worthy of being boyfriends, we decided to nix the wine for once and just have a fun filled BBQ get together and bring all the boys along too. I had my heart set on making a dessert, because who doesn't like dessert? And at first I was content with making cupcakes (even though, knowing me, they would be made-from-scratch-over-the-top-perfect cupcakes) until I came across these babies. Of course Annie makes them look so much more delicious than my photos probably do, and I don't have a magical kitchen torch (or regular torch for that matter...) but I found that the broiler worked great!

Look at me all prepared, food network style, laying out all my crust ingredients.

True story: I love making things from scratch. Yes it is often harder than pre packages or pre-mixed but it is so much more fun to see the product develop in front of your eyes. Well worth all the effort, much like running.
Layer one, the crust, is a combo of graham cracker crumbs, butter, and sugar mixed together and pressed into a foil lined pan (sprayed with cooking spray). At first this seemed like overkill - and being one to rebel against direction I almost skipped the foil. Thank goodness I didn't it made extracting the bars from the pan SO easy!


Crust all mixed up and ready to spread into my pan. Smelled like Golden Grahams. Yum.


Bake crust for 10 minutes - Check


Recipe says "chocolate - finely chopped" I opted for "broken into pieces by hand" and it worked just fine.


My double boiler (for melting the chocolate) looks a tad disproportional and awkward


Time to make the cheesecake! Cream cheese, eggs, marshmallow creme, vanilla, and greek yogurt (I got adventurous and subbed sour cream with yogurt)

Here is where I get to brag about my Kitchen Aid mixer as if it was my first born child. I will gloat about the cookies, cakes and batters it has turned out as if they were academic achievements instead of a result of my hard work and ability to follow a recipe. I love my Kitchen Aid mixer, and I love any excuse to bring it out and whip a few ingredients together. It is to me, what Boyfriend's sports car is to him. It must always be cared for, cleaned shinned and polished. Now that you all think I am certifiably insane you can read about the rest of the my baking...


Go Speed Mixer!


Mixing in eggs, cocoa,


Last step is mix in that yummy melted chocolate and watch the creamy mixture turn into sweet chocolate cheesecake heaven.


My favorite part of all time was watching the mini marshmallows brown under the broiler.

As delicious as they looked I had to put them in the fridge for the night and wait until the next day to dig in. Although the boys couldn't keep straight exactly what they were, calling them time and time again "those brownies with stuff on top", I knew by the fact that I went home with an empty dish that they were a hit. Of course like my running I am never satisfied, thinking maybe I should tweak the cheesecake part to make it taste a little more chocolaty. But like any good run, I have to remind myself what's done is done and it was my best effort. Everyone was happy. Tomorrow is a new day. Who knew that running and baking had so much in common?


xx Sara

1 comment:

Lorraine said...

Looks sooooo yummy! I think I gained a pound just looking at the photos! :O Lorraine