Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake Bars

14 August, 20138 July, 2014Marissa

The oven is back! As of last Wednesday afternoon, I’ve been able to bake. I promptly made bow-tie pasta, chocolate chip cookies, easy bread sticks, and now I can finally share these cheesecake bars. The crust came from this recipe, and I borrowed the filling from this Annie’s Eats recipe. The first time I made it and took it to church, I received several compliments on the flavor. In particular, people liked the shortbread crust as an alternative to graham cracker.

Warning: do not attempt to substitute wax paper for parchment paper. It refuses to come out of the pan. Aluminum foil would work much better, I think.

Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake Bars

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Shortbread Crust

1 cup butter

2 cups all-purpose flour

½ cup confectioners’ sugar

Preheat oven to 350°F. Prepared a 9”x13” baking dish with a parchment paper sling. Cut the butter into the flour and confections sugar and press into the baking dish (I use the bread hook attachment on my hand-held electric mixer). Bake 20 minutes or until light brown. Let cool on wire rack.

Filling

2 (8-oz) packages cream cheese, softened

½ cup sour cream

¾ cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

pinch of salt

2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 pint fresh blueberries

Reduce oven temperature to 325°F.

In a large mixing bowl, combine cream cheese and sour cream with an electric mixer. Beat on medium speed until smooth. Add in the sugar and beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 1-2 minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Blend in vanilla, salt, and lemon juice. Fold in blueberries gently with a spatula until evenly incorporated. Pour mixture over the shortbread crust.

Bake for 35 minutes or until just set and the center no longer jiggles when the pan is tapped. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool to room temperature. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours before removing from pan using parchment paper. Cut into bars and serve.

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No-Bake Blueberry Cheesecake

17 July, 201317 July, 2013Marissa

This is one of my favorite summer dessert recipes. As soon as the blueberries start getting ripe, I start stocking up on cream cheese so I can make this wonderful little cheesecake. It will not work with frozen blueberries, so this is the only time of year we get to eat it. Aside from tasting great, it is ridiculously easy to make. Just make or buy a crust, beat cream cheese with sugar, toss the blueberries in sugar, put it all together and pop it in the refrigerator.

Usually, I just make a graham cracker crust for this cheesecake. This time, however, I didn’t have enough graham crackers and found a substitute crust. It stuck the the pan, but I’m hoping that can be overcome because the taste was better and it didn’t fall apart. I’ve included it in this version of the recipe.

Fresh Blueberry Cheesecake

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Crust

½ cup flour

½ cup graham cracker crumbs

5 Tablespoons butter, melted

3 Tablespoon brown sugar

Mix all crust ingredients in bowl and press into a greased, 9-inch pie pan. Set aside.

Filling

2 (8-oz) packages cream cheese, softened

¼ cup brown sugar, packed

In small mixing bowl, beat cream cheese and brown sugar with an electric mixer until smooth. Spread the filling over the crust in the pie pan.

No-bake fresh blueberry cheesecake — The finished cheesecake

Topping

2 cups fresh blueberries

2-3 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

In a bowl, toss the blueberries in sugar and lemon juice. Spoon blueberries over cheesecake. Place finished cheesecake in the refrigerator and chill for at least two hours before serving.

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Daddy’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

16 June, 20138 July, 2014Marissa

First, I feel like I should explain something about the last post not having a title. I didn’t catch it until it was posted to Facebook, and by that time my subscribers had already received an e-mail with a cryptic number in the subject line. If you, like my mother, reread the article obsessively trying to figure out what that number meant, I apologize.

My dad had two requests for Father’s Day: deviled eggs and chocolate chip cookies. There are certain people I associate with different foods — my mother with Caramel Apple Coffee Cake, snickerdoodles with a friend, sugar cookies and Grandpa — and chocolate chip cookies will always make me think of my daddy. It is such a wonderful ego boost to be baking these cookies and have him come through the kitchen and tell me how amazing they smell and what a wonderful daughter I am. I suppose baking chocolate chip cookies is one of my ways of telling him what a wonderful father he is.

Real Chocolate Chip Cookies

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1 cup butter, softened

¾ cups sugar

¾ cups brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

2 ¼ cups flour (I use 1 cup whole wheat and the rest white, unbleached)

6-8 ounces chocolate chips.

In a large bowl combine butter sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla. stir until creamy. Beat in eggs, one at a time.

Add baking soda and salt, then stir. Gradually add flours. Mix well before stirring in chocolate chips.

Drop by rounded spoonfuls of dough onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 375°F for 7-9 minutes, or until the edges are just starting to turn golden brown.

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Zucchini Bread

10 June, 20138 July, 2014Marissa

This recipe comes from an old cookbook of my mother’s. It’s been used so much that the front and back covers are missing and the page for zucchini bread is so stained it’s getting hard to read. I’m not sure if it’s because of the original recipe or just the slight adjustment’s we’ve made, but I’ve never seen or tasted zucchini bread quite like this. It’s dark and moist and has a really nice texture.

I made these loaves to take for after-church snacks, but we accidentally left the plate at home. It’s not going to be too much of a hardship to eat them all by ourselves though, and it does freeze pretty well if we need to pop some of it in the freezer.

Zucchini Bread

3 eggs

2 cups brown sugar

1 cup oil

2 tsp. vanilla

2 ½ cups flour (I use 1 cup whole wheat, 1 ½ cup all-purpose)

2 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp salt

3 tsp. cinnamon

2 cups grated, raw zucchini, no seeds (frozen or fresh works equally well)

1 cup chopped walnuts

Beat or whisk the first four ingredients in a medium bowl. Add dry ingredients and mix with a silicon spatula or wooden spoon. Mix in nuts and zucchini.

Pour batter into 2 greased loaf pans. Bake at 350°F for 50-60 minutes or until toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.

Sabbath In The Woods

1 June, 201316 November, 2014Marissa

This Sabbath is our local church group’s bi-annual meeting in a log cabin (it’s a very nice cabin made out of old pine electric poles with meeting room and a kitchen). We have a potluck (I baked blond brownies) and, if the weather holds, we’ll have a chance to go walking on some lovely hiking trails.

I don’t think there’s any better place to spend the Sabbath than surrounded by the beauty of God’s creation. “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth His handywork,” and the same can be said of the earth (Ps. 19:1).

For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse (Rom 1:20).

This passage always amazes me. It seems to be saying that even if we didn’t have the Bible, there’s enough evidence in the world around us to reveal God. And yet, the people who spend their lives studying the world come up with some pretty bizzar theories to explain away God. For example, here’s a passage from Michio Kaku’s Physics of the Impossible:

There are scores of “accidents” involving the constants of nature that allow for life. Apparently, our universe lives in a “Goldilocks zone” of many parameters, all of which are “fine-tuned” to allow for life. So either we are left with the conclusion that there is a God of some sort who has chosen our universe to be “just right” to allow for life, or there are billions of parallel universes, many of them dead. (page 240-241)

What amazes me is that when confronted with the option to believe in God or the multiverse, so many people would rather believe “there are trillions upon trillions of possible universes” (page 239). If this version of string theory were correct, these universes are like soap bubbles floating in “eleven-dimensional hyperspace. These bubbles can join with other bubbles, split apart, and even pop into existence and disappear” (page 239). And apparently this makes more sense than believing in God.

Perhaps Dr. J Budziszewski was right when he said, “Though it always comes as a surprise to intellectuals, there are some forms of stupidity that one must be highly intelligent and educated to commit” (Escape from Nihilism).

Applesauce Cake With Cinnamon Frosting

4 May, 20138 July, 2014Marissa

I’ve been writing two blog posts, but I decided on this one for today, since it’s been a while since I posted anything about food (and I know about half my subscribers are more interested in cooking than commentary). We opened a can of our homemade applesauce yesterday that tasted a bit scorched, so I decided to bake with it. Hence, the Spiced Applesauce Cake will be coming to church with us today and shared at the snack table. I confess, I ate some for breakfast this morning. It tastes good warm, but it’s even better after cooling overnight.

Spiced Applesauce Cake with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

Cake

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves (optional)

1 stick unsalted butter, softened

1 cup packed light brown sugar

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 large eggs

1 1/2 cups unsweetened applesauce

1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Frosting (makes enough for 2-3 cakes)

5 oz cream cheese, softened

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup confectioners sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter an 8- or 9-inch square or round cake pan (alternately, a double-batch can be baked in a 13”x9” baking dish).

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices.

Beat butter, brown sugar, and vanilla with an electric mixer at high speed until pale and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition, then beat in applesauce. At low speed, mix in flour mixture until just combined, then stir in walnuts (if using).

a piece of applesauce cake cinnamon cream cheese frosting — a piece of Applesauce Cake

Spread batter evenly in pan and bake until golden-brown and a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes. Cool in pan 15 minutes. Run a knife around edge of cake to loosen, then invert onto a plate (larger cakes can be left in pan). Reinvert cake onto a rack to cool completely.

Beat cream cheese, butter, and vanilla with an electric mixer at high speed until fluffy. Sift confectioners sugar and cinnamon over cream cheese mixture, then beat at medium speed until incorporated. Spread frosting over top of cooled cake.