Cheesecake

I am a HUGE Cheesecake fan, and this is by far the best cheesecake I have ever had. Its baked (the way cheesecake should be made) and it is very creamy and tastes awesome.

Ingredients:

Crust:
1 pkg. graham crackers
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup melted butter

Filling:
2-8 oz. softened cream cheese (soften at room temp for 2-3 hours.)
1 1/2 cups sour cream
2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
2 tbsp. melted butter
2 tbsp. lemon juice
2 tsp. vanilla

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 325.
Combine crust ingredients in spring form pan, or pie plate.

Using a fork, mix together and shape into crust. Set aside.

In a blender, or food processor, combine all the filling ingredients until very smooth. No lumps people!

Pour the filling into the crust.

Bake at 325 for 35 minutes (or more) until cheesecake is set (doesn't wiggle in pan). No wiggling people. Refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight.

OBB Top Secret PB Cup Cheesecake Tarts

Okay...so I'm not sure if they'll post this on the Our Best Bites site or not, so I thought I'd better share it with you just in case. Since we're the honorary fan-club and all I figured they wouldn't mind.

 They are SO. GOOD.

Recipe from www.ourbestbites.com. Visit their site!!!

Hope you can read this....I was too lazy to type it all up, so I just scanned it. 

May need to click on the image and make it larger to read it well enough.

Cheese Soufflé

This is the Classic Cheese Soufflé Recipe from Betty Crocker.

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• Dash of ground red pepper
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese (4 oz.) *
• 3 large eggs, separated
• 1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
  
  When cooking, I like to use sharp Cheddar cheese because it always brings our the flavor a lot better.
  

Directions

Heat oven to 350. Butter 1-quart soufflé dish or casserole. Melt butter in 2-quart saucepan over medium heat. Stir in flour, salt, and red pepper. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until smooth and bubbly; remove from heat. Stir in milk. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Boil and stir 1 minute. Stir in cheese until melted; remove from heat.

Beat egg whites and cream of tartar in medium bowl with electric mixer on high speed until stiff but not dry; set aside. Beat egg yolks on high speed about 3 minutes or until very thick and lemon colored; stir into cheese mixture. Stir about 1/4 of the egg whites into cheese mixture. Fold cheese mixture into remaining egg whites. Carefully pour into souffle dish.

Bake 50-60 minutes or until knife inserted halfway between center and edge comes out clean. Divide souffle into sections on individual plates and serve immediately.

Cannoli

I have always wanted to try cannoli, but finding the perfect recipe was hard. I searched on many sites and in many books, and took a lot of tips from different recipes and here is what I came up with.

Cannoli

• 3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1 cup ricotta cheese
• 1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp finely grated orange zest
• 12 cannoli shells
• 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips, melted

Directions:

Dip ends of cannoli shells into melted chocolate. Lay on parchment paper to dry.
In a large mixing bowl, using a mixer on high speed, beat cream until stiff peaks form. Beat in ricotta, confectioners' sugar, vanilla and orange zest until well combined.

Place whipped cream filling into a piping bag and pipe mixture into shells. Lightly dust additional confectioners' sugar on top of cannoli (we forgot this step).

Makes 12 cannoli.

I think these were really yummy, but the filling was a little too thin. I think I may have added too much riccotta cheese. However, I did add more powdered sugar to try and thicken it, and it didn't seem to work. Still yummy though!