Peanut Butter Cheesecakes

Baking and I are back on good terms.  At least temporarily.  I came across this recipe for "healthier" cheesecakes on a blog (that for the life of me, I cannot remember.)  They were so cute and so easy and I thought, Why Not?  And boy, am I glad I did.  While there are substitutions to make them less "bad" for you - at the end of the day, we're still talking about cream cheese and peanut butter.  At the end of my count, I guesstimate about 200 calories each for these little loves.

• 18 sandwich cookies (I used golden Oreos)

• 16 oz neufchatel (1/3-less-fat) cream cheese, at room temperature

• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

• 1/2 cup granulated sugar

• 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

• 2 large eggs, at room temperature

• 1/2 cup 2% plain Greek yogurt

pinch of salt

Heat the oven to 275. 

Line a cupcake tin with liners.

One cookie goes in the bottom of each liner.

In a bowl mix the cream cheese and peanut butter until smooth. 

Use a spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl.  You'll need to do this frequently. 

Add in sugar and vanilla- mix until smooth.

Scrape, scrape.

Add in eggs - one at a time, mixing between each addition.

More scraping.

Add in greek yogurt and salt.

Taste.

Taste test again. 

Delish.  Give thumbs up approval to yourself for a tasty job well done.

Fill each liner nearly full - maybe 3/4, smoothing with spoon.  This should make enough for 18 mini cheesecakes.

Place into the oven for 22 to 24 minutes, until filling has set.  Cool.

These are best chilled.  If you set them overnight, the cookies soften a bit and make a softer crust.  If you get into these shortly after they come out of the oven, the Oreos will still be crunchy.  Which is really nice as well. 

Basically, you can't lose.   This is win, win for all.

Yum, Yum, gimme some!!

Golden Oreo crust!

Delish.

Cookie Dough Cupcakes (aka I am SOOO over baking.)



My inability to rotate this picture is similiar to my inability to
produce quality baked goods in my kitchen.

 I've decided that I am doing too much in life lately.... a lot of everything, but nothing really well.  I.e. I can't, for the life of me, get the photos in this blog to rotate today.  Nor can I ever get baking just right either.  I always think I have it down or I have done my research on how to perfect something and it never turns out.  I've had a weee bit of a sweet tooth lately and reading food blogs isn't helping curb that craving in the least bit.  I've seen a bunch of recipes lately for Cookie Dough Cupcakes and I've been thinking about them day in, day out. 

I mean, cookie dough?  Cupcakes?  FROSTING?  Heaven Help Me.  Who dreamt up such a glorious recipe?   The premise is that you take eggless cookie dough, freeze it in balls and drop it into cupcakes before baking.  The cupcakes rise around the cookie dough and when they are done, you bite into the cupcakes and are met with a cookie dough surprise. Almost sounds better than sexy time to me. 

Yeah.  I said it.  I really, really love cookie dough.


Separate batch of cookies
Awful glutton free cookie experiment gone wrong.
Recipe followed to a T.
Red flag #2



I needed a reason to make them and a co-workers birthday was just the excuse.  Due to the freezing of the eggless cookie dough, this is a two night process.

The first night, I whipped up the cookie dough and froze into tablespoon sized balls.  The problem was, once I made it and rolled it up, I realized that the brown sugar was sitting unopened on the counter still.  Which means, despite a recipe that heavily called for it, I had not put it into the recipe.  This was my first baking red flag of the night.  However, I just dumped the necessary sugar into a bowl and took all the cookie dough balls and mixed it all back up. Still tasted like cookie dough to me, so all good.  Fail avoided.

The next night, I got to work on the cupcake batter.  I then spooned the batter into the bottom 1/3's of the cupcake liners.  I then placed a frozen cookie dough ball on the batter and into the oven at 350 they went.  My first batch was a test batch of six cupcakes. 

Which turned out really lucky for me.  I went into the living room to watch an episode of Mad Love and promptly fell asleep on the couch for the next two hours.

With cupcakes, in the oven, at 350 degrees. 

The B's could have played hockey with these overbaked pucks.

Total failure.

But I persevered, as any baker would do, and I continued making cupcakes until 3 am.  I sampled my little heart through every batch and ate enough frosting to give me a sugar high for the next three weeks.  These don't look anything like the amazing ones I have seen around the web, here and here and esp more here.... but in the end, they turned out okay.  I even shared one with a man.  A man I sort of want to impress.  A man who is apparently a glutton for punishment, because he keeps calling.  Which might be sort of tied to my fabulous personality and my perfected white wine mushroom risotto and caramelized sea scallops.  Obviously.

Anyways, my baking days are over.  I would much rather pay $3 a cupcake at Sweet or any local bakery than stress over something I wasn't born to do.  Cooking is my thing.  Baking?  Well, I am breaking up with you baking. We're through.

But, you should make these cupcakes using any one of the recipes I have linked to in this post!  They are tasty treats and there's no way you can fare as poorly as I did.  Even if you do, we're still talking about frosting, cookie dough and cupcakes... how bad can they be? 

Dulce de Leche

I'm about to teach you lovely readers something amazing.  I almost didn't believe it myself.... until I actually did it.

Step 1:

Take a can of Sweetened Condensed Milk.  It costs about $1.19 or so at the store. 

Step 2 - Remove the label.

Step 3 - Bring to a boil in a pot of water- you can do more than 1, if they fit in the pan.  Make sure they are covered by an inch or so of water.  Bring to a boil and boil for about 15 minutes.

Step 4: Simmer for 2 to 4 hours.

I did mine for about 3 hours.  Carefully handling, they are hot.  Once they cool, take a can opener and open 'er up.

Now here's the amazing part:

I stole this picture from here

Ta-DA!  Homemade Dulce de Leche.  Doesn't it taste fabulous?  You should put in over ice cream.  On your cheesecakes. Straight up on a spoon.  This stuff is good.  Transfer to a container and it will lasts for weeks.  You could even jar it with a ribbon and give as gifts. 

How did I never ever know this secret before?  Mmmm....