Bailey's Irish Cream Cheesecake

Bailey's Irish Cream Cheesecake Video and Recipe
Yield: 12 Servings

CRUST:
1 sleeve of Lorna Doone's Shortbread Cookies; crushed
3 oz Brown sugar
1 tsp Cinnamon
dash of salt
8 oz Butter; melted

FILLING:
3 lbs Cream cheese at room temperature; softened
1 c Sugar
3 tbs vanilla
3 tbs lemon juice
dash of salt
6 Jumbo eggs
1 c Bailey's Irish cream
(opional) 1 cup semi-sweet white chocolate chips

Crust:
Crumble shortbread cookies.  Add cinnamon, salt and brown sugar.  Mix with hands.  Add melted butter and mix.  Add to bottom of 12" spring form pan (sprayed with pan release spray).  Bake for aprx 10 min on 350 degrees F

Filling:
Mix cream cheese until fluffy in appearance.  Add Sugar, vanilla, salt, lemon juice and mix.  Add eggs one at a time.  After crust as baked and cooled poor half the batter on top.  The remaining half add bailey's and mix then add on top of 1st split batch. 

Bake on 350 degrees F for aprx 40 min or until toothpick can be poked in middle and come out clean. 

After cooling remove spring form pan and set over night. 

Review:

As for the actual cheesecake:

The crust: Turned out more liquidity as far as butter was concerned than hers.  After baking for 10 min and cooling it was still somewhat visibly liquid.  

The filling: My husband enjoyed the Bailey's taste.  At first, I thought it overpowered the cheesecake taste just a little too much but once it finish setting the taste was really creamy and rich.  We did have to bake it a little longer than the suggested 40 minutes as it hadn't solidified at the 40 min mark. 

I will try making a Baileys cheesecake again but maybe with a web recipe rather than a video.  But, feel free to try it and let me know whether your experience was similar or different.

Busy Moms' Peanut Butter Cookies

Sometimes, what deters me about cookbooks are that they seem to require a lot of time and ingredients.  I don't have much time these days and ingredients add up in $.  Since I been living on 1 income it has nurtured a VERY frugal side I never knew existed.  These cookies have become a family favorite (even my co-workers love them).  It's my favorite because it's simple, inexpensive and absolutely DELISH!!  Here's the recipe, our review is at the bottom (although it may already be obvious we like these):


1 cup peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
2 tbs vanilla


Preheat oven 350°F. Mix sugar, egg and vanilla together, then add peanut butter. (confession I love vanilla and don't really measure it but I think it's around 2 tbs) It feels like there should be more to this but really THAT'S IT! 

I like to form a giant ball and let it set for an hr or so in the fridge before forming into 1" balls and pressing with a fork. But, you can do it immediately afterwards, if you just can't wait.


*To prevent the fork from sticking just dip the fork in a little sugar.


Bake for 10 to 12 minutes at 350°F.  

Makes aprx. 2 dozen cookies

Our Review:  Everyone loves these cookies so all that's left to say is try it for yourself.  You can be as creative as you want with these by adding peanut butter morsels or M&M's.  For us we like to keep it simple as they hold their own weight as far as taste goes.  But, that is just our preference. 
is just our preference. 

Blueberry Swirl Popsicles

I guess, if I need an excuse to experiment with ice pops the extreme heat we have been enduring lately would be a perfect excuse.   If I need another excuse it would be the yummy looking popsicle on the cover of Martha Stewart's Everyday Food magazine August 2011 special edition.  Here's the Blueberry swirl recipe and feel free to scroll to the bottom for our review.


Makes 8

6 ounces blueberries (1 cup)
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup low fat plain greek yogurt
1 cup heavy cream


In a small saucepan, bring blueberries and 1/4 cup sugar to a boil over high heat.  Reduce heat and simmer, crushing berries against side of pan with a wooden spoon, until mixture is syrupy,3 minutes,  Transfer to a small bowl and refrigerate until cool, 30 minutes.


In a medium bowl whisk together 1/2 cup sugar, yogurt and cream until sugar dissolves, about 2 minutes.  Pour yogurt and blueberry mixtures alternating them into eight 3 ounce ice-pop molds, making 5 to 6 layers in each.  With a skewer or thin bladed knife, swirl mixtures together in up and down motion.  Insert popsicle sticks and freeze until solid, about 6 hrs (or up to 6 weeks)

Nutritional value per popsicle:


205 calories
12 gms of fat
7 gms saturated fat
3 gms protein
23 gms of carb


Our Review: These came out really good except I thought they were a bit too sweet for us since we don't really eat SWEET sweets. 

Olivia is use to sugar free (when available) 100% fruit popsicles, so it didn't seem odd that when she tried these she was displeased with the taste.  My niece and co-worker J LOVED them.  Co-worker K thought they were really rich and was only able to eat half in one sitting.  I on the other hand could definitely do with less sugar next time.  I think I may try this recipe 1 more time cutting out 1/4 cup of sugar from the yogurt mixture as to rely more on the fruit taste.