Hello everyone! So again I'm kind of failing at this baking and blogging stuff. It'd be soooooooo much easier if I had my own place. I could bake every single day if I wanted to. And I would bake a lot more.
My last baking venture was a joint effort with my friend Celia! We decided to make something Autumn-themed because it seemed appropriate. We tried our hand at Maple Cream Cheesecake Bars! I'm going to steal the recipe from her website (www.celiaperry.com) because A) she found the recipe to begin with, and B) we made the same thing so no need to try and find the original website myself. Let's see...hmmm. It's been so long since we've done it that I've kind of forgotten about the details. The recipe comes from the Wolcott Maple Products website.
Crust:
3/4 cup butter, softened
1/3 cup Pure Maple Syrup
1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
2 cups Flour
1/2 tsp Salt
Cheesecake
(2) 8 oz packages of Cream Cheese, softened
1/2 cup Sour Cream
2 Eggs
3/4 cup Pure Maple Syrup
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 tsp Lemon Juice
2 cups Chocolate Chips, melted
8 oz jar Pure Maple Cream
First cream the butter, then fold in the maple syrup and vanilla. Add the flour and salt and blend. Press into 9″ x 13″ pan. When Celia and I did this, we decided to break the dough apart and press the crust down bit by bit.
Next, pour the melted chocolate over crust. We used a double-boiler to melt the chocolate chips. Spread about 3/4 of the maple cream on top of the chocolate and set aside. Beat the cream cheese until light and completely smooth. Beat in sour cream, then eggs (one at a time). Gradually beat in maple syrup followed by vanilla and lemon juice. Pour over the chocolate and maple cream.
Bake for 15 minutes at 400° F, then reduce heat to 350° and bake for another 30 minutes. Apparently the website recommends chilling the bars before drizzling the chocolate and remaining maple cream on top, we couldn't wait for more than 15 minutes.
We had a bit o' trouble getting the chocolate to drizzle so we dipped forks into the melted chocolate and just kind of...splattered the chocolate on the cheesecake by moving the fork back and forth quickly. Then we ate spoonfuls of the melted chocolate.
As always, there is a learning experience to every baking endeavor. We couldn't find maple cream nor did we have any idea what maple cream was so we went without. We probably should've found some kind of maple cream because the bars were not very maple-flavored...but they still tasted delicious. You couldn't taste the maple but there is nothing wrong with chocolate cheesecake. :) Until next time...
Fire Away!
PICTURES!
Fire Away!
PICTURES!
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| Celia! |
