Howdy Kitchen: Gingerbread Cheesecake

At Christmastime, my love for mint grows about 100 times.  :)

I have made a few various mint-type cheesecakes.  And any that I have eaten, I have loved!

This year, after talking to a recipient of one of my free cheesecakes,

we decided to go with another traditional flavor for the holidays....

GINGERBREAD!

I haven't made a gingerbread cheesecake before, so was a excited about making this.

One ingredient I knew I would need....molasses. 

Since I wasn't sure about the other spices, I searched online and ended up with

Martha Stewart's Gingerbread Cheesecake recipe

as my inspiration for the recipe.

But, because I am me, I did change it up a bit...but not much.

I actually made 2, with 2 different crusts.

The first crust, I crushed up Keebler Gingerbread cookies.

The second, the remnants crushed up from the gingersnap cookies I made for the mini gingerbread cheesecakes.

Filling Ingredients:

4 8ox blocks of cream cheese, softened to room temperature

 1 1/2 cups sugar
4 oz sour cream

4 large eggs, room temperature

2 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup molasses
{I started with 1/4 of a cup, but it just wasn't enough for me.  So, if you aren't afraid, take a quick taste sample to see if you want to add more or not.}
1 1/2+ tsp ground ginger

1+ tsp ground cinnamon

1+ tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground cloves

Directions:

1.
  Preheat oven to 350 degrees, or whatever temp you have learned is best to bake your cheesecake.  I bake mine at about 315-325.  A lower temp, but for a few more minutes.

2.

Make crust.
I mixed about 2 cups of crushed cookies with at least 4 Tbsp of melted butter.

If it isn't moist enough to form the crust, just add more melted butter.

3.

Beat cream cheese with a mixer on medium speed until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in sugar, vanilla, and sour cream, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Reduce speed to low. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping sides of bowl as needed. Beat in molasses and spices. Pour filling into crust.

4.
Bake until cheesecake is set but still slightly wobbly in center, 60 to 65 minutes.
After removing from the oven, run a knife or spring form pan tool around edges of cheesecake to loosen the filling from the edges.
Let it cool on a wire rack. Refrigerate, uncovered, for at least 8 hours (preferably overnight).

Topping Idea:

Put a dollop of Cool Whip on each slice of cheesecake, topped off with a cinnamon red hot.
{For some reason, I think of little gingerbread people having red hots on them as buttons or something.}

Or better yet, make your own whipped cream!
I'm thinking even cinnamon whipped cream could be good.

Check out a chocolate whipped cream recipe I made and alter it to your liking,

or even this recipe from the Farm Chicks.

Whipped Cream Topping:

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1/4 cup powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon honey

Add all ingredients into a large {chilled} bowl and whip until stiff peaks form. 
Refrigerate any leftovers.

To make the mini cheesecakes, I used a Norpro 3919 Mini Cheesecake Pan that I ordered from Amazon back in May.  I haven't used this pan up until now, and hadn't even opened the packing up.  I knew I didn't want to lose the little bottoms of the pan.

But wouldn't you know, when I opened it up and unwrapped those little round things, 2 were missing! 
Now to see if I can get replacements for them. 

But that pan is pretty sweet!  I need to keep playing with it, to figure out how long to make the cheesecakes.  But everyone seemed to enjoy them today when I took them on my school visit {there were rave reviews from the counselors and secretaries}.

  :)

Enjoy!

Howdy Kitchen: Raspberry Berry Cheesecake

Have you had enough of my cheesecakes yet? 

I haven't!  :)

This time, I started by intending to make a raspberry swirl cheesecake.

However, after blending up raspberries that were a little on the frozen side, I changed plans.

Instead, I decided to take the raspberry slush and mix it in to the cream cheese filling.

I then added in some whole raspberries.

Let's just say, this was one tall cheesecake when I took it out of the oven.

It did eventually fall a little bit, but it still looked great!

Tonight, to finish off the cheesecake, I mixed up some homemade chocolate whipped cream.

Let me tell you......this was yummy!!!

Now, it is my goal to make this again {tomorrow morning!} and I'll share it with you all.

I have no idea why I haven't made it before.  It makes me want to attempt some other flavors now.  :)

Any suggestions for my next cheesecake?

Howdy Kitchen: Cheesecakes!

I have been in a cheesecake mood lately! 

I finally got to satisfy that need when I was asked to make a cheesecake for a friend's bridal shower a couple weekends ago.  

Both of these cheesecakes were new adventures for me, since I haven't made either of them before.

First up.....

{Key} Lime

Next up....

Raspberry Swirl 

Last night, at a connection group birthday party, I gifted a choice of a cheesecake.  If I remember correctly, that one will be blueberry. 

Lastly, back in February at a friends fundraiser for their upcoming adoption, I donated a couple of gifts of 2 cheesecakes.  One of those was finally called in on today...for this weekend.

It will be a raspberry cheesecake.  I haven't yet figured out if it will be swirl, mixed in, or whatever else I come up with.

One of these days, I am going to have to make one for myself, but of course share it with others!  The flavor I think I will make.....Strawberry Lemonade! 

YUM!

{The Howdy Kitchen is for hire to make cheesecakes for your upcoming party, celebration, family gathering, or just because you want one!}

Howdy Kitchen: Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecake

YUMMY!

This was some good cheesecake....if I do say so myself.  :)

I was informed on Friday (I believe) that I was on dessert duty for my connection group (Bible study).  However, I didn't have anything in mind.  So I sent a text back to my friend Kate and asked her what she wanted.  She told me she wanted peanut butter cup cheesecake.  So that is what I made.

I've never made this cheesecake before, but it was easy!  Well, for me anyway.  I love making cheesecakes.  I always enjoy a good excuse to make one.

Anyway, for the crust, I mixed together Oreos and the Fastco peanut butter cookies (that look like Oreos).  I did this because I didn't have enough Oreos, and thought a little peanut butter flavor in the crust would be just fine.

I chopped up what Reese's Peanut Butter Cups that I had.

I mixed up the filling with my Kitchen Aid.  This was the first time I used the Kitchen Aid on a cheesecake.  Let me tell you, it's AWESOME!  It was so fast.  No need to put down my wooden spoon or my hand mixer each time I needed to add something in.  I LOVED IT!.

Then I hand mixed in the peanut butter cup pieces.

Then dumped the filling in the spring form pan.  There was no pouring of this filling.  It was VERY thick. 

I'm guessing....because of the peanut butter.

Usually once the filling is in the springform, I just drop/tap the form on the counter a couple of times to even out the ripples....but that didn't happen today.  So I tried to smooth it out as best as possible.  But, I wasn't too concerned.  It was going to get covered up with some chocolate when all is said and done.

Finished product pre-cutting.  I didn't cut it until right before we ate it.  So I just left it in the springform.  Makes for easier travel that way as well.

16 slices cut. 

Believe it or not, some people even cut these slices in half!  It was a little rich.  But oh so yummy!

Yes.  I will most definitely be making this cheesecake again. 

I love it when I make a new cheesecake and actually get to try it!

Finally, I attempted to put together some sort of recipe for this.  Please know, I just usually do my own thing when it comes to cheesecakes.  I apologize for the recipe now.  Please let me know if you have questions or if something isn't making sense.

You can download the recipe here: PEANUT BUTTER CUP CHEESECAKE

Grinch Mint

Grinch Mint Cheesecake


I started with using a Philadelphia Classic Cheesecake Recipe, but made changes to it as I felt needed.

at least 1-1/2 cups crushed Mint Oreos
1/3 cup butter or margarine, melted
4 pkg. (8 oz. each) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
4 eggs
Andes Mints

PREHEAT oven to 325°F if using a silver 9-inch springform pan (or to 300°F if using a dark nonstick springform pan). Mix crumbs and butter; press firmly onto bottom of pan. (I finally went up the sides a little too. First time making it this way.)
BEAT cream cheese, 1 cup sugar and vanilla with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing on low speed after each addition just until blended. Pour over crust. (I also add a couple table spoons of flour. I know I read about it somewhere, and have done it since.) Once everything is mixed together, I added lime green food coloring (that is because my was all out of regular green.) After I got the color all mixed in, I added a good amount of crushed Andes Mints, and stirred it one last time.
BAKE 55 minutes or until center is almost set. Loosen cake from side of pan and cool.
TOPPING once the cheesecake had cooled, I added the ganache topping to it. Well, it isn't exactly your normal ganache recipe, but it worked. I wasn't originally planning on putting the chocolate on there, so did not get heavy cream from the store. I instead make a little mix of milk and sour cream. I got that simmering on the stove top, then added in about 5 or 6 Baker's Semi-Sweet Chocolate Squares. I let it set up a little bit to thicken, then poured it over the cheesecake. I then added more crushed Andes Mints to the edge of the cheesecake.

(Refrigerate 4 hours or overnight. Store leftover cheesecake in refrigerator.)



This cheesecake gets its name from its color. When I make mint anything, I usually like to color it just to let people know it is flavored. But since the green was all gone, I went with the next best...lime green. When I was cutting it, and my sister Gina saw it, she thought it looked like the Grinch. Therefore, I came up with Grinch Mint Cheesecake. It seems to suit it well.

Enjoy!!

Attention Cheesecake Lovers!

Over at The Pioneer Woman the other day, Ree posted a Caramel Pumpkin Pecan Gingersnap Cheesecake recipe. I will probably make a couple of changes to it to make it my own, but I haven't thought of adding caramel to pumpkin. So I'm excited to try this. I've done a few other variations of pumpkin cheesecakes, so this will be a new one I can add to my collection. I'll be making the cheesecake on Wednesday, so I can eat it on Thursday! If you'd like to try it, come on over to the farm on Thursday!