Filed under: Food I Make, Food Made by Other Food Folks | Tags: Banana pudding, cheesecake, desserts, food, recipes, southern living
The magazine Southern Living has an effect on me. It either inspires me to change and rearrange my whole house and cook up a Southern storm, or I fall into a depression of knowing I can not measure up to its pages/standards. Sigh.
When I saw this recipe for banana pudding cheesecake in the magazine, for some reason, I decided to try it. I needed a cake for work and for a dessert auction at church. It looked so pretty and proper on the glossy, fancy pages. Plus, banana pudding and cheesecake in one dessert? I consider that miraculous. I knew I could never duplicate the cake exactly, but I was willing to try. My version would either be a disaster or the greatest thing ever.
Or, a mixture of both.
I followed the recipe the first time for work, and I decided after trying it that I needed to chop the bananas and the vanilla wafers in the crust smaller. Of course, the folks I work with will eat anything, and they ate most of the cake. Whether they ate it because it was delicious or just because it was there, I’ll probably never know. I liked it fine except for the overly chunky bananas.
I made this cheesecake again for a dessert auction fundraiser at church. The second time could have easily been the charm. Now, I wanted to help out with the cause at hand and participate to raise money for the youth of our church.
I also wanted to put some old women in their place. Last place.
*Evil laugh here.
I followed the recipe for this banana pudding cheesecake again this time chopping those bananas and vanilla wafers like nobody’s business. I also left off the cookies around the edges. They looked weird on the finished product. Those old women were going down.
At the auction, I presented my contribution beautifully and watched the price like a hawk. Success to me was having the highest price at the end of the silent auction even if no one else knew we were competing.
Old church women, take that.
In the end, my cake went for a nice sum of $40. It was not the highest price, dang it, but it was a lot more than several others. I consider that a victory of sorts.
It was all for the kids, anyway. Right.
It was fun to make this neat cheesecake, even if it was no where near the perfection found on the pages of the magazine.
I’ll be making this banana pudding cheesecake again someday. Old ladies, beware.
*Evil laugh one more time here.
Filed under: Food I Make, Random Foodie Thoughts | Tags: cheesecake, cheesecake dip, cheesecake recipes, food, recipes
Before Christmas, we found cheesecake dip at the grocery store and fell in love. It was so creamy and sweet and perfect. Yum.
We bought four or five of the small containers and ate and ate. We shared it with others and spread the culinary word far and wide. Then we noticed the dreaded, unfortunate words on the package:
LIMITED TIME ONLY.
Drats.
What to do? Could we live without cheesecake dip? Maybe, but I wasn’t about to find out.
Time to decode the dip and make a recipe to save the day.
The recipe:
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 T butter, also softened
1/4 T good vanilla. Don’t use the cheap stuff
1 heaping tablespoon marshmallow creme
1/2 c sugar
Mix the whole shebang and chill for twenty minutes.
Cheesecake dip is dipable with fresh fruit, cookies, or heck, your finger, but our favorite is mini vanilla wafers.
Enjoy!
Filed under: Food I Make | Tags: cheesecake, dessert, dessert recipes, easy dessert, food, recipe, sopapilla cheesecake
Foodie Friends, it is a great day. The sun is shining. The weather is cool. The leaves are starting to turn. Fall break is almost here. It can’t get much better.
Or maybe it can. Try this recipe and see.
Recently as part of a fundraiser at school, a student of mine won the opportunity to have a special lunch with three of her closest friends. She could have had any pizza, drink, and dessert she wanted. She, being the smart girl that she is, chose cheese pizza, Dr. Pepper, and the recipe I am sharing with you today made by me.
Somebody give that smart girl an A.
The recipe today is one of my all-time favorites. I first had it at a church dinner. At that dinner, I might have embarrassed myself by tracking down the maker of this wonder and interrogating her until she told me the recipe.
It was worth it.
This recipe is simple and scrumptious. It travels well and needs no fork or spoon. It is pretty as long as you allow it to cool before you cut into it. Otherwise, it will ooze and make a huge mess. After just a few bites, people will want to know the name of this awesome yet simple dish.
The name? Ollie’s Cheesecake. It’s named for my student who asked for it as part of her special lunch.
The recipe:
2 boxes of cream cheese, softened
1 cup of sugar
1 T good vanilla
2 tubes of crescent rolls, regular or seamless
1 stick of butter, melted
¼ cup or more of cinnamon sugar
In a sprayed jelly roll pan, evenly unroll one tube of crescent rolls to cover the bottom. In a large bowl, mix the cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla until smooth. Spread the cream cheese mixture evenly over the first crescent roll all the way to the sides. Top that evenly with the other tube of crescent rolls. Pour the melted butter over the whole shebang. Roll the butter evenly around and ooh and aah as you do. Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar evenly (again) over the top. I like a little more sugar than cinnamon my cinnamon sugar, so I sprinkle some extra sugar on top too. You don’t want too much here; just enough for a nice slightly crunchy layer. Too much cinnamon is not good.
Bake all of this at 350 for thirty minutes. It will poof beautifully. When it is ready to remove, allow it to cool for a while, but don’t wait too long. You’ll want a bite while it is still warm.
The Opinionated Foodie: The Love (or Not) of Food and Everything That Goes with It 