On Cheesecake

I have a recipe for cheesecake I've used for several years now. I love it, its a perfect New York style cheesecake and I got the recipe from allrecipes.com. Its called Chantalls New York Style Cheesecake if you're interested...

Anyway, twice this summer I've craved cheesecake, but having a whole cheesecake in our house is kind of a pants splitting disaster. So I've made half batches, once in little muffin tins, and once in an 8x8 glass pan. And BOTH times I used a water bath because I don't like my cheesecake to crack across the top.

But seriously baking your cheesecake in a water bath actually changes the texture to more of a custardy thing. I mean this makes perfect sense because of all the steam and moisture, but I don't like it as much. I am giving up the water bath from now on and living with some cracks. My sis-in-law also told me not too long ago that making sure your cheesecake pan is well greased will help keep it from cracking.

Why? Well...

I made a double batch of cookie dough tonight while listening to Ben Kweller radio on Pandora. Why Ben Kweller you ask? Well, because a few weeks ago when my brother was in town we were talking about concerts and how its just not that appealing anymore. I did mention that I have always wanted to see Barenaked Ladies in concert. To my absolute surprise my Sean found a BNL concert in 2 weeks in NYC, and Ben Kweller is opening for them so I had to check him out. I like. He grew up in a small town in TX.

Why Barenaked Ladies you ask? Well, quite simply I just think they would be funny to see in concert. Like theres a really good chance that what you see will be significantly different and more entertaining than what you hear on the radio/in records. AND I am pretty sure anyone who was in highschool in the late 90's/early 2000's and was a tidge nerdy liked the Barnaked Ladies. You know you did.

And on a marginally related note, I discovered that Murphy is absolutely TERRIFIED of my kitchen aid mixer. Why is my dog afraid of my mixer you ask? Well despite being a doberman Mr. Murph is terrified of a great many things. Particularly though,a few weeks ago I tried to step over the baby gate(used to keep the dogs in the kitchen) while carrying my very large mixer. It ended in near disaster, I literally barely stayed on my feet and might have actually set the mixer down (kind of dropped it)somewhere in the process, and I scared his little dobie heart. I knew he was upset that day because he was shaking like a leaf. I had no idea how deep that fear ran until today when i got the mixer out again and he booked it out of the kitchen and didn't even reappear when I got his dinner ready. poor puppy.

That is it for now.

Finally, An Island.

I've wanted an island for our kitchen since we moved in here. I even did some research and picked out granite, but just the top was $600 plus I would have had to find a way to build/buy a base for it. Good news though, we went to ikea this weekend just for fun, and I found an island that was the perfect size!

As of Sat. I have effectively doubled the amount of counter space in the kitchen, and gained a little bit of open shelved storage. We did end up moving the green hutch from the long wall to the short wall (which I realize means nothing to you unless you've been here).

See its in a new place!

I have the bug to paint my cabinets again though... We'll see if I get brave enough.

And a quick note on ikea.... We had one in Houston for quite a while, and I went with my mom a few times a long time ago. I don't remember if we bought anything, but I remember thinking the furniture was "cool" but it definitely didn't fit my style. Sean had never been to Ikea, and I guess it came up at work this week because someone was buying a kitchen there. WHAT?? Well I was shocked when we got there and saw that they have absolutely changed or at least added to their furniture collections and have much more traditional things, and surprisingly low prices. AND they offer quite beautiful kitchens, you can literally buy your WHOLE kitchen at Ikea these days. If you've never been, its definitely worth a drive to experience, and man if you need to furnish your first apartment or I dunno, pick up a kitchen you can't afford NOT to go to Ikea.

THE COOKIES!

I spent the last week in Tupelo, MS (the birthplace of Elvis Presley) for my cousin's wedding, you know, the one where i had to make 600 cookies. Well, I bookened the wonderful week of visiting with family with two 17 hour roadtrips so I am pretty exhausted and will updated with more details later, but here are the finished gooms cookies for your enjoyment.

600 Cookies: Update1

Cookies Baked : 124 (undecorated crosses)

Casualties: 3 :)

Time Elapsed: aprox. 4 hours (for making dough and baking)

Butter: 2.5 pounds

Sugar: 6 cups

Eggs: 6

Flour: 18 cups

I've made 2 triple batches of dough, and sadly its taken more than I expected to get 124 cookies. I suppose I am being generous with the thickness though because these will be the favors and need to packaged and probably not handled as gently as the others. I baked the first set on Sunday and ate so much dough, was covered in so much sugar I swore I would never want another cookie or taste of dough again. WRONG. As I baked again yesterday afternoon I was quite content to taste away as I went. Some things never change.

All this baking comes at kind of a strange time (I don't want to say bad, because I really do enjoy it!). I have been exceptionally busy with work the last few weeks and this week am filling in for an engineer and "drive testing" all of my clients territory (DC metro area, Delaware and Eastern Maryland, and Southern NJ) with 2 antennas on my roof, a laptop and a spectrum analyzer in my front seat, and a pen and paper in hand. Its technically considered a 2 person job, but we are short of resources which is ok beccause anyone who rode with me would have to put up with my audio books... same goes for baking. So far its been Jane Eyre (for the 5 millionth time, and now the Lady of Milkweek Manor) yeah yeah I know you are itching to spend 10 hours a day in the car with me!

600 IS a lot of cookies, David.

And they are no longer for babies and brides. These cookies are all for a boy. Well for a boy to share with everyone at his wedding. And his wife to be picked them out, so maybe, just maybe, they qualify as a bride thing. :)

My sweet cousin in Mississippi is getting married in 22 days, and I am doing a bunch of cookies (aprox. 300) in lieu of a grooms cake. I happen to think this is a brilliant idea! And, they wanted cross cookies (aprox. 300) as favors at the reception as well. So my plan is to start baking this weekend (butter is currently on the counter) and freeze the cookies in various stages of decorated-ness and then drive down to Mississippi a few days before the wedding to put the finishing touches on the cookies and get them ready.

I've been debating WHEN to start baking because even though they freeze really well, I wanted them (and their guests) to have the freshest cookies possible... but this weekend the cookie madness begins, and I am SOOOOOO excited. I am pretty sure this (baking custom cookies) is what I am meant to do in life, and I am glad Miss Meghan is giving me an excuse to try my skill out en mass.

So dispite the fact that I've neglected this blog of late, these kinds of projects are the reason I wanted a flourblossoms blog... to keep track of the progress, trials and sucesses that come with making 600 cookies in 22 days. I intend to have my camera close by at all times and will hopefully be back soon with an update.

Until then, can you tell what all these are?

* bonus points if you "got" the title of this post.

Burried Treasure

* I have a few posts I want to make but lately I've been having a hard time putting ideas/words to computer so I thought I do a post full of pictures tonight*

I mentioned in the last post that we pulled up carpet in our living room and unburried some hardwoods. When my mom came into town a few weeks ago we totally redid the whole room and turned it into an office/sitting room.
ENJOY.


This is what it looked like with the old owners furniture.

And this is what it looks like today, needs a few finishing touches but I generally love it.

I may or may not have posed the pups on the sofa. The slipcovered sofa was also from the neighbors across the street.

More puppy models, and pictures our wedding photographer took of bald head island that my mom had framed for us.

I put mosaic glass tile around the fireplace, it was really quite easy and inexpensive.

For really inquiring minds, the wall color is Behr pebble path, and the trim is cotton whisper.