Strawberry Cheesecake

I ended up going shopping with my mom and my sister for Mother's Day and happened upon a steal of a deal for some springform pans (which I already had my hopes up on finding some) so of course I needed to try those out and found this awesome-ly awesome recipe. It was easier than I thought it would be for sure (I've always heard how difficult cheesecake is) and I thought it turned out really really well. You will need:

1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs

1/4 cup sugar

1/3 cup butter, melted

20 oz frozen sweetened strawberries, thawed
1 Tbsp cornstarch
3 pkgs (8 oz each) cream cheese, softened
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1/4 cup lemon juice
3 eggs

1. Combine crumbs, sugar and butter. Press into the bottom of an ungreased 9 in springform pan. Refrigerate 30 minutes.
2. In a blender or food processor, combine strawberries and cornstarch. Cover and process until smooth. Pour into saucepan; bring to a boil. Boil and stir for 2 minutes. Set aside 1/3 cup sauce. Let cool. Cover and refrigerate sauce for serving.
3. In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in milk. Add lemon juice, mix well. Add eggs, beat on low until just combined. Pour one half of cream cheese mixture over crust.
4. Carefully(!!) spoon or drizzle reserved 1/3 cup of strawberry sauce over cheese mixture. Gently pour remaining cream cheese mixture over strawberry sauce layer. Drop remaining strawberry sauce by 1/2 tsps on top. With a knife, cut through top layer only to swirl sauce.
5. Bake at 300 for 45-50 minutes or until almost set. Cool 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack. Run knife around edge to loosen crust. Let cool 1 more hour. Refrigerate overnight. Remove side of pan to serve.




One thing I changed here was that I did not drop the sauce by tsps on the top. I carefully covered the whole top with the strawberry sauce instead.

Freestylin'!

This was something that caught my eye because first off, I love green apples, and it was like a pie but not. :) It's called a Freestyle Apple Tart, I'm assuming that's because it doesn't have the traditional tart base. You will need:

1 ready to use refrigerated pie crust

4 oz cream cheese, softened

3 (1 1/2 lb) granny smith apples, thinly sliced

1/4 cup sugar

2 Tbsp flour

1 tsp cinnamon sugar

1 cup thawed Cool Whip

1. Heat oven to 450. Line a 9-inch pie plate with crust. Carefully spread cream cheese in 6-inch circle in center.

2. Toss apples with sugar and flour; spoon over cream cheese

3. Fold crust partially over apples. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Bake 25 min, covering loosely with foil for last 5 minutes. Cool. Serve with whipped topping. Refrigerate leftovers.

So where to begin? Of course, obviously, this is an EASY recipe. There's really very little actual work involved so already it's getting a thumbs up from me! I think I misjudged the amount of apples I really needed (I went by the weight instead of quantity) and felt like my apples were just a huge mound, because then the pie crust wouldn't really fold up over them. Also, the apples on top then got a little more done than the other apples because they were so much higher and not protected by the crust. I also don't like whipped cream so I didn't add that at the end. I think I would prefer a vanilla or cinnamon ice cream instead. I will definitely make this again, but go a little lower on the number of apples I used.

Cherry Pie from Scratch

I decided it was time to try something a little more challenging this weekend... My grandmother has always made her own pie crust from scratch and I've attempted it once before but the pie part didn't turn out. It's not a difficult recipe but she's made it for so many years the recipe is more, "Oh a little of this and a little of that until it looks right." Kind of hard to duplicate for someone like me who loves exact measurements. But on top of that challenge, I also wanted to try to do something a little more exciting than just a can of fruit filling so I started researching and found a recipe for cherry pie from scratch and thought, that's perfect! So here goes:

You will need:

1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie (I used my grandmother's recipe, you could also use a frozen pie shell)

1 20 oz can sour pitted cherries (I couldn't find a 20 oz can so I used 2 14.5 cans)

1 cup sugar (I actually changed this down to about 3/4 cup)

1/3 cup all purpose flour

1/8 tsp salt

2 Tbsp butter

1/4 tsp almond extract

1/4 tsp red food coloring, optional (I did not use this)

1 egg white

1. Preheat oven to 425. Make pastry and refrigerate.

2. Drain cherries, reserving 1 cup liquid. In saucepot, combine sugar, flour, and salt. Stir in cherry liquid and bring to a boil, stirring often. Reduce heat and simmer for about five minutes; mixture will thicken.

3. After thickening, add butter, almond extract, food coloring if used and cherries. Cover and refrigerate.

4. On a lightly covered surface, roll out half of pastry into an 11-inch circle. Put into a 9-in pie dish. Roll out remaining dough and cut into 8, 1/2 inch strips.

5. Pour cooled cherry mixture into pie dish and place 1/2 of strips horizontally and the remaining four vertically across the top of the pie. Brush with egg white. Bake 30 to 35 minutes and cool before serving.

Ok so what were my thoughts? I really liked this pie! :) There was a really nice flavor and it went well with the crust I thought. I did change a few things. It didn't taste very tart to me so I added about 1 tsp of lemon juice to the cherry mix as it was cooking. I also didn't use the egg wash because of the type of pie crust I used. Instead of doing a lattice, I rolled out my second part of dough and used a star shaped cookie cutter to cut out some stars to decorate the top of the pie. Make sure when you bake this pie you put a cookie sheet down underneath - my had some boiling over issues. Overall I felt this pie was a success and would DEFINITELY make it again!