You Know You Want A Piece

We kicked off birthday season at our house this past weekend. Yes, we have a birthday season. There are 365 days in a year and I managed to marry a man whose birthday is 3 weeks before mine. Then I had a daughter 5 days before my birthday and a son 12 days after my birthday. If you are as slow on the math as I am, that means that from our first family birthday until our last is only 36 days.

Naturally where there are candles, there is cake. Cheesecake to be more precise. Cheesecake has always been Matt's favorite dessert so when we got married his mother shared her recipe with me. I figured since every one always went on about how incredible her cheesecake was that she must have some kind of secret family recipe. I envisioned it being written down on sacred parchment or etched into two stone tablets to share with future generations. Imagine my shock when she handed me a photocopy of a page out of a cookbook. Not only that but it's wicked easy to make. So easy in fact that I showed Mallory how to make it this year (in keeping with the list). Then I thought to myself, wouldn't it be wonderful if everyone in the world could make this top secret cheesecake. Imagine the possibilities. I see world peace on the horizon.

Now I'd like to give credit where credit is due but I have no idea what cookbook this recipe came out of. I do know that the recipe is on page 216, so if you ever find a cookbook with a cheesecake recipe on page 216 that's the right cookbook. To sum up, it is not mine, nor is it my mother-in-laws. It belongs to some unnamed publisher. And now we are clear.

Cheesecake: Nectar of the Gods (and everyone else)

Step One*: Put on a dress and do your hair while you let 3 8oz pkgs of cream cheese soften on the counter for an hour. Once they are softened you may put all the cream cheese into a large both and "beat until creamy".

* Technically step one is to make the crust but I have enough carbs and sugar in my diet so I always skip the crust part. If you want the crust recipe you can just e-mail me.

Step 2: Once the cream cheese is creamy and you've added the 1/4 tsp of vanilla and 1/4 tsp of grated lemon peel to it (or you could just skip the grated lemon peel like I doas I can't be bothered with things like purchasing and grating lemons), mix together 2 tbs of flour, 1/4 tsp of salt and the most precious of ingredients: 1 cup of sugar in a separate bowl. Once you've skillfully combined the dry ingredients you should "gradually blend into cheese". Or you could do it like I do and dump it in all at once and let a five year old go at it with an electric beater.

I would just like to take a moment to wonder why we had to use a second bowl to mix ingredients that we turn around and immediately add to the first bowl? I feel this is some kind of conspiracy to make me wash more dishes. I'm on to you, evil mystery cookbook publishers.

Step Three, I think, this might be step four but I've rambled so much I've lost track:  Add two eggs and one eggs yolk all at once. This is the trickiest step as adding three eggs at once requires all six of my hands and you may not have that many. Also I wanted to point out that this recipe calls for egg YOLK and not egg white. Not that I'd ever make a rookie mistake like that...

Let your five year old "Beat until just blended." and remind her for the 57th time not to lift the beater out of the bowl while it's running. 

Step Seventeen: Measure out a 1/4 cup of milk. I find it's easiest to use a 1/2 cup measuring cup (because it's readily available) and then let your five year old sip it down to what I'm kind of positive was a somewhat precise 1/4 cup.

Pour the milk in with everything else and blend yet again. Notice that your fire extinguisher is surrounded by a fire hazard and ignore the situation.

Speaking of fire, you should have probably pre-heated your oven to 450 about 19 steps ago. Also I forgot to mention that you should have wrestled your warped spring form pan into submission so that you can pour the cake batter into it. You can do that now if you like. It's generally recommended to have the pan together when you pour in the batter.

Once you have put your assembled spring form pan with the batter snuggly nestled into it into the oven, force your family to pose together while they lick the beaters and spoon.

Lick the bowl while no one is looking.

Relax with your dad and a Triple H action figure and watch some DVRed Wrestlemania. Don't worry about your Cheesecake in the oven.

The King will keep an eye on it and reduce the oven temp to 300 after ten minutes of cooking for you.

He'll even take it out of the oven 55 minutes after reducing the temp. Of course if he were to say insert a knife into the center of the cake and it came out with uncooked batter on it, he would no doubt give it five more minutes. Then he would definitely let it cool for 15 minutes and then run a butter knife between the cake and the pan to loosen it before he removed the sides of the pan.

Really, The King is an invaluable part of this process. I'm actually starting to feel a little bad that I didn't let him lick one of the beaters.

Now you should eat the Cheesecake. You can add cherries if you like or you could add fresh strawberries like we did (they are Matt's favorite). If you can't eat it immediately you could put it into the fridge until you can attack it with fervor.

Once you've consumed your family's combined weight in calories, write a exceptionally long blog post about your experience.