Caramel Cheesecake Bars

Janet here: I wanted to make these cheesecake bars the second I saw their picture in the new cookbook by Alice Medrich called Chewy, Gooey, Crispy, Crunchy (Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies). And that was before I learned that the crust was made of shortbread! After that, I was a woman on a mission.

These are seriously unbelievably good. I'd write more about this but that would mean you'd be further away from eating these...and that would be a mistake. Get baking now.

Caramel Cheesecake Bars

ingredients
for the shortbread crust
14 tablespoons (1 3/4 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
1/3 cup (3.5 ounces) sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
3/8 teaspoons salt
2 cups (9 ounces) flour

for the cheesecake part
1/2 cup (6 ounces) caramel sauce, purchased (that's what I did) or homemade
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 pounds cream cheese, room temperature
1/4 cup (1.75 ounces) sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 large eggs, at room temperature

method

for the crust:
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Put the rack in the lower third of the oven. Line a 9X13-inch pan with foil.

In a medium bowl, mix the melted butter with the sugard, vanilla and salt. Add the flour and mix until just incorporated. Press and smooth the dough evenly over the bottom of the pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the crut is a gold brown with well-browned darker edges. Let cool before adding the rest of the recipe.

for the bars:
Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Stir the caramel sauce together with the salt and set aside.

In a medium mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese with an electric mixer until smooth, about 30 seconds. Add the sugar and vanilla and beat until just smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes. Add one egg and beat until just incorporate. Add the second egg and mix. Stir two tablespoons of the batter into the caramel sauce.

Pour the remaining batter over the prepared crust and smooth. Spoon pools of the caramel mixture over the filing, leaving plenty of plain filling showing. Jiggle a bit to smooth things out if the caramel doesn't immediately incorporate into the cream cheese filling. Take a toothpick and swirl it around to make pretty designs and marbelize the top of the cream cheese filling.

Bake 2--25 minutes until the filling is puffed at the edges but still jiggles in the center when the pan is nudged.

Put the pan on a cooling rack. When totally cool, cover and refrigerate at last four hours but preferably overnight (yeah, that was not possible in my case and it was just fine). Cut into pieces and store in an airtight container, refrigerated, for up to 4 days — as if that's going to happen. HA!

Enjoy!

Pumpkin Muffins with Cream Cheese

Rachel here.

So while my parents were relishing the power in my mom's New York apartment this past weekend, in my house we were spending the days in our pajamas while blowing our noses. For some reason these family-wide colds make me highly effective in the kitchen. This weekend I made a batch of pumpkin muffins with cream cheese and a streusel topping. They were delicious. Thank god I made them, too, because they're the only thing sick little M has wanted to eat for days.

I found the recipe at allrecipes.com. There were several delicious looking alternatives I might just have to try soon.

INGREDIENTS
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons brown sugar

4 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
5 tablespoons white sugar
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons chopped pecans

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups white sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 1/3 cups canned pumpkin
1/3 cup olive oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

METHOD
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease and flour 18 muffin cups, or use paper liners.
To make the filling: In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese until soft. Add egg, vanilla and brown sugar. Beat until smooth, then set aside.
For the streusel topping: In a medium bowl, mix flour, sugar, cinnamon and pecans. Add butter and cut it in with a fork until crumbly. Set aside.
For the muffin batter: In a large bowl, sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Make a well in the center of flour mixture and add eggs, pumpkin, olive oil and vanilla. Beat together until smooth.
Place pumpkin mixture in muffin cups about 1/2 full. Then add one tablespoon of the cream cheese mixture right in the middle of the batter. Try to keep cream cheese from touching the paper cup. Sprinkle on the streusel topping.
Bake at 375 degrees F (195 degrees C) for 20 to 25 minutes.

Fake It Til You Make It

One recipe is an anomaly. Two suggests a pattern. Three and you're full on into a lifestyle, which is why we decided that the third post by our friend Susan involving a "fake" recipe, ie a recipe that isn't entirely from scratch, deserves a nickname. And so it is that we introduce Susan, Miss Fake It Til You Make It.

I need to make one thing clear immediately: All three of these recipes have been very tasty. It's just that Susan is the same friend who literally went into my freezer one night while having dinner at my house and pulled out a container of Cool Whip and proclaimed to the seated group something like, "AHA! I KNEW this wasn't real whipped cream!!!" And she has brought that story up more than once while enjoying a tasty meal at my home with others.

It was scarring.

So I have found it, um, ironic that she's perfectly fine with faking it with her desserts. Curious, don't you think? I will also add that Susan brought a cake plate to display her "fake" recipe for the blog photo. So presentation is important but having all real ingredients is apparently not.

Anyway, here's the latest in Susan's fake cooking life. I have eaten more of these than is healthy and plan to make them one day soon for sure. You'll like them, too, and you don't have to tell anyone that the whole thing didn't take you hours in the kitchen. :)

(If you want to see Miss Fake It Til You Make It's other recipes, click here for Fake Cake and here for fake turtles candy.

Apple Streusel Cheesecake Bars

ingredients
1 pouch Betty Crocker oatmeal cookie mix
1/2 cup firm butter or margarine
2 packages (8 oz ea) cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon vaniilla
1 egg
1 can apple pie filling or 1-2 granny smith apples, diced
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup chopped walnuts


method
Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Spray 13x9 in pan with cooking spray.
Place cookie mix in food processor. Cut in butter until the mixture is crumbly. Reserve 1 1/2 cups of the crumbs; press the remaining mixture in the bottom of the pan. Bake for 10 mins.

Meanwhile, beat the cream cheese, sugar, flour, vanilla and egg until smooth. Spread the cream cheese mixture over the partially baked crust. Mix the apples with cinnamon (and a little sugar if using real apples). Spoon the apple mixture over the cream cheese. Sprinkle with reserved crumbs and nuts.

Bake 35-40 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool for 30 min. Then refrigerate to chill and store.

Bar None

Rachel here: This week we're offering up some ideas for barbecues, picnics and the like since Memorial Day is next Monday. While the meat on the grill and the salads are certainly key components to any good outdoor celebration, I think you have all figured out by now how my mother and I feel about dessert. Fond would be an understatement. Anyway, for these types of gatherings, dessert is preferably portable and something that can sit out of the fridge for hours. Because of this, today we are making bars.

Growing up, more lunches than not at my grandma's house ended with her date-nut bars. You could usually find them tucked away in a tupperware in her breadbox if you found yourself with a hankering and it wasn't the lunch hour. Anyway, I'd never made them before this post. As has consistently happened for me when I've made recipes of those I love, making these treats transported me back to when I was younger. The sunlight streamed across my grandma's dining room table and, though full from lunch, I discovered I still had a little bit of room in my belly for dessert. A glass of milk in hand and the memory was complete. This recipe is incredibly simple, so so satisfying, and guaranteed to please those looking for something a little sweet after an afternoon in the sun.

Grandma Reynolds' Date-Nut Bars
makes 10, depending on size

Ingredients
1 c. all-purpose flour
1/4 tspn. baking powder
1/8 tspn. salt
1/4 lb. butter (one stick), melted
1 c. granulated sugar
2 c. dates, coarsely cut
2 c. walnut pieces
2 eggs

Method
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees with the rack in the center position. Line a shallow pan with foil (she recommends a 9x13, but I think mine was a little smaller and it worked fine) and brush with butter. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt and set aside. Beat butter and sugar in your electric mixer (if you have one...if not, the butter's melted, so the mixing shouldn't be too hard). Add the eggs and beat until combined. Stir in sifted ingredients until just combined. Fold in dates and nuts. Distribute batter evenly in your pan, giving it a few taps down on the counter at the end to get air out and make sure everything's divvied up nicely. Place in oven, rotating halfway through, for roughly 35 minutes. Cool in pan for 10 minutes on a wire rack before inverting onto a cookie sheet and then inverting again to finish cooling. Cut into squares and enjoy!



Janet here: My friend, Anne, often makes lemon bars when we visit her for dinner and I always leave her house thinking, I should make these sometime. And then I don't. But when Rachel and I decided we were going to make some kind of bar cookie this week, I realized now was my chance. So without further ado, the lemon bars.

Lemon Bars
12 servings

Ingredients
crust
1/2 cup salted butter, softened
1/4 cup confectioner's sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla
1 cup all-purpose flour

cream cheese filling
8 ounces softened cream cheese
1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure lemon extract

lemon curd
4 large egg yolks
1 tablespoon cornstarch
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup water
2 medium lemons grated for 2 teaspoons lemon peel and squeezed for 1/4 cup lemon juice
2 tablespoons softened salted butter

topping
2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar

Method
To make the shortbread crust cream the butter and sugar in a medium bowl with an electric mixer at high speed. Add vanilla and combine. Add flour and mix at low speed until fully mixed. Then press the dough into an 8X8-inch pan evenly. Refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes. Prick with fork and bake at 325 degrees for 30 minute or until golden brown. Take out and cool completely.

While the crust is baking, prepare the cream cheese filling. Beat the cream cheese and sugar until smooth with an electric mixer until smooth. Add egg and lemon extrax and beat on medium speed until light and smooth. Cover the bowl and refrigerate.

To prepare the lemon curd, blend egg yolks with the cornstarch and sugar in a medium non-aluminum pot. Place over lowe heat and slowly whisk in water and lemon juice. Increase heat to medium-low and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. Remove from heat. Add lemon peel and butter and cool 10 minutes.

To assemble the bars: Spread the chilled cream cheese filling evenly over the cooled shortbread crust with a spatula. Spread the lemon curd evenly over the cream cheese filling. Place pan in center of the oven. BAke 30-40 minutes until the edges begin to turn golden bwon. Cool to room temperature. Then chill in the fridge 1 hour before cutting. Dust top with confectioners' sugar.

Easy Apps

Rachel here: Ok, so I know I fried pickles for our Friday post, but bear with me because fried olives are truly amazing. The first time I had them was at a restaurant in Berkeley that's now closed with a friend who I had a lot of fun with. Though much has changed in the years since then, I have never forgotten how truly awesome fried olives are. After making the pickles last week, I couldn't stop thinking about these fried olives from yore and decided I'd try my hand at them. The recipe I concocted was pretty simple and, though not as hearty a coating of fried stuff as I'd attained on my goat cheese medallions from a month or so ago or as I got to stick to my pickles last week, John and I concurred that they were not only edible, but delicious. I will definitely be whipping these up again in the not too distant future (I'd say "near future" but I'm pretty sure I should stop frying things for a little while...this penchant for frying can't be good for my arteries). When combined with the recipe my mom's sharing below, I feel like we could host a sort of retro dinner party. What appetizers do you whip up in a jiffy?



Ingredients
2 dozen olives of your choice (I used a medley of jalapeno stuffed, kalamata and sweet italian)
1/2 c. bread crumbs
1 tspn. salt
1 tspn. paprika
1 tspn. chili powder
2 T. cornstarch
1 egg
3/4 c. milk

Method
In a small bowl, combine the bread crumbs, salt, paprika, chili powder and cornstrach. Mix well. In a second bowl, beat your egg and stir in the milk. Dipping the olives first in the bowl of wet ingredients and then in the bowl of dry ingredients, add to your hot vegetable oil (you know your oil is hot enough when you drip water over it and it sizzles). Fry until golden brown, drain and serve with lemon wedges. Sooo good!



Janet here: My mom used to make this recipe, which is, inexplicably, called Empire Pate. A New York State reference? Something from Olde England? Who knows. At any rate, it is ridiculously easy to make and always a hit. I hope you enjoy it.

Empire Pate

Ingredients
6 oz cream cheese--whipped if you're lazy or in a hurry; brick if you've remembered to put it out ahead of time to soften to room temperature
4 oz grated cheddar cheese
2 tablespoons dry sherry
2 teaspoons or to taste, curry powder
1/4 cup chutney
2 scallions, diced

Method
Mix the cream cheese, cheddar cheese, sherry and curry powder. Form into a brick or whatever other clever shape you want and put it in the fridge. When you're ready to serve, spread 1/4 cup chutney on top and the scallions.

Fried Friday

Rachel here: This past Christmas, my mom gave John a subscription to the Food Network's magazine. While I try to let John read it first when it arrives in the mail, I'd be lying if I said that I don't also read it cover to cover each month. There's always a huge mix of recipes, some of which get my mouth watering and others which don't. In the most recent issue, though, there was something that I just knew I had to make and pronto: fried pickles.

Ok, so all pregnant women like pickles, or so the folk lore seems to go. I, however, have always loved pickles. Growing up we each had a special Christmas ornament; mine was a pickle. On my birthday? Yup, more years than not I receive a card that is in the shape of a pickle. Pickles, I guess you could say, are kind of my thing. Throw pregnancy into the mix and, well, you get the picture. I had never had a fried pickle before I made these and I will definitely be having them again. In case you're not a pickle fanatic, I'll let you know that John isn't either and he devoured these.


Ingredients
1 egg
3/4 c. milk
cayenne
3/4 c. cornstarch, divided
1/2 c. corn meal
2 T. chopped fresh dill
2 tspn. paprika
salt and pepper
3 dozen pickle slices (I bought really good pickles and sliced them myself, though certainly pre-sliced would work)

Method
In a bowl, beat the egg. Add the milk and a hearty dash of cayenne. In a separate bowl, place 1/4 c. of cornstarch. In a third bowl, mix the remaining cornstarch, cornmeal, dill, paprika, salt and pepper. Dip the pickle slices in the plain cornstarch, then the egg mix, and finally into the cornmeal mixture. Fry in 2 inches of canola oil until golden brown. Drain on a towel.
*The magazine suggests serving with ranch dressing to dip in. I sliced a baguette, toasted the slices, smeared cream cheese on them and then topped with the fried pickles. It was super yummy.


Janet here: While I, too, was intrigued by the idea of fried pickles, I thought it was best to leave this for the pregnant part of this duo. Instead I decided to make my own fries, something I've thought about but never actually done. While the result was not quite as crispy as I would like, I was pretty pleased with this first attempt and think there are going to be a lot more homemade fries on our family's dinner table.

French Fries
serve 3 or 4

Ingredients
2 teaspoons canola oil
3 large potatoes, washed and sliced into 1/4 inch strips
salt to taste
Mrs. Dash's seasoning blend or whatever seasoning you want to taste. I used the Southwest Chipotle but the possibilities are endless of your own variation: garlic, red peppers, whatever.

Method
Heat the oven to 450 degrees.
Wash and cut the potatoes. I did mine by slicing the potato in half lengthwise and then slicing each half into slabs that I then cut into 1/4 inch strips. Some of the longer strips I cut in half, but it all depends on how you like your fries.

Place the potato, oil, salt and seasoning in a big bowl and mix well. Spray a cooking sheet with cooking spray. (I use Pam organic canola oil.) Place the mixture on the sheet in one layer. Bake for 35 minutes.

Cream Cheese Anyone?

Janet here: I'm going solo today because Rachel is out bonding with her brothers. She's only home for a short visit so their time together is premium. Anyway, G and S are both lads with voracious appetites and since they're on break — one from college and one from high school — there's been some serious requesting for specialty goodies, even though the holiday baked goods are still fairly abundant. As a fan of baking, it's hard to say no, so while they're out, I agreed to make Philadelphia Cream Cheese's Cheesecake Bars. They're not cheesecake, but they'll do in a pinch and they're much faster to make. If you want a cheesecake fix without the hassle, these are the way to go. I'm always looking for cheesecake substitutes so if any of you have some to share, bring 'em on! Here's the recipe.



Philly 3-Step Cheesecake Bars
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Baking Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients
3 8 oz packages Philadelphia Brand Cream Cheese, softened to room temperature
3/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons sugar, divided
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/3 cup butter melted (they say you can use margarine too but I say what is the point?)

Method
Mix crumbs, butter and 3 tablespoons sugar. Press into 13 X 9 inch baking pan

Mix cream cheese, 3/4 cup sugar and vanilla with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Add eggs, and mix until blended.

Pour batter over crust. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until the center is almost set. Refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight. Cut into bars. Makes 24.

Tip:
Line pan with foil for easy removal of bars.