I love how light and fluffy cheesecake is. And it’s surprisingly easy to make. You can substitute other flavors for lime, if you prefer. Or leave out the fruit juice all together and just have a plain cheesecake. Yumm. I find this recipe tastes the best when you use fresh lime juice, but if you’d rather just use the kind that comes out of the bottle, you should use about 1/4 or 1/3 cup juice.
Lime Cheesecake
Yield: about 8 servings
Ingredients:
- 1 prepared graham cracker pie crust
- 2 pkgs (8 ounces each) cream cheese, cubed
- 1 cup sugar
- 3 Tbsp flour
- 3 eggs, beaten
- 1 cup sour cream
- juice from 4 limes
- grated zest from 4 limes
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In large bowl, beat cream cheese until smooth. Mix in sugar and flour. Add eggs; beat on low speed just until combined. Stir in the sour cream, lime juice, zest, and vanilla. Pour into crust.
2) Place in a large baking pan and add about an inch of hot water to the pan. Bake at 350° for 40-45 minutes or until center is just set and top appears dull. Cool on a wire rack for about an hour. Chill overnight.
Anything chocolate is ok by me. I say eat these warm and thank me later.
Fudgey Brownies
Yield: about 18 brownies
Ingredients:
- 2 sticks salted butter, melted
- 1 cup baking cocoa
- 4 eggs
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 and 1/4 cup flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. After butter has melted, remove it from the heat and stir in cocoa until completely mixed. Set aside.
2) In a large bowl, beat eggs and sugar until creamy. In a separate bowl, combine dry ingredients. Mix into egg mixture until well incorporated. Stir in vanilla and chocolate mixture.
3) Pour batter into a 13×9x2 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes, or until completely cooked all the way through. Wait a few minutes to cool just enough so you can cut the brownies without them falling apart. Enjoy warm, perhaps with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Chocolate mousse is divine. It’s nice having such an easy recipe so that you can whip it up for a party but it looks like something you spent hours on. The longest part of this recipe is the chilling. Trust me, this mousse turns out so yummy and velvety, it’s worth making at least once. Oh and if you check the instructions at the very bottom, I snuck in a how-to-make-your-own-butter recipe too by accident.
Super Simple Chocolate Mousse
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients:
- 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
- 4 tablespoons water
- 3 egg yolks
- 1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 and 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
- 3 tablespoons sugar
Directions:
1) Melt chocolate with water in a small saucepan, stirring until completely smooth. Remove from heat. In a small bowl, lightly beat egg yolks. Pour about 1/3 of the chocolate into the eggs and beat. Return all to pan and return to heat, stirring constantly until slightly thickened. Remove from heat, stir in vanilla, and let cool.
2) In a separate bowl, whip cream on high until thickened. Add sugar and continue to whip on high until soft peaks form. DO NOT over beat, or else it will turn into butter. I’m not kidding, you can make butter another time by just whipping some cream and adding salt. Fold in cooled chocolate and stir lightly, but make sure chocolate is evenly spread throughout. Cover and chill for several hours in refrigerator, until set.
Mmm there’s nothing quite like warm fruit crisp with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream on a summer evening. So good. I love how simple and easy any sort of fruit crisp/cobbler/pie/etc is. It takes very few ingredients and not a whole lot of time and you end up with a fantastic dessert. We used peaches for this recipe but any good, ripe fruit will do. We didn’t add any sugar to the fruit itself because it is already naturally sweet.
Summer Peach Crisp
Yield: about 6 servings
Ingredients:
- 4 large, ripe peaches, chopped (with skin on)
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 Tbsp cornstarch
- 1/2 cup old-fashioned oats, raw
- 1 stick salted butter, cold
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup flour
Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a small bowl, combine peaches, cinnamon, and cornstarch. Stir until peaches are completely coated. Set aside.
2) In a separate bowl, combine the rest of the dry ingredients. With a pastry cutter (or two knives), cut in butter until well incorporated.
3) Grease a bread loaf pan and pour in peach mixture. Cover peaches with oat mixture. Bake for 30-40 minutes at 375 degrees, until golden brown. Fruit will shrink while cooking. Serve hot with ice cream (or heavy cream, like they do in the UK. YUM!)
So these can be a little much but they’re tasty. I’ve only ever made plain Rice Krispie Treats before but maybe I should try throwing more things into them sometime. I love Oreos so that’s why I used them first. There’s not a whole lot to say about this…they’re pretty basic. It’s like the first thing you learn how to make as a kid.
Oh, also, this is obviously not my own recipe. Even though I’d hope that’s understood, I’m still going to state it so no one gets upset about me trying to steal a recipe or anything.
Oreo Rice Krispie Treats
Yield: 15 treats (20 if you cut them smaller)
Ingredients:
- 1/2 stick salted butter
- 1 bag mini marshmallows
- 1/2 box Rice Krispie cereal
- 1 row Oreos, crushed
- melted chocolate chips
Directions:
1) Melt the butter in a medium-large saucepan over medium-low heat. Add marshmallows and stir continuously until completely melted and gooey.
2) Remove from heat. Add Rice Krispies and stir until fully coated. Add crushed Oreos and stir until evenly distributed. Do this quickly before the marshmallow sets up.
3) In a wax paper-lined cake pan, scoop Rice Krispies and press until evenly distributed. Melt chocolate chips and drizzle onto Rice Krispies. Wait about 20-30 minutes for them to set up properly. Easy as 1-2-3.