Domestic Geek

OK, as promised, here's a couple of pics of the cheesecake I made this weekend. This was definitely up there as one of the better ones. Weather conditions must've been ideal, as it beat up nice and fluffy and there were absolutely no cracks in the surface. Love it!

Here it is sitting on my friend Tina's counter:



I went to Target on the way to my friend's house to pick up the cherry topping and to see what others were available (in case someone didn't like cherries). I saw the Limited Edition Berry Medley on the shelf and just had to try it. I mixed the two topping together and was it good! For the picture below, I topped a slice off with some of the fresh fruit that was also at the party.

Here is a single slice:



I have a couple of tricks I've picked up over the years to have cheesecakes come out really yummy. Many of the tips are summarized here. First, a water bath is a must. I always put parchment paper in the bottom of the pan. Never open the oven door when a cheesecake is baking. After the allotted time in the recipe, turn off the oven and leave the door closed. After an hour and a half or so, I take the cheesecake out of the bath and put it back in the oven. Once the cake has cooled completely, I'll take the springform side off and put it into the refrigerator over night. Instead of a knife, I use craft wire to slice it.

*sigh* I wish this weekend had been as productive as last weekend. There is just not enough time away from work.

Marcus and I finished up the Thanksgiving shopping this evening. We picked up the natural free-range turkey that we ordered earlier from Sunflower Market. Can't wait to see how that turns out. I spent the earlier part of the day at a knitting gathering at my friend's house down in Castle Rock. I got the body of the amigurumi turkey I'm making finished, as well as several rows of a holiday bag I'm knitting. I brought one of my cheesecakes to share and I was quite happy with how it turned out. I'll post pics tomorrow after I get them off of my camera.

Marcus and I actually relaxed this evening and finally watched Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. He downloaded that from iTunes a couple of weeks ago and we hadn't had a chance to watch it. I'll admit that I missed Orlando Bloom's character just a little.

The olive leaf extract that I wrote about yesterday seems to be doing the trick. I felt so much better today. Still coughing up a little crud out of my lungs, but at least I didn't feel like sleeping all danged day.

OK, I'm off to dig through my stash to find orange yarn for my turkey and then I'm off to bed.

As I was cruising around the web this evening, I came across the coolest cake creation: A Knitting Basket Cake. One day I'm going to have to take a cake decorating class and give something like that a try.

There's this girl at work who loves to forward emails. Drives me crazy. The most recent was this one with all sorts of cookie recipes in it. I noticed all the the URLs when to the same site, so I checked it out. The site is NorthPole.com and it's actually a kid-friendly Christmas site with lots of stuff. The cookie recipes are part of Mrs. Claus' Kitchen where there are lots of recipes and stories. I'm going to waste a lot of time on that site, I can tell already.

It's looking like the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert is already sold out. Damn it! If it was on a weekend, I could probably get him to take me to the show down in Colorado Springs, but unfortunately it falls during the week. I wish someone around here would give away tickets to the TSO show! I also see that Mannheim Steamroller is coming December 17th to do a Christmas show. I don't think I could get Marcus to go to that one (if there are tickets left - haven't checked yet).

You know what service would be really cool? A place where you could rent specialty baking pans.

I'm on several recipe mailing lists and I got an email for a really cool cake pan that I would love to have. It's from a company called Baker's Secret in the shape of those awareness ribbons.

The problem is: How many times would I really use this pan? Probably not more than once or twice. That's the problem with these novelty cake pans. I have a Winnie the Pooh one and a teddy bear sculpture one that I've used only once each. I don't know if I'll ever have use for them again, but I don't want to get rid of them, either. I've wanted to make special cakes for Marcus' birthday before (like a Scooby Doo head), but talked myself out of it because it would be a one-time thing and then it would take up space in my cupboards.

It would be great if I could just get them for the one time I needed it and return it.