Quick and Easy Dessert

The other night our friends invited us over for dinner and asked me to bring a dessert.  I didn't have many ingredients on hand and didn't have a ton of time to prep anything too fancy....but not to worry, I did remember I purchased some miniature pre-made Graham Cracker pie crusts on an impulse buy earlier in the week...

Now that I had a graham cracker crust, I was pretty sure I would be trying to craft a no-bake dessert.  After deciding I was not in the mood for something with pudding, I scoured the internet and settled on a recipe for a no-bake cheesecake.

Following a super-easy recipe, I ended up with a few mini no-bake cheesecakes that turned out to be a perfect bite of dessert after our main meal.

Ingredients:
1-8 ounce package Cream Cheese, softened
1-14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
Premade graham cracker crusts in tin foil pans

Directions:
Combine softened cream cheese and can of condensed milk.  Blend these two together using an electric handmixer, and beat until all the lumps are gone.  Add vanilla, then add the lemon juice slowly while blending all the ingredients together.  Spoon the mixture into the graham cracker crust cups and place in the refrigerator for about three hours to firm up.  My mixture made about 9 mini cheesecakes.  If you are short on time you can always put them, covered, into the freezer for about 45 minutes.  Because I live in the Midwest and it is freezing outside, I just covered the cheesecakes and set them out on the backporch.

I served these with some homemade whipped cream, and they were quite delicious.

Pic=not so good, Mini Cheesecakes=very good

If you are feeling adventurous you can add any type of fruit, or even chocolate or caramel sauce for more flavor/fun :)


What is the quick dessert you bring to an informal get together when you don't feel like picking up something at the grocery store?

-Looking forward to a wonderful Wednesday!

Cooking/Baking and Blogging or Blogging and Cooking/Baking?

I can’t decide if I am cooking more because I am writing this blog, or if I am writing this blog because it gives me an excuse to cook more.  Either way, I know my boyfriend is happy, and I will be writing another cooking/baking post J

This weekend, my boyfriend went to the historic West Side Market here in Cleveland to purchase a few items for our Saturday cookout.  While he was there, he brought home some Gala apples because it is most definitely apple season.  

I decided to get fancy and try to make apple pies, and not just any regular pies but mini apple pies.  It’s not clear how this idea came about, but who doesn't appreciate a "mini" desert.  Although I have a well stocked kitchen, I don't own any tart pans.  Still committed to this mini apple pie idea, I headed to the  internet to search for alternatives.  One site suggested muffin pans as a perfect substitute for tart pans.  Satisfied I could make the muffin pans work, I found a recipe on a vegan cooking website, made a few pro-dairy changes and cheated a bit by using store-bought pie crust.

To avoid ultimate failure, I also added an old standby ingredient to the pies: homemade whipped cream.  This relatively simple treat is both amazingly tasty and delightfully simple to make.  You can impress your friends without too much effort and cover up any mistakes you made in the baking process.

Here’s the easy recipe:

Ingredients:

1 half pint container of heavy whipping cream

1 tablespoon powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

You will also need:

1 hand whisk or electric mixer

1 metal bowl that has been chilled in the refrigerator

Directions:

Pour the cream into the cold metal bowl.  Add the vanilla and powdered sugar.  Beat (either with the hand whisk or the electric mixer) until stiff peaks have formed.  Refrigerate for a few moments and serve with your favorite fruit, ice cream, cookie, granola etc.

Op, the oven timer just went off.  Let’s go see how the pies turned out…

I started with just making three little pies (we had to try one).
I made a traditional top and one with the lattice top.

They look decent, and my boyfriend says they taste delicious with the homemade whipped cream.  I'm always skeptical about my baking ability so I will chalk this success up to a good recipe

Apple pie always makes me think of fall.  What instantly makes you think of the autumn season?

-Almost halfway through the work week!