{MATCHLESS} PHOTOGRAPHY wedding photographers

Last week, I was going through and cleaning/organizing my mother’s pantry.  I noticed she had TONS of baking ingredients… way more than she would ever use.  (I think they were supposed to be for baking holiday goodies, but we ran out of time!)  So, I had a challenge… trying to find a good recipe that would use quite a few of these ingredients to clear some shelves in the pantry.  Well, since we had a few packages of the block cream cheese – I decided on a cheesecake.  (Now I’ve baked a real cheesecake one other time, and it didn’t turn out too well.  It was a peach cheesecake, and although the flavor was amazing, it cracked on the top and sunk.  It was very traumatic!)  But hey, that was a few years ago, so why not try again!  Then I found lots of chocolate chips, marshmallows, and nuts.  Perfect for Rocky Road.  How can you go wrong combining two of my favorite things… cheesecake and rocky road ice-cream!?!?!

I searched for a recipe online and decided on the one from cook.com.  I got all my ingredients out, and started in on the baking.  I will admit, I do have one reoccurring cooking problem… sometimes I get really excited to actually get started, that I skim the instructions and mess up things.  Thank goodness, usually it’s nothing major.  Let me explain what my mistake was this time.  The recipe called for 1/2 cup of heavy whipping cream and 1 cup of chocolate chips.  You are supposed to take the heavy cream and 1/4 cup of the chocolate chips and heat them to make a chocolate sauce to mix in with the cream cheese mixture.  Well, me (zoned in to the baking mindset), skimmed the instructions and read it wrong.  I just read to heat the heavy cream and the chocolate chips.  So what did I do?  Yes, I melted the whole cup of chocolate chips with the cream!  I let that cool and moved onto making the cream cheese filling.  Right before I poured the chocolate sauce into the cream cheese mixture, I decided to read on.  That’s when I found out I had (apparently) made too rich of a chocolate sauce.  So I had a choice… do I only mix part of the sauce in with the cream cheese mixture, or do I pour all of it in there.  I decided to follow one of my husband’s all time cooking rules:  You can always add a little more of butter, vanilla, chocolate, or garlic.  So, into the cream cheese went the whole pan of chocolate sauce.  How bad can it be, right?

I will also say, I aspire to become a real baker.  I don’t really know what that means for me and my life, but it truly is a passion.  That being said, i’ve seen many shows on the food network where they bake things that are set in a roasting pan of water.  (usually things like custards.)  I’ve never actually made anything where I needed to do that.  Well, to my surprise, this cheesecake recipe said to!  I put my cheesecake pan into a roasting pan filled half way with boiling water.  I felt like I stepped it up a notch in my baking skills.  Kinda random and nerdy, I know, but I felt like one of the “big dawgs!”

Well, after the buzzer rang, I took the cheesecake out of the oven.  It looked perfect!  There were no cracks on the top and it didn’t sink at all!  SWEET!  Then was the moment of truth.  I cut a small sliver (because I had a feeling it would be a bit rich) and gave it to Colin… who was warned of my slight mistake.  He took one bite and without saying anything, stood up and gave me a big hug.  Score!  He said it tasted fantastic.  I’ve only had a small bite myself, but it does taste great and is quite rich.

One last random note:  I was in a bit of a hurry when I was decorating the top.  I put the marshmallows around the edge and then made some more chocolate sauce to drizzle on the top.  Since I was trying to do things quickly, I used the big plastic stirring spoon that I melted the chocolate with, to drizzle the sauce on the cake.  This was not a good idea.  I would advise you use always use a small spoon so the drizzling stays in thin lines.  Mine had a couple large splotches from the big spoon.  Oh well.

Also… I was too scared to take the cake off the metal base, so yes, it’s in the pictures.

ROCKY ROAD CHEESECAKE: recipe from cooks.com

1 1/2 c. chocolate wafer crumbs
2 tbsp. sugar
1 1/2 tbsp. butter

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Combine all ingredients in food processor and process until smooth. Press in bottom of 9 inch springform pan. Wrap outside of pan tightly in foil.

FILLING:

1/2 c. heavy or whipping cream
1 c. miniature semi-sweet chocolate chips, divided
3 pkg. (8 oz. each) cream cheese, at room temperature
3/4 c. sugar
2 tbsp. flour
1/3 c. marshmallow creme
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
5 lg. eggs, at room temperature
1 c. chopped pecans, divided

Heat cream and 1/4 cup chocolate chips in small saucepan over low heat, stirring until chocolate is melted; cool. (or if you’re me… heat the 1/2 cup of cream with the whole 1 cup of chocolate chips – then cool!) Beat cream cheese and sugar in mixer bowl until fluffy. Beat in flour, then chocolate mixture, marshmallow cream and vanilla until smooth. Beat in eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

By Andre’a Feldhaus