Lemon Cheesecake with Raspberry Sauce

Nothing says Spring more than a bright and cheerful lemony cheesecake and that’s exactly what we made this week. Seriously, this cake is so yummy; I had a piece of the leftover for Saturday’s breakfast. It’s light and has just the right amount of lemon in it so that’s it’s not overpowering. Another great thing about this cake is that it has very few ingredients and it’s super easy to make.

So let’s hop to it...

First of all we are going to make the graham wafer crust so preheat the oven to 350 degrees and prepare a tart pan or spring form pan. We lined the bottom of the spring form pan and then lightly buttered it.

In a food processor, make 1 ½ cups of graham wafer crumbs. Then in a bowl, mix the crumbs with ¼ cup of melted butter.

Press onto the bottom of the pan and bake for 5 minutes.

Once the crust is ready, let it cool off to the side.

Now for your filling you will first need to wash and zest two large lemons. Then after zesting, juice the lemons so that you have 1/3 cup of lemon juice. Set aside.

Beat one package/8 ounces of cream cheese. Then add in 1 ¾ cups of sweetened condensed milk. Mix well so that there aren’t any lumps. Our mixture was a bit lumpy because we didn’t beat the cream cheese before adding the milk.

Stir in the lemon zest and juice.

Pour over the crust and smooth the top. Bake for 28-30 minutes or until the filling is set.

Cool to room temperature and then put in the fridge for two or more hours.

Now you can just whip up some cream and wash up some fresh berries to top it or you can step it up and make a raspberry drizzle sauce to put on top.

We made raspberry sauce and then topped the cake with fresh raspberries to serve.

We cut down the recipe for the sauce because we didn’t want to be stuck with lots of leftovers, but to make a full serving, you will need three cups of raspberries add that to a pot with ¼ cup of sugar, one tbsp. of water, and two tsp. of lemon juice. Cook until the raspberries break down and the sugar dissolves, about seven minutes. Take off the heat and press through a strainer to remove all the seeds. Let cool to room temperature and chill.

Ok, so now back to the cake. Once sauce and cake have chilled, you can do one of two things. You can decorate the entire cake by drizzling the sauce and topping with whipped cream and berries or you can do what we did, slice then decorate. Whichever you choose, it’ll be delicious!

April Showers Card

We are a little more than half way through April. It’s still raining, but that’s fine because all the rain will help the flowers bloom. We have taken inspiration from the rain and the flowers to create an April showers card. We made this card once before as a wedding shower invite and with different colours, but we thought that it might a fun “Just Because” card to make and give someone to help usher in Spring.

We decided on a blue theme with a pop of bright colour. Do the card whatever colour you choose though; if you have someone in mind to give it to or are making it as a wedding shower invite, pick colours that suit the person or the theme. Our original invite card was teal, white, and red. It looked like this...

For this new card we picked a darker blue, almost primary, and then picked a very pale almost white shade of blue as our layer on top. Make the card whatever size you like. We picked a smaller size than our usual sized card. This one measures 4 ¼ x 6 inches. The light blue layer on top measures 5 ¾ x 4 inches.

For the heart "rain drops," we picked a grayish blue and punched them with our small heart punch.

And for our umbrella, we chose a bright red. Nicole used her machine to cut out the umbrella; it’s roughly 2x2 inches.

There is also a smaller pale blue layer (2 ¼ x 1 ½ inches) which goes on top of a 2 ½ x 1 5/8 inch primary blue layer. On the pale blue layer we have printed the words “Happy Spring” in primary blue ink. You can stamp and emboss words instead if you have a saying or greeting that you like.

Lastly, you’ll need to cut a piece of ribbon to go behind the word layers. We have chosen a thicker blue ribbon.

Ok, so now that you have all of the pieces, you can assemble your card.

First of all, glue your umbrella and “rain drop” hearts down on the pale blue layer. We do this first because we don’t the layer to be glued down on the card and then we mess it up for some reason. Then draw on your "drip" lines coming out of the top of the heart.

Then glue this layer on your card followed by the ribbon. 

Glue the pale blue layer on the smaller dark blue layer and then glue that on top of the ribbon. 

Here is what ours looks like...

Painted Terra Cotta Pots and Garden Markers

It must be true what they say about April showers because today is a rainy April day. The sun’s been out for the most part of the week, but today has been a rainy Friday. In preparation for the sunny Spring days ahead, we are doing a craft that you can use to display your herbs and flowers. We are going to paint terra cotta pots and make garden/plant markers.

It’s actually a super relaxing and fun craft to do. I’ve painted them at birthday parties and have painted a bunch and used them as party favours (kinda like a basket filled with treats and wrapped in cellophane).

First off you’ll want to go to your local garden center and pick out some terra cotta pots. We chose a few smaller sizes, but you can get really big ones too if that’s what you want. Or you can get a nice variety of sizes.

Then pick some paint (from our many crafting adventures, we had lots of paints and brushes/sponges leftover to use).

Make sure you cover your workspace with some newspaper or an old table cloth as it can be a bit messy at times to paint these. You’ll also want to make sure you have some paper towels on hand, painters tape, and paper plates.

You can just go for it or carefully plan out your design. I will admit I started doing one and then completely changed it after not liking the way it looked. I free handed mine, whereas Nicole taped out her design on the larger pot she painted. I’ve also painted ones with scenes on them

For my little pot, I had a grey theme. I mixed some blues together for the main part and then painted on grey and blue hearts. I did it freestyle so they’re not perfect. I wanted to do a bright and colourful theme for my larger pot so I used pink, orange, purple, and blue and just did a couple of sizes of polka dots on it using circular sponges.

Nicole did a very geometrical purple and white design on her larger pot. After painting the pot completely white, she used painters tape and laid out her design and sponged on the purple. For her little pot, she went with an earthy theme and used paper towel to make it have a spongy effect.

It’s important to let your pots dry for a few days before touching them or taking off any tape. Once they look the way you want them to, you can spray them with a protective coating so they can withstand the elements outside.

Another fun thing we thought we’d do is make little garden markers to go in the pots. They are simple to make and handy to have to mark the flowers and herbs that you plant.

For these you will need larger wooden sticks, paint, felts, and 3D sticky letters.

First of all, paint the sticks. You can make them match the pots or do whatever design you want. After they are dry, you use a marker to write on them or you can use 3D sticky letters. We found some bright foamy ones that we decided to try out. Then you can spell out your herbs and flowers. 

Here are our finished products.