Sweetheart Cheesecake

I can’t believe that another month has already flown by. It’s June in a few days! All the days have really been blending together and now with the kitchen being worked on, it seems like it has been a very long time since I last baked anything or had a kitchen to use.

A little while back, I think it was for Easter, I made my chocolate cheesecake, or Sweetheart cheesecake. I hadn’t made it in ages but I had a craving and I thought it might be a yummy dessert for an isolating Easter dinner and it definitely was. It was so good, yet another cake that I could eat for breakfast, haha. So take a look below and see how I made Sweetheart cheesecake and try one out while you isolate and to ring in the month of June!  

Sweetheart Cheesecake Recipe

Crust:

1 cup of graham wafers

3-3  ½ tsp. of cocoa powder

2 tbsp. of sugar

3-3 ½ tsp. of melted butter

Filling:

3 pkgs. (250g) of cream cheese

1 cup of sugar

3eggs

½ cup of cocoa powder

Whipping cream for the top

Combine the crumbs along with the sugar, butter, and cocoa. 

Mix well and press into 1.5 l spring form pan. I suggest lining the bottom with parchment paper first.

Now in your mixer, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Then beat in the sugar gradually.

Now add in the eggs one at a time at a low speed.

Add in cocoa and beat until smooth.

Pour into the prepared pan and bake at 325 degrees for about 40 minutes. It usually take a few minutes longer. You want it to be moist-ish but not dry and cracked. Mine does always tend to crack but I hide it with whipped cream and it’s fine.

Allow it to cool. I like to make this the day before. This cake is best served nice and cold. You can top it with whipped cream and berries (strawberries and raspberries are the best). I also added on some white chocolate shavings for an extra added touch.

Bread Maker Rolls

Happy Thursday! I’m making good use of my rediscovered bread maker and I tried out a dough recipe this time. We were having some pasta, so I thought I’d make some fluffy rolls to go with it and it they were a huge success! I actually have made them twice since pulling out my bread maker a few weeks back. Take a look at my adventure in roll making below.

Bread Maker Roll Recipe

You will need...

1 cup of warm milk (microwave for 1 minute and 50 seconds)

½ cup of margarine

¼ cup of sugar

2 eggs

1½ tsp. of salt

4 cups of sifted flour

2 ¼ tsp. of active dry yeast

Warm the milk and then add to the pan.

Add in the soft margarine.

Then add in the sugar, salt, eggs, and flour.

Finally, make a little well in the center of the flour and spoon in the yeast.

Select the dough setting on your maker and then wait for it to mix up, about 1 hour and 30 minutes depending on your machine.

While the machine is working its magic, grease a 13x9 inch pan or glass dish. This is where your rolls will rise and eventually be baked in. 

When you hear the final beep and the dough is ready, turn the dough onto a floured surface.

Divide into 24 balls and placed in rows of 6 in your 13x9 inch prepared pan/dish. The balls may look “rough” and they may seem super close, but all will be fine in the end.

Cover the balls of dough in your pan/dish with a dish towel and place in a warm spot. Allow to rise for about 45 minutes. Since it isn’t Winter and we don’t have any heat on or super consistent sunny spots, I allowed my rolls to rise in my oven on the Warm and Hold setting which is a very low temperature just enough to keep food warm. If you feel more comfortable then you can dampened your dish towel before placing it in the oven if you’re using this as your warm spot.

Once risen, the dough balls will look like very pale dinner rolls all connected together.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and bake for about 16 minutes. I like my rolls to be a bit more golden so I let them bake for about 3 extra minutes. You can do what you like though. Add extra time for extra golden rolls. 

You can let them cool for a bit in the dish and then break them apart (they have natural “division lines” where you can separate them) but if you’re like me and my family, we pretty much started snacking on some as soon as they came out of the oven. They’ll be super hot so be careful but they are so tasty warm with melted butter on them!

Banana Bread

A few posts back we had started our mini baby shower planning theme. With all that is happening in the world right now, we are delaying the baby shower that we were planning and blogging about until later on. When we figure out a new date and pick up with our planning, then we will continue with that mini theme.

Since many people are having to stay inside and isolate themselves, we thought that we should do some posts of things to do while you’re staying home.

Today we have Margie’s Banana Bread recipe that we are going to share with you. It’s super simple and quick to throw together. It’s also super yummy and perfect for a nice snack or to have with your morning tea or coffee.

You will need...

6 tbsp. of butter

1 cup of brown sugar

4 eggs

3 cups of flour

2 tsp. of baking soda

4 tsp. of baking powder

2 tsp. of vanilla

6 bananas

First of all, this is the original recipe doubled so that you get two loaves. I actually tripled the recipe and made three loaves and froze one for a rainy day.

Here we go.

Cream the butter and sugar and eggs.

In a medium bowl, mix the flour, soda, and powder.

Defrost, if you're using frozen bananas, the bananas. Then mash the bananas in another bowl.

Alternately, add the banana and flour mix o the wet mixture in the mixing bowl.

Once everything is mixed together, stir in the vanilla.

Now you can leave them all plain if you want to, but we like to add some chocolate chips to at least one of the loaves. Usually 1-2 cups of chocolate chips is good. It all depends on how chocolatey you want it.

Pour batter evenly into pans (butter them slightly so they don’t stick).

Bake at 350 degrees for 60-70 minutes.

Cool slightly before cutting.

 Enjoy! Oh, and Happy Spring too!