Lazy Saturday Mornings & Cheesecake

First of all, praise the Lord that it didn't get down to the 40s today! Yay! (The high was 52, lol... :)

But it was kind of dreary and rainy... so I decided it was time for a lazy Saturday, and I left Liam in his pajamas. And then we just spent the morning together eating my most recent craving- spinach, ham and cheese omelettes, and applesauce. And then we got to baking... you see, I've been craving cheesecake. Probably because it is just about my favorite dessert, and I can never make it at home, because it would mean eating it all myself. Tempting, but my guilty conscious has always stopped me. Until now.

Why did it not stop me this morning? Well, I had offered to bake for a friend for this Sunday's lunch. And my initial recipe (gluten-free, dairy-free, peanut butter chocolate cookies) did not turn out well. You know it's bad when the husband, who has only criticized my food rarely (I can count on one hand) in the 4.5 years I've been experimenting on him says...

"Well, the taste is good, and having been gluten-free for a while, the texture is familiar".

Me: "What's that supposed to mean?"

Him: "It's ok"

Me: "So is it worthy of a church lunch tray?"

Him: "I think the people would be in for a surprise if they ate it. It tastes fine, but the texture is definitely not what people think of a normal cookie. Why don't you make something else?"

So back to the drawing board I was. But you see, this time, I was a depressed baker. Actually, depression started after I baked the first batch and my conclusion on tasting a sample was exactly like his... the evidence of this depression is the half empty container of ice cream...

Note: don't start eating from an ice cream container if you are depressed... scoop some out into a bowl, or you may will get carried away).

Well, ice cream, or really anything sweet has always been a comfort food. But all of a sudden I was longing for cheesecake.

 (enter nostalgically, sad music here as I lament that the nearest cheesecake factory is only 3 hours away...)

So I was wondering what I could do to ease my craving before it turned lustful. And then I remembered cheesecake bars. Doable for a church lunch, but messy. And then I one-upped it... mini cheesecakes!

So Liam and I made some mini cheesecakes this morning.

Notice the bulge in his cheek...
more then a few nilla wafers made a permanent detour into my little guy's mouth!

 But the recipe was hideously off when it comes to how much cheesecake it would make... I think they accidentally threw the word "mini" in front of "cupcake liners". And to quote my favorite Bible verse, I was left with "exceeding abundantly more then I could ever ask or think" of cheesecake mix. So this left me with another decision after I ran out of my mini cupcake liners and nilla wafers...

what do I do with what's left?

So experimentation set in (what really did I have to lose??) and I decided I'd make cookies :)

And due to an oh-so-generous Secret Sister, and leftover candy from when we stuffed eggs, I had the perfect filler... snickers and reese's cups!

I threw in some butter, flour, baking powder and chopped snickers bars and then chilled the dough for a wee bit before popping them in the oven. To make it more "cheesecake"-like, I also rolled some of them in crushed graham crackers, until I ran out (remember, they are the snack/sleepmate of choice for my son, so there weren't too many around!). I must say, they turned out fairly well. Good thing too, since I ended up with almost 5 dozen of them (I told you I had an abundance of extra cheesecake mixture)!!

And after being in the kitchen all day, Liam and I decorated our little cheesecakes- to go along with the Easter theme... it's what keeps us going when Joel is gone ALL DAY at the hospital. After seeing my son literally scarf down half of the coconut we toasted though, I decided to wait til after he went to bed before I put the eggs in their nests. :)

Joel said that these looked better then the original gf/df cookies. But since he didn't try one (due to all the dairy involved), I guess we will never know for sure... ;)