Tag: Cheesecake

Peanut Butter Banana Pudding Cheesecake Bars

If you follow my Instagram, you may have seen what “tough” research I had to do this weekend for this post. With the 3rd Annual South Street Spring Festival just days away (Saturday, May 2), I visited Sweet Life Bakeshop at 7th and South to try their signature Banana Pudding.

This. Pudding. Is. Fantastic. I gobbled up the whole thing in minutes, so I’m surprised I even was able to get a photo of it beforehand!

Sweet Life Bakeshop’s banana pudding will be available at the South Street Spring Festival, along with nearly 30 other eateries, bars, and food trucks, so come hungry! From 11am to 8pm this Saturday, 8 blocks of South Street (between Front and 8th) will be shut down and turned into a huge (and free) block party!

Headhouse Plaza will also be in on the fun, so be sure to check out 2nd Street between South and Lombard. The plaza will be transformed into a giant lawn concert complete with grass, lawn chairs, games and beach balls!

Along with all of the delicious food, South Street will feature more than 40 bands on three stages and seven performance areas. Over 100 boutiques, small businesses and other other retailers will cater to your style, beauty, health, fitness and other shopping needs. In conjunction with the Festival, Brauhaus Schmitz will host the third annual German Maifest on the 700 block of South Street, with German beers, dancers, music, food, flower headbands and even a Maypole.  Outside of Atomic City Comics (638 South Street) look for free giveaways and character appearances during Free Comic Book Day.

Whew!  Ok so, to highlight one of the amazing offerings, I decided to make a spin on Sweet Life’s banana pudding — Peanut Butter Banana Pudding Cheesecake Bars! This recipe is adapted from a Southern Living Banana Pudding Cheesecake recipe, but adds in some peanut-buttery goodness and then is topped with a drizzle of chocolate and some fresh whipped cream.

Ingredients:

  • 1 1/2 cups crushed vanilla wafers
  • 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
  • 1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
  • 22 vanilla wafers
  • 3 very ripe bananas, mashed
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 2 tablespoons light brown sugar
  • 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
  • 3 (8 oz) packages cream cheese, softened
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 3 eggs, at room temperature
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

optional garnishes:

  • whipped cream
  • 1 oz semisweet chocolate
  • 2 tablespoons heavy cream
  • vanilla wafers

Continue reading Peanut Butter Banana Pudding Cheesecake Bars

Nutella Swirled Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars

It’s time for my monthly Walkers Shortbread Blogger Ambassador program post, and I think they tailored this one just for me! This month’s theme is “Fruit Desserts for Fall,” where we were asked to use in-season fall autumn fruits including apples, pears, cranberries, figs, pomegranates, or pumpkins. Clearly, there was no question which one I was choosing.

Walkers Shortbread also has an exclusive promotion for I Can Cook That readers. Now through Monday, September 23, you can receive 25% off your total purchase, excluding sales items when you use the promo code ICCTFRUIT. So you can experiment with your very own fall treats! (Another favorite of mine that uses Walkers Shortbread is this Gingerbread Chocolate Pumpkin Trifle)

Because it is September and it hasn’t completely cooled off just yet, I thought I’d go for a chilled dessert. I have wanted to make Pumpkin Cheesecake for a while now and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. But to make it a little more special, I decided to swirl in some Nutella.

The crust is a mixture of Walkers Shortbread Highlanders and Stem Ginger Shortbread Cookies to give it a bit more flavor. I adapted this recipe from a recipe for Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bars on Taste of Home.

Ingredients:

  • 1 7 oz box Walkers Shortbread Highlanders (9 cookies)
  • 5 Walkers Stem Ginger Shortbread Cookies (~1/2 box)
  • 1 cup sugar, divided
  • 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted
  • 2 8 oz packages reduced-fat cream cheese
  • 1 8 oz package regular cream cheese
  • 1 15 oz can pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
  • 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon each of ground ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon and cardamom
  • 1/8 teaspoon allspice
  • 3/4 teaspoon vanilla bean paste (or vanilla extract)
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/4 cup Nutella, warmed

Continue reading Nutella Swirled Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars

Plum Swirled Cheesecake Bars

This recipe for Plum Swirled Cheesecake Bars is a result of me going a little off the grocery list last time I went food shopping. Have you ever seen an ingredient in the supermarket and decided you just have to make something with it? This happens to me quite a bit.

Unfortunately, I normally do not have a recipe lined up to take advantage of my new purchase. I wanted to take a break from some peach recipes I’ve been making recently (Brown Sugar Cinnamon Peach Pie, Peach Cobbler, and Bourbon-Peach Lemonade to name a few) and focus on a relative of peaches: the plum. I haven’t worked with plums much in the past (I actually only have once recipe: Plum Sweet and Spicy Chicken) but I just could not resist how great they looked!

I decided to take a Martha Stewart recipe for Apricot Cheesecake Bars and instead make my own Plum Compote as a substitute for the Apricots, resulting in these Plum Swirled Cheesecake Bars.

Ingredients:

Plum Compote:

  • ½ cup port wine
  • ½ cup sugar
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 1 vanilla bean, cut lengthwise
  • The zest of one orange
  • 6 plums, stones removed and sliced

Cheesecake:

  • 18 graham crackers (I used cinnamon graham crackers)
  • ¾ cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar, divided
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla powder (I used Nielsen Massey)
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
  • 2 packages (8 ounces each) cream cheese, room temperature
  • 1/2 cup sour cream, room temperature
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or pure vanilla extract (I used Nielsen Massey)
  • Coarse salt, to taste
  • 2 large eggs, room temperature

Continue reading Plum Swirled Cheesecake Bars

Pumpkin Cheesecake Tarts

Have you ever had a recipe just not work out the way it’s supposed to? It happens to me all the time. I usually tend to mess up a recipe so badly that I don’t even post it on here. But every now and then, my odd mistake ends up not being so bad, and is, dare is say it, quite delicious. This is one of those times, so I decided to share it. This recipe is adapted from verybestbaking.com.
Ingredients:
2/3 cup (~15) crushed gingersnap cookies
2 tablespoons butter, melted
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 can pumpkin puree
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 tablespoons dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Line a muffin tin with cupcake liners. (I tried both paper and foil cupcake liners. Use foil, the paper ones got stuck and I couldn’t get the tarts out!)
Crumble the gingersnaps. Place them in a ziploc bag and roll with a rolling pin until finely crushed.
Combine the cookie crumbs and butter in a small bowl.
Evenly distribute into each muffin tin (about 1 tablespoon per muffin tin) and press into the bottom to create a crust. Bake the muffin cups for 5 minutes.
Beat the cream cheese, pumpkin, sugar, spices, and vanilla extract until blended.
This is where things went south. My cream cheese was not having this whole “blended” thing. I think it still might have been too cold so it kind of chunked off into the mixture. Blargh.
Add eggs and beat well.
Nope, still chunky.
Pour the mixture into the muffin cups, filling about 3/4 of the way full.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, remove, and allow to cool in a pan on a wire rack.
Refrigerate the tarts for 10 minutes. You can prepare the chocolate drizzle at this point. Add the chocolate chips to a heavy duty ziploc bag. Microwave on high in 10 second intervals, taking the bag out and kneading to see if the chips have melted. (I think mine took 3 10 second intervals).
Cut a super tiny corner from the bag.
Squeeze over the tarts to drizzle with chocolatey goodness.
So. They probably aren’t as pretty as they were supposed to be. And I was pretty bummed about the chunks of cream cheese. Sigh.
But one bite, and I was over it. They were delicious! It kind of ended up being like a mini pumpkin pie with bursts of cheesecake. So you can judge how funny they look all day, but I’ll just keep on snacking on my funny looking tarts. 🙂
Exit mobile version