tbt Easter Cheesecakes

 

Since 2008, I've had a tradition of baking a cheesecake every year for Easter.  It started when I was in college – we didn't get a long weekend for the holiday, so I’d stay up in Gainesville and celebrate with my friends.  Those first two years I made the same flavor – apple caramel using this recipe. 

 

 

In 2010 I decided to switch it up and try out this amaretto cheesecake.  It came from the book Cheesecake Extraordinaire – the recipe is outlined here on Melinda Lee’s food blog – but I added more slivered almonds to the top.     

 

After that, I kept up the tradition with my family.  In 2011 I made a chocolate raspberry flavor (and at that point I had a better camera too!) I followed this recipe from Cuisinart, but tweaked the crust to be a bit thicker by using 1½ cups crushed pretzels, 6 T butter, and 4 T brown sugar.  I also added a drizzle of chocolate and fresh raspberries.  

 

 

The next one in 2012 was super decadent – chocolate peanut butter.  It was adapted from this recipe from Taste of Home, but I added some crushed pretzels to the crust and decorated the top with Cadbury mini eggs.   Just a small sliver of this one was a total sugar bomb.  

In 2013 I made a pumpkin spice latte cheesecake adapted from Sprinkle Bakes.  If you plan to top it with powdered sugar stripes, make sure to do it right before you serve it, otherwise they will just soak into the cheesecake and disappear.  

 

It was really easy to add the stripes and made it looks super fancy!  Just cut strips of parchment paper and lay them over the cake, then dust sugar over. 

 

Last year in 2014, I made a carrot cake cheesecake, which I think is my favorite yet!  It was adapted from Secret Copycat Restaurant Recipes – which copied it from the Cheesecake Factory.   Carrot cake is my favorite – especially with cream cheese frosting.  I added some shredded carrots and chopped walnuts to the top.  The crushed pineapple kept the cake nice and moist. 

I’d love to just repeat last year’s recipe again – but I’m trying to bake a different flavor each year.  Lance’s sister Brandi and her husband Jeremy will be in town from Idaho this year which will be exciting!  Any suggestions for what kind I should make this year?

Madeira Beach Mid-Week Market

Most fresh markets seem to happen on the weekends – and since Lance & I either have Tuesdays or Wednesdays off together, that means we can’t normally go to them.  But we found out about Madeira Beach’s Mid-Week Morning Market and decided to check it out.  It goes 9am – 2pm on Wednesdays on Madeira Way between Gulf Blvd and Tom Stuart Causeway. 

We read online that the market had about 80 vendors each week (in reality it seemed like 40 at most).  It was a mix of food, crafts, and fresh produce.  For breakfast we tried a guava-cream cheese empanada from Authentic Empanadas.  It was filled pretty generously with a guava jam inside. 

After that, we took a walk around to check out the other vendors and nearby shops.  We were still a bit hungry, so we visited the Hahn’s Kettle Corn stand.  They had a nice variety of flavors to sample – we ended up getting a medium bag of the cinnamon caramel kettle corn (which really should be called an extra- large…we only made it through a few handfuls and still have ¾ the bag leftover). 

I still like the Hyde Park and Downtown Tampa markets better – they seem to have a bit more selection.  Some of the booths were a bit too pushy trying to sell us things that we didn’t really need (one woman kept trying to convince us to stay at a hotel in St. Pete beach…we explained to her that living in Tampa, we’d probably just sleep at home if we visited St. Pete for the day…)

It was still fun to check out – although maybe better in the fall or winter when it isn’t so darn hot outside. 

Salted Caramel Coconut Macaroons

My friend Thu is in town for the summer (she’s going to school in Boston) so today we decided to try making macaroons.  I found the recipe from the blog Cookies and Cups.  Although ours didn’t turn out quite like the original recipe, they still tasted amazing. 

In case you don’t know the difference, macaroons & macarons are actually separate types of cookies.  The ones we made today are macaroons – chewy cookies made with shredded coconut.  Macarons are French meringue cookies sandwiched together with decadent fillings.  It seems like in the past few years, macaron shops have been popping up all over Tampa – from Le Macaron to the new dessert shop Chocolate Pi. 

These Salted Caramel Coconut Macaroons are sugar bombs, so you have to like SUPER sweet desserts if you plan to make these.  With the combination of coconut, chocolate, and caramel, they tasted a lot like Samoa Girl Scout cookies.  We actually headed to the gym afterwards for back-to-back BodyPump & BodyFlow classes to make up for our afternoon of baking…

We slightly altered the original recipe since I couldn’t find the caramel bits at our grocery store, so we used dulce de leche instead.  The recipe below makes around 30 cookies (we halved it an only made 15).

Salted Caramel Coconut Macaroons:

Ingredients:

• 1 (14 oz) can Sweetened Condensed Milk
• 1 (14 oz) can Dulce de Leche
• 1 cup flour
• 2 (14 oz) bags shredded sweetened coconut flakes
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1 container (7 oz) Baker’s Dark Semi-Sweet Dipping Chocolate  

 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325°

2. Lightly spray cookie sheet with cooking spray (I used Trader Joe’s coconut oil spray) and set aside.

 

3. In a small bowl, melt half the dulce de leche. 

4. In a large bowl combine the flour, sweetened condensed milk, and melted dulce de leche. Add in coconut and 1 tsp of sea salt. Stir until combined.

 

5. Drop dough by rounded tablespoon on baking sheet about an inch apart.

6. Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden. 

 

7. Let cool on baking sheet for 3 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to continue cooling.

8. Melt the chocolate in 30 second increments until melted, stirring after each interval.

9. When cookies are cooled dip the bottoms of the cookies into the melted chocolate and place on wax paper.

10. Melt the remaining dulce de leche and drizzle over the cookies.