Chocolate Baileys Cheesecake

 

Every Easter since 2008, I’ve baked a cheesecake (you can see all the previous ones on this tbt post from last week).  I’ve tried to make a different kind every year, so I have tons of cheesecake recipes saved on Pinterest.

This year I baked a chocolate cheesecake with Baileys, topped with chocolate chips and chocolate covered espresso beans.  Like the chocolate peanut butter kind I made in 2012, this one was super rich. 

We drove down to Fort Myers to celebrate with Lance’s family this year.  After spending the afternoon at the pool, we headed to his aunt & uncle’s place for dinner.  They have an Easter tradition of crafting bunnies out of pears with maraschino cherry noses, marshmallow tails, clove eyes, and paper ears.  We ate those along with a huge dinner, so we barely had room for cheesecake afterwards. 

 

 

 

I’d never baked this flavor before but I’m very happy with how it turned out!  When cut, it showed all the layers really well – chocolate graham cracker crust, chocolate cheesecake, sour cream topping, and the chocolate chip/espresso bean garnish. 

Baileys Chocolate Cheesecake (adapted from Cozy Country Living)

Crust:

·        2 cups chocolate graham crackers crumbs (about 12 whole crackers)

·        8 T butter (1 stick), melted

Cheesecake:

·        4 – 8oz pkgs cream cheese

·        1½ cups granulated sugar

·        1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

·        1 tsp vanilla

·        4 eggs

·        ½ cup Baileys Irish Cream liquor

Topping:  

·        1 – 16oz container sour cream

·        ¼ cup granulated sugar

·        ¼ cup Baileys Irish Cream liquor

·        1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

·        About 50 chocolate covered espresso beans

 

Directions:

1.  Grease a 9” springform pan (I used coconut oil spray) and preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

2. Grind your graham crackers in the food processer.  Mix with melted butter and press into the bottom of your pan evenly and part way up the sides. 

3. Bake crust for 8 minutes, then allow to cool while you prepare the filling.    

4. In a small saucepan, heat chocolate chips on low, stirring until just melted.  Set aside to cool slightly. 

 

5. In a large bowl with a hand-mixer (or this year I was able to use my KitchenAid mixer!), blend the cream cheese and sugar until fluffy. 

6. Slowly add the melted chocolate by the spoonful, scraping the sides to make sure it combines well. 

7. Add eggs one at a time, beating until just combined after each addition.

8. Add the vanilla and Baileys and mix together until combined. 

9. Pour filling over crust and spread out evenly.  Bake for about 60 minutes, or until almost set.  Remove and let stand for 5 minutes. 

 

10.  Blend together the sour cream, sugar, and Baileys for the topping.  Spread evenly over cheesecake and bake 5 more minutes. 

 

11. Remove from oven and let cool in the pan for 10 minutes.  Carefully go around the edges of the pan with a knife to loosen, and move the cheesecake, still in the springform pan, to a cooling rack and let sit another 30 minutes. 

12. Top with chocolate chips and chocolate covered espresso beans. 

13. After another hour, you can cover the cheesecake with foil or plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator overnight. 

14.  Remove the sides from the springform pan, cut in slices & enjoy!

 

The Wharf – St. Pete Beach, FL

 

Lance’s sister Brandi & brother-in-law Jeremy are visiting from McCall, Idaho for the week.  We haven’t seen them for almost three years, so we are pretty excited to have them in town! 

It’s still snowing out in Idaho, so they wanted to head to the beach to enjoy the warm Florida weather and get their Vitamin D.  We spent the afternoon at Pass-A-Grille, which was packed with spring breakers. It was the perfect weather for a beach day – sunny with a breeze.    

We had lunch down the street at The Wharf, a beachy shack overlooking the Pass-A-Grille Marina.  It was pretty crowded, so we couldn’t get seating outdoors, but we got a window booth overlooking the water. 

 

 

We were going to cool off with some beer, but they were out of most of the local ones on the menu, so we settled for just waters. 

Since we were having dinner with my parents later that evening, we didn’t want to fill up too much, so we split a bunch of appetizers.  We started off with a dozen raw oysters.  They were some of the largest I’ve seen!

 

We also enjoyed the conch fritters and blacked buffalo shrimp, although it only came with 8 shrimp, so we devoured them quickly (it was an appetizer, so we shouldn’t have expected more). 

 

Since we were craving more shrimp, we shared the pound of peel-and-eat shrimp seasoned with Old Bay spice.  Jeremy had a PoBoy sandwich – they brought it out with fried grouper instead of blackened like he had ordered, but it still looked good. 

Overall, a nice place to relax and enjoy some casual seafood at the beach. 

The Wharf is located at 2001 Pass a Grille Way, St Pete Beach, FL 33706 and is open 11am – 11pm every day.   

Trader Joe’s Wild Marinated Soy Ginger Cod

 

We always pick up new exciting foods on our Trader Joe’s trips.  Last time, we bought their Wild Marinated Soy Ginger Cod filets.  You can prepare them in the microwave, oven, or pan fry them – we baked them and it was so easy & delicious! 

We paired the fish with a caprese salad made with Trader Joe’s (Trader Giotto’s) marinated mozzarella cheese, which is soaked in olive oil and Italian spices.  The whole dinner took about 15 minutes to prepare!

Trader Joe's is located at 3808 W Swann Ave, Tampa, FL 33609 and is open 8am – 9pm every day.

Cinnamon Brown Sugar Ice Cream with Hunahpu's Imperial Stout

 

Yesterday, I saw on The Revolution Ice Cream Company’s facebook page that they had created a new ice cream flavor – Cinnamon Brown Sugar Ice Cream with Cigar City’s Hunahpu’s Imperial Stout. 

Just in case you don’t know about this beer, it is Cigar City’s most sought after beer.  They brew it just one day a year, and release it the second Saturday in March at the brewery.  The Hunahpu’s Day event has become so popular that they had to start charging $200 per ticket to keep the crowds under control.  The beer made this list of The 10 Most Traveled For Beers in America and it has a perfect 100 score on Ratebeer. 

It gets its name from the legendary Hun Hunahpu of Mayan mythology.  Hunahpu was slain Dark Lords of the underworld, and his sacrificed body morphed into a cocoa tree, with a cocoa pod as his head.  One of the Dark Lord’s daughters, Xquic, picked a fruit from the tree and it spat on her, impregnating her with twin sons.  The twins grew up and defeated the Dark Lords to avenge their father, then transformed into the sun and the moon. 

The stout is aged on cocoa nibs, ancho and pasilla chiles, cinnamon, and Madagascar vanilla beans.  Unfortunately with it being so rare and the event being so expensive, I’ve never had the chance to taste it, but it sounds incredible. 

 

The line at the ice cream parlor was longer than I’ve ever seen it.  It seems that the word spread about their one batch of the cinnamon flavor – although it wasn’t marked on the board with the rest of them.  Lance and I each got a scoop of it – plus I had a scoop of their Mocha Mint (coffee ice cream with Thin Mint cookies), and Lance had a scoop of the What’s Up Nutter Fudger? (chocolate peanut butter ice cream with chunks of nutter bars). 

 

All our flavors were delicious.  I’m glad we were able to try the special flavor because the stout made the cinnamon ice cream even richer.  I still wish I could try a sip of the beer on its own, but the ice cream was great. 

If you want to read more about The Revolution Ice Cream, check out this post from last September.  They constantly have events and come up with new flavors, so like their facebook page if you want to stay updated.  Coming up on Sunday, April 12^th from 1 – 7pm, they will have food trucks, live music, a bounce house, and BOGO ice cream all to benefit the Center for Autism and Related Disabilities (CARD) at USF, so if you’re free that day, go eat some ice cream for a good cause. 

The Revolution Ice Cream Company is located at 220 W Brandon Blvd #104, Brandon, FL 33511 and is open 12pm – 10pm Monday through Saturday and 1pm – 9pm on Sunday.