Today I am celebrating my fourth year of wedded bliss! I can't even believe that four years have passed. It seems like yesterday that I thought wedding planning was the most stressful thing that I had ever done. Boy, was I wrong! In the last four years we've moved twice, endured law school, the bar exam, the bar exam again and the most unbearable year of unemployment for me. The past four years haven't been all bad, though. We try to play as hard as we work and over the past four years we've gone hiking in Sedona, swam with sharks in Hawaii, saw the Foo Fighters and Boyz II Men in concert. We watched the Red Sox win in Fenway and Tigers play in Death Valley. We watched so many of our friends tie the knot and gained a nephew and an Eliza Claire. It's definitely been a ride that I only want to share with my Jamie. Je t'adore.
We have so much to celebrate in addition to celebrating our love (corny, I can't help it) we've had a couple of fantastic days. In the span of four days I passed the bar and got an amazing job offer! I am so happy to announce that that year of unemployment is officially OVER! I accepted a job that is PERFECT for me and I can't wait to join the real world again on Tuesday! No more sleeping until 10 or going for a run whenever I want. Sleeping 'til 10 might sound fun, but when you've been doing for as long as I have it gets old quick. When I started this blog I just needed something constructive to do in between the endless number of job applications that I could control because for the longest time I wasn't winning the employment battle. I've learned a lot over the past six months about the blogging world and I will try my absolute hardest to not become one of those blogs that just drops off. I might need a little help from my Guest Blogging friends. Either way my journey to become a professional southern belle is far from over.
For our anniversary I thought I would make some fancy dinner and then it occurred to me that on our actual wedding day we ate barbecue so why on earth was I trying so hard to change the people that we are? We love simple and we'll probably head to some burger joint tonight. For dessert however I wanted to do something fun. Enter the black and white cheesecake. Like marriage, this cheesecake is a compromise. Jamie is a well-documented chocoholic. See here, here and here. I guess that makes me an enabler ;) Anyway, I love chocolate (what girl doesn't?), but I also really love vanilla. Aren't we ironic? It gets better:
The Number 1 Song the week Jamie was born:
What you need:
For the cheesecake filing:
4 8oz blocks cream cheese room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 tbs. flour
4 eggs, room temperature
2 tbs. vanilla
2 tbs. heavy cream
For the crust:
22-24 oreos
4 tbs. butter, melted
For the ganache:
10 oz dark chocolate chips (I used Ghiradelli 60% cacao)
1 cup heavy cream
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Here's what I did:
Oreo Cookie Crust:
- First, I cut out a 9 inch circle of parchment paper for my springform pan. Then I placed the circle in the bottom of the pan and sprayed the hell out of it with cooking spray. Seriously, you can't have too much oil for this one.
- Then I scraped the filling out of the oreos. I don't think this is mandatory but I didn't want the icing gumming my crust up. Besides, I hate the icing in oreos. I was not even tempted to eat it, I put it straight in the trash can. I threw the oreos in my brand new 10 cup food processor that my lovely brother found on sale at Walmart for $25! Chop them until there is nothing but crumbs and pour the crumbs in a medium mixing bowl.
- Next, melt the butter in the microwave. Pour the melted butter into the mixing bowl with the crumbs and stir until all of the crumbs are moist.
- Finally press the cookie crust in the bottom of the 9 inch spring form pan.
Filling:
- Preheat the oven to 325F
- In a large bowl beat the cream cheese until it gets creamy it looks like you could easily spread that cream cheese on the nearest bagel (about 4-5 minutes).
- Next add the sugar and beat on a low speed until it's all incorporated. Repeat with the flour.
- Then add in your vanilla and heavy cream.
- Next add in the eggs one at a time. You want to add the next egg as soon as the yolk is separated. If you completely mix the entire first egg before adding the second egg then you are on your way to over mixing your cheesecake.
- BEWARE: with a cheesecake you don't want to mix it too much after you add the eggs. Beating the eggs too much adds extra air to the cake and causes the cake to crack. There's a more scientific explanation here. Consider yourself warned. I was careful and my cheesecake ended up cracking despite my best efforts. Thankfully you can't see it because of the ganache.
- Pour the filling in the pan over your gorgeous oreo cookie crust and place in the center of the oven. Bake 45 minutes, then turn off the oven and open the door of the oven and leave the cheesecake in the oven for another 15 minutes.
- Take the cheesecake out of the oven and let cool on wire rack for 25-30 minutes.
Ganache:
This is the same recipe that I used in the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes, check that out here. Since we're not making frosting you don't have to whip the ganache I just poured the shiny ganache onto the cooling cheesecake while it is still in the springform pan covering the entire cake. The cheesecake was out of the oven for about 35 minutes before I added the chocolate. I covered the cheesecake with wax paper so that it wouldn't sweat and put it in the fridge to let cooling begin. I let this cheesecake cool overnight before I took the cheesecake out of the springform pan.
I tasted a bite of that slice and goodness that is good. The chocolate ganache is concentrated in a way that I know Jamie will appreciate. That bite reminded me of the black and white milkshakes that you get at Good Stuff Eatery. It is like having a fudge sundae except for it's cheesecake. In summary, I think it's awesome!
Wedding Photos by Clark Berry.
No comments:
Post a Comment