I made this cheesecake for our annual church Dessert Auction Fundraiser with all proceeds going to the youth group. It's very easy, but should be started the day before or early morning to allow for chilling time.

Although you can buy a crumb crust, this recipe from the Hershey's Chocolate Lover's Cookbook calls for a crust made with vanilla crumbs and cocoa. I take the Chocolate Festival Cheesecake, use chocolate crumbs, and call it a Triple Chocolate Cheesecake.

Heat oven to 350°F.
 
In a small bowl, stir together vanilla* wafer crumbs, powdered sugar and cocoa. I used chocolate crumbs and 2 tbsps of cocoa.

Stir in melted butter/margarine.

Although the cookbook doesn't call for this, I make a bottom out of parchment paper to slide the cheesecake off the pan. Very easy, and no one cutting the bottom of my springform pan.

Press the crumb mixture onto bottom and ½ inch up the side of a 9-inch springform pan. I use a metal one-cup measuring cup. It's rounded nicely at the bottom edge and provides a nice tapered side. It also slides nicely with gentle finger pressure to make an even bottom.

Bake 8-10 minutes. Cool.

Heat oven to 450°F. In a large mixer bowl, combine cream cheese, sugar, cocoa, sour cream and vanilla.

Beat on medium speed of electric mixer until smooth. Add flour and eggs. Beat well.

Pour into prepared Chocolate Crumb Crust.

Bake 10 minutes. Without opening oven, reduce temperature to 250°F.

Continue baking 30 minutes. (Don't open door, but if your oven has a light and you can see it, the cheesecake may not appear set in middle.)

Turn off oven. Leave cheesecake in oven 30 minutes without opening door. Remove from oven.

With knife, loosen cake from side of pan. Cool to room temperature. Remove side of pan.

Refrigerate several hours or overnight. I did for one hour as I was pressed for time and knew it wouldn't be eaten until the next day.

Garnish* with chocolate curls or sliced fruit and whipped cream, if desired.

*For garnish, I use chocloate dipping wafers (or Wilton candy melts).  Although I have a double boiler, I use a Corning bowl (the one with a wide handle/spout on one side and smaller on the other) or metal bowl over a pot of softly simmering water. Pour approx 1/2 cup chocolates wafers into the bowl and stir as it melts, ensuring you don't let any water or condensation mix in with your chocolate or it won't work/harden as well.

Once they are all melted, pour the milk chocolate into a 6" Wilton bottle made for this purpose, and squirt the chocolate in whatever design you wish. Sometimes I make flower or lattice designs. 

This year, I had one bowl of milk chocolate wafers melting beside a bowl of white chocolate wafers. I was trying to start with a milk chocolate free-hand and then have it end and the white begin in one continuous stream, like varigated yarn. It didn't work.

As you can see in the photo below - around the edge in the foreground - the brown color didn't end when the white started, but rather mixed together. I tried to work this lighter color around the edge to give the design a more even look (as if it was planned).

I then added more white chocolate to the bottle, squirted into the chocolate bowl until only white came out, then made my white chocolate butterflies on a sheet of parchment. As the butterflies harden, the parchment should be tucked into the middle groove of a cardboard egg carton*, but the dessert auction was quickly approaching and I ran to get dressed. By the time I got back to the kitchen, only the thickest butterfly was bendable. Usually I'd use only the best ones, but this time, they were all iffy. Still, I took the best and left the rest.
* Let me know if you want photos of this design idea.

Cover. Refrigerate leftover cheesecake.

Yield 10 to 12 servings.


Because I was taking this to sell, I slid the cheesecake off the pan bottom and onto this glass cake stand (the parchment sticks to the bottom of the cake). In other years, I found that if I sell the stand with the cheesecake, I can put a minimum starting bid and sell it for more. This Anchor glass cake/trifle stand/punch bowl combo usually sells at Walmart for $10, but this year, they had them on sale for $5. That's a small price when my cheesecakes usually go for $40 to $100 at the dessert auction. (Last year I brought 3 different cheesecakes and since there were more to go around, one sold for only $40. This year, I'm only bringing this one.)

The chocolate dries fast. Within 15 minutes of adding the white chocolate butterflies, I was able to cover the cheesecake with a layer of Saran plastic wrap ending on the glass edge. This served 2 purposes... it stopped the glass lid from rattling as well as sliding into the cheesecake as we have a 30 min drive on gravel roads to the church.

They saved my Triple Chocolate Cheesecake for the end, asking if the cake stand when with it. I said, yes, with a minimum bid of $50. It sold for $75.

Photos taken at the Dessert Auction Fundraiser can be found at the News From the Pews blog.

Making and decorating Sugar Cookies have long been a favourite holiday tradition. I still have the Robin Hood Junior baking set with child-size oven mitts and matching apron and baker’s hat that the girls used when they were small.  And, I have a plastic box full of assorted Christmas cookie cutters and we don’t skimp on the decorations. At first I made a double batch, but as the kids grew I needed more so now I make a quadruple batch and that will last a week or two. 

But this year, we're partway through December already and we haven't started baking yet. Because this year is different. For the first Christmas ever, Jessie won't be home because she's flying to Vietnam to replace missionaries at an orphange so they can be home for Christmas. Then on New Year's Day, we'll pick her up at the airport and she'll visit for 2 weeks.

Every year, Crystal is torn between coming home and sharing Christmas with her long-standing boyfriend and other roommates. When I discovered Jessie wouldn't be home, I let Crystal know this would be a good year to stay home if she wished. She did. Now, she's coming out to visit during the time Jessie will be home. So in essence, our Christmas will be at the beginning of January.

So there's no rush for baking an overabundance now when I can do it during the holidays - when the boys can practice,  as well.  And I'll admit, I don't only have Christmas cookie cutters, I have them for all seasons and then some because I collect them. The plan then is to see if the boys want to make the sugar cookies before Christmas using only Christmas cutters, or after and use a variety of them. Hmm... snowflakes are nice. :)

Double                         Basic                                                   Quadruple
1 1/3 cups         2/3 cup shortening                                     2 2/3 cups
1 1/2 cups         3/4 cups sugar                                              2 1/2 - 3 cups (I use 2 1/2)
2 tsp                     1 tsp vanilla                                                   4 tsp 
                                                *    *    *
2 eggs                   1 egg                                                                 4 eggs
8 tsp                      4 tsps milk                                                     5 tbsp 
                                                *    *    *
4 cups                   2 cups sifted all-purpose flour              8 cups
1 tbsp                    1 1/2 tsps baking powder                        2 tbsp
1/2 tsp                 1/4 tsp salt                                                     1 tsp

Thoroughly cream shortening, sugar and vanilla.

Add egg; beat till light and fluffy.

Stir in milk.

Sift together: flour, baking powder, and salt.

Blend dry ingredients into creamed mixture.

Divide dough into portions. Wrap each portion in plastic wrap and smooth into a flat brick shape. Chill one hour.

Traditional way is to roll out the chilled dough on a lightly floured surface.

My way:  Unwrap one brick but leave it between the plastic. Roll it out, turning and flipping the dough with plastic so it won’t stick to rolling pin or to the table.

When dough is rolled to 1/8” thickness no less, cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters and place on greased cookie sheets.

Decorate before baking. To ensure decorations stay on, press lightly with pad of index finger so sprinkles won’t roll off. Press decorations lightly into dough. It’s okay if decorations land on cookie sheet – just hard to clean after.

The younger kids have a tendency to push too hard and flatten the dough allowing it to cook faster and then burn before the rest are done.  

Bake decorated cookies at 375° for 6-8 minutes.

This is the same cookie sheet Nick was decorating in the image above this one. If you look at the cookie in the bottom left before it went into the oven, you can see the difference in dough thickness beside its neighbor - probably because it was cut from another roll-out of dough. Cookies are done when the bottom of the outer edge begins to brown. 

Cool slightly and remove from pan. Continue cooling on rack.

Basic recipe makes 2 dozen cookies.

All the images on this page were taken December 2011. They are all jigsaw puzzles.

If you want to see more of my jigsaw puzzles, click on the FUN tab in my menu bar and pick Jigsaw Puzzles from the drop-down menu. You'll have choices of Flora, Fauna and Christmas although I'm working on more pages like scenery, texture, objects, people, etc.

Or, you could click here - Jigsaw Puzzles.