Infinite Cheesecake, Day 5: Cookies and Cream

Oops.  So........ got a couple days behind.  It's been a crazy week.  For reals.   But... we've had lots of awesome cooking going on mixed in with the craziness!

Back to Cheesecake though. 

Today's (4 days late) flavor, with 6 of 16 points is

COOKIES AND CREAM!

Placed 6th on Dante's list, 4th on mine.

I love pretty much anything cookies and cream.....Mmmmmm.

How we did it:

Crumbled oreos

Chocolate ice cream sauce

Happy Cooking!

Rowan

Infinite Cheesecake, Day 4: White Chocolate Cranberry

Today's flavor, with 6 of 16 points, is

WHITE CHOCOLATE CRANBERRY

This came in 5th on both our lists.

This one was good, but the flavors seemed a bit muted.  I think it might be better with fresh a fresh cranberry topping, and possibly a slightly better white chocolate, since technically this is "Vanilla Flavored Bark"...

How we did it:Craisins tossed in melted Red Currant Jelly for a nice gloss

"white chocolate" curls

Happy cooking!

Rowan



Infinite Cheesecake: Day 3, Peanut Butter and Jelly

Today's Cheesecake, in 6th place with a combined score of 5 points out of 16, is

Peanut Butter and Jelly

Dante: 3rd place, Me: Last place

This one just didn't have enough flavor for me, and the texture of the jelly wasn't meshing particularly well.  That said, I think with just a couple modifications (more peanut butter, melting the jelly), it would be fantastic. Dante thought it was a really good combination of tastes and textures.

How we did it:

Pretty basic...

Peanut Butter and jelly (Jif and Strawberry Smuckers, of course) drizzled across the slice

Infinite Cheesecake: Day 2, Turtle

And in 7th place, with a combined score of 3/16, we have...

TURTLE

This was 7th on Dante's list, and 6th on mine.  It was a pretty standard Turtle Cheesecake.  Very good, but nothing phenomenal. 

How we did it:

Caramel Ice Cream Sauce

Chocolate Ice Cream Sauce

Crumbled Pecans

Happy Cooking, and stay tuned for more Cheesecake!

Rowan

Infinite Cheesecake: Day 1, Heath

And in eighth place, with a combined score of 1 (Out of 16 possible points), is...

Heath Bar/Caramel

This one, while good, came in dead last on Dante's list, and 7th place on my list.

It was just rather bland.  I don't think it helped that the Heath bits were a little soft (starting to get stale?), but  it didn't "pop".  But let's be realistic here... it's cheesecake with caramel and toffee... it was still REALLY good! 

How we did it: 

Caramel ice cream sauce drizzle 

Sprinkled with Heath bar pieces (found in the baking aisle, with chocolate chips)

Happy Cooking, 

Rowan

Infinite Cheesecake: Introduction

Dante's sister wants to learn some new recipes.  So, in plotting fun, easy, and (dare I say) impressive dishes for him to show her, we came up with this winner.  (The original idea was Dante's, fyi.)

INFINITE CHEESECAKE.

It's kinda awesome.

First, you start with a standard cheesecake base.  Today's base was a modified version of the Joy of Cooking's New York Style Cheesecake.  It got a little overdone.  We actually cut the outside half inch or so off and coated the sides with graham cracker crumbs.  But the filling was AMAZING.  (I think next weekend or later this week we'll be trying out Alton Brown's recipe from Good Eats, Season 5, Episode 7 "The Trouble with Cheesecake" for a comparison).

Then (and this explains the title), we brainstormed a whole bunch of ideas for toppings.  See we figure with one good cheesecake base recipe, the number of different cheesecakes you can make is only limited by your imagination and culinary daring.  We ended up making (and sampling!!) eight different flavors by varying our choice of toppings.  We then ranked them from good to outstanding, and I'll tell you right now, there was one very clear winner.  For reference, the point system was 1-8 from each judge, based on ranking, so the lowest possible score is 1, and the highest is 16.

Over the next week, I'll be posting one of our flavors each day, along with how we made it (They were all SUPER easy!) and our evaluation of the flavor.  So stay tuned and check in this week, leading up to the big reveal of our number one flavor next Sunday!

Happy Cooking!
Rowan