Jesse's 26th Birthday :)

So Jesse's 26th birthday is tomorrow, and in honor of that, I took my entire day off to create for him a bunch of his favorite foods, even being adventurous and trying some I'd never attempted before....What follows are some new recipes I've learned with pictures for each step :). Enjoy :)

Baked Chocolate Cheesecake: This was Jesse's request for a birthday cake. I've never attempted to make cheesecake for one main reason...I HATE cheesecake. Yes. I said it. I'm female, and I hate cheesecake. I have tried numerous times to like cheesecake, but it never seems to work. I used to hate apples, and after practicing eating them, I grew to love them. That is true for many of my favorite foods, but I've have attempted to eat and enjoy cheesecake about 10 different times, today being the 11th, and it never worked. I'm doomed to hate cheesecake. Oh well. But Jesse found this recipe in my desserts book and wanted me to make it for him, so I did.

Baked Chocolate Cheesecake:

Ingredients:

• 100 grams plain, bittersweet chocolate squares
• 1/3 cup plain, all purpose flour
• 1 cup caster (super fine sugar)
• 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
• ¼ teaspoon of salt
• 36 ounces of ricotta cheese
• 6 eggs
• 1 teaspoon of butter and 1 teaspoon of flour for pan

First, preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Then use a teaspoon of butter and a teaspoon of flower to grease a 9 inch round cooking pan.

Next, begin with the chocolate. Get 100 grams of plain dark chocolate. Chop it into small bits and then melt it in the microwave. Melt it 30 seconds at a time, stirring in between each melting session. (I had a picture of the chocolate being chopped, but somehow it got deleted or something, so I only have it in the melted stage now! Sorry). Special note, the smaller you chop the chocolate, the easier it melts and the less likely it is to burn. Burnt chocolate=terrible smell. After melted, allow the chocolate to remain in bowl to cool.

3. After this, in a separate bowl, mix flour, along with caster, cocoa powder, and salt.

4. In yet another separate bowl, mix ricotta cheese- it works best if you use an electric mixer and not a hand held whisk. Once it is smooth, add the eggs, mixing after each egg.

5. Then, mix in your cooled chocolate to your ricotta/egg mixture! :)

6. Once this is evenly distributed, combine your dry ingredients with the cheese/egg mixture and continue mixing on medium speed.

7. Finally, put your 9 inch pan on top of a baking sheet (to keep the bottom from burning), and place in oven for 1 hour and 20 minutes.

The finished product? Here is is J

8. Finally, give it to your husband for his birthday, and let him enjoy.

A tip for the cooling process of the cake: allow it to cool in he oven. Turn the oven off and leave the door open and wait about 30 minutes. This will keep the cheesecake from cracking on the top J.

After this, I prepared him a lemon pound cake with lemon glaze. I found this recipe online- just googled lemon pound cakes. This may be the best tasting thing I’ve ever created, but it is so sweet that I can seriously only eat a small piece at a time. It is meant to be savored, not devoured!

Lemon Pound Cake:

Ingredients

·                                 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

·                                 1 teaspoon baking powder

·                                 1/2 teaspoon salt

·                                 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened at room temperature

·                                 1 cup sugar, plus 1/3 cup

·                                 4 eggs

·                                 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

·                                 1/4 cup lemon juice, plus 1/3 cup

Directions

1.        Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 6-cup bunt pan and line it with parchment or waxed paper.

2.        In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt.

3.        With a mixer, mix butter until creamed evenly. Then add 1 cup of the sugar and mix again. With the mixer running at low speed, add the 4 eggs, mixing after each one.  Follow with the vanilla (you can use what I gave you from my wedding! No, it wasn’t soy sauce or diet coke! Haha).

4.        Continuing the mix the entire time, add in each of the dry ingredients as well as the ¼ cup of lemon juice.

5.        Once well mixed and smooth, pour into your bunt pan and cook for about 65 minutes.

6.        Mix together the glaze while your cake is baking: In a small bowl, stir together the remaining 1/3 cup sugar and the remaining 1/3 cup lemon juice until the sugar is dissolved. Add some yellow food coloring for fun effect if you like. Then have ready ¼ cup of confectioners sugar J

7.        After finished, allow cake to cool about 15 minutes, then remove the wax paper and baste with glaze- allow each teaspoon or so of glaze to sink in before putting more on. Baste the top and sides, then sprinkle the confectioners sugar around the top J

8.        Finally, serve really small pieces; it is very sweet, very good, but very heavy J.

Lastly, I made baby back ribs for Jesse. I followed his mom’s recipe. I forgot to take pictures of the before pictures, and I don’t feel like typing out all the directions and the directions for the homemade sauce, but I’ll share this picture of my wonderful husband after he devoured 10 of the 13 ribs J. Hehe. Cute. Oh, and he’s not wearing a shirt b/c we are not using the AC and it’s mad hot. J

Sigh, now I’m exhausted. I spent more time in the kitchen today than all the past week combined….and I even cooked most days last week, so this is saying a lot J. But happy birthday wonderful husband. I hope you liked all your goodies J!!!