The Cluttered Pantry

I know this may be hard to believe, but unlike his 3 year old sister, Jordan does not talk about butterflies every day, and at 6′ 3″ he is most definitely not tiny.

As a recent culinary school graduate he can put my cooking to shame, but he still leaves the baking mostly to me.

So I worked some kitchen magic (read that as – got lucky with a last minute creation that I never tested.) Mini Cheesecakes with a crust made from the pecan shortbread cookies I made the day before and a lemon vanilla whipped cream topping with candied lemon peel on top – My original plan was to use the awesome “Sex and Violence” cupcake toppers that Natalie from Bake and Destroy was nice enough to send, but I couldn’t get my act together to use them beyond cutting them out and placing them on the serving tray. (Jordan seemed to still appreciate the inclusion of the art, he has a collection of tattoos covering a fair amount of his body.)

The cheesecake recipe is a hodgepodge from one that I used to use in the commercial kitchen, it originally made enough batter for 6 full size cheesecakes at one time – required a really big 20 quart mixing bowl that I could barely life when full – and used 40 eggs, 20 lbs of cream cheese and so much lemon and orange zest that i kept bags of it in the freezer – (so in order to divide it down into a 2 quart bowl version I end up doing math in my head while baking – a dangerous practice even on a calm day for me.) The use of the shortbread cookies as the crust worked great (all that butter really pays off in the end, I may have to make that my go to option from now on.)

Pecan Shortbread Crust Cheesecakes- Ingredients:

• 3lbs cream cheese
• 5 eggs plus 2 yolks
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest
• 1.2 tablespoon orange zest
• 1/3 cup vanilla soy milk (you can use milk or cream)
• 3 tablespoons flour

I smoshed up the left over pecan shortbread cookies into the bottom of a regular cupcake pan (butter and flour first) But you can use any of the standard cheesecake crusts.

Method:

Mix the room temp cream cheese until really light and fluffy. Add in the sugar and cream together. Mix in the flour. Add in the eggs, extracts and milk a small amount at a time to make sure you get it blended really well (lumps in cheesecake make people gaack.) Stir in the zest just to mix through.

As cupcakes these cook great in a 450 degree oven for ten minutes then reduce heat to 350 and cook for about five more minutes or until the tops are set. I add a small pan of water to the bottom of my oven (but it’s a ten burner Garland that SUPER heats things, so you may not need to add this step to keep the tops from cracking.)

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