Terrible Cheesecake in 12 Easy Steps

To celebrate the holidays, I made a terrible cheesecake. You can make your own with these simple instructions!

Step 1: Start with this easy basic cheesecake recipe:

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BASIC CHEESECAKE

1½ cup graham cracker crumbs
4 tbs melted butter
1 cup sugar, plus 2 tbs for crust
24 oz cream cheese, room temperature
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbs heavy whipping cream

Oven temp: 350

In a small bowl, combine graham cracker crumbs, melted butter, and 2 tablespoons of sugar. After mixing well, press into the bottom of a springform pan that’s been lined with thick foil and greased. Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine room temperature cream cheese, eggs, vanilla, whipping cream and 1 cup sugar. Beat until smooth and creamy. Pour batter into the cheesecake pan and cook for 35–40 minutes. When the center is mostly set, remove from oven and run a knife around the edge of the pan. Allow to cool completely before topping or removing from pan.

You can add fruit topping after the cake is done, if desired.

For chocolate cheesecake, add a bag of melted chocolate chips to the mixture and use chocolate cookie crumbs for the crust. The vanilla can be substituted with any flavoring extract. It is a very flexible basic recipe that can be changed to incorporate any favorite flavor.

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We'll be making chocolate cheesecake today, so have your Oreo crumbs and melted chips on hand.

Step 2: When purchasing supplies to make your cheesecake, be sure the store is out of good quality cream cheese. Panic and buy the store brand. It probably doesn't make that much difference, but when things fall apart later, this will be a handy scapegoat.

Step 3: The recipe does not say how to mix your cheesecake batter, so just assume. Instead of carefully folding the delicate ingredients together by hand with a large spoon, just use your mixer. Remember, the quality of the cream cheese is subpar, so you may want to use high-speed to try to get the damn stuff smooth and creamy. Of course, that'll never happen - but you will beat a lot of air into the mixture so that, later, the whole cake will puff up in the oven then collapse like a failure souflee.

Step 4: Overbake your cheesecake. Since the last one you made never set in the center, overcompensate and leave THIS one in the oven, like, ten minutes longer. The texture will be tough and chewy, but the goddamn center will be set.

Step 5: Allow the cake to cool completely before removing the springform pan. When transferring it to a serving platter, the cheesecake should crack in every direction, and part of one side should crumble and slide into a lumpy pudding pile.

Step 6: Become just a little bit annoyed.

Step 7: Chill the cheesecake in the fridge overnight. When you take it out the next morning to top it, get a gooooood, long look at your work in the harsh light of day.

Step 8: Carefully cut away the collapsed section of your cheesecake with a butter knife. Slop it into a bowl and eat it with a spoon.

Step 9: Prepare a simple chocolate ganache by melting chocolate chips with a little heavy cream in the microwave. In the spirit of continuity, overcook the ganache until it's grainy and lumpy.

Step 10: Transfer the ganache to a small Ziploc bag, and cut off a tiny bit of one corner to make a little icing bag! You should be able to squeeze the ganache through the hole in the bag to make a pretty, drizzled pattern on top of what's left of your cheesecake. Squeeze too hard, so the bag bursts and all the ganache dumps out. You may be able to hear it laughing at you.

Step 11: FINE JUST SMEAR THE GANACHE ACROSS THE TOP WHO CARES AT THIS POINT

Step 12: Sprinkle with mini chocolate chips. Slap some lipstick on that pig!

Now you have your very own terrible cheesecake for Christmas. It tastes fine. Not perfect, maybe, and certainly not beautiful or guest-worthy. But you fucking have cheesecake, so what are you crying about?

Try to wait til at least 5:00pm before you break out the "special occasion" bottle of Jagermeister you keep in your freezer.



HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Chocolate Sheet Cake

WARNING. If you make this cake, you could end up standing at your kitchen island at 8:00 pm, shoveling it in your mouth, unsure where your life took this particular turn. I am not big on baking, but this is the second cake I've made this month. I don't know what's gotten into me. Besides cake. Lots of cake has gotten into me. I have a couple of theories:

1. Earlier this year I had to throw out ALL of my baking supplies because they were long expired. That's how infrequently I bake. To avoid being wasteful like that again, I feel I should try harder to use up my baking soda, cocoa, etc. That's just being responsible, people.

2. I've been trying to motivate myself to get back on my treadmill. I am going to shock and horrify myself into action.

NOW.

I'm not going to post the recipe. There's no need, since this is the Pioneer Woman's Best Chocolate Sheet Cake Ever that she brags about all the time. If you read her site at all, you have heard of this cake. So check out her recipe, that's all I did here. I'll just tell you a few things I found on my ride...

1. I buttered and floured my pan. It just didn't feel right not to. It came out fine.

2. I made my buttermilk with the milk + vinegar technique. I guess it worked? Hell, I don't know, honestly. I have never bought buttermilk in my life, what's it even look like? I can tell you this - my buttermilk/egg mixture did not look NEARLY as nice and thick and fluffy as hers. Mine was runny and awkward to stir into the batter. Tasted fine, though. I imagine you can even use regular milk here and the world will keep spinning.

3. Hershey's cocoa. That's the stuff. Last trip to the store, I bought Nestle Toll House cocoa, because it was a little bit cheaper. So that's what I've had on hand, and I'll keep using it until it's gone, but...it's no Hershey's. There is definitely a taste difference. Maybe not a quality difference - but if you grew up on Hershey's, there's no need to stray. Next time I make this cake, I will make it with Hershey's and I guarantee it'll be even better.

4. There WILL be a next time I make this cake.

5. I really like numbered lists.

6. This cake has almost FOUR STICKS of butter in it. Think about that for a minute.

Death by Chocolate Trifle

Do you have a death wish? Man, that's sad. But here, let me help you. Kill yourself with some dignity, ok? This only takes like one bowl before stopping your heart. It's a good pain, though, I promise. Oh so good.

Get you one of these. Maybe you were using it as a fruit bowl. Whatever, it makes a terrific fruit bowl:

Good job. Bake a box of this in a 13x9 pan:

Let it cool a bit. Now grab a pastry brush and brush some of this on it until it's moist, but not so soggy the brownies fall apart:

Get some of this and whip it up. You'll need a lot. I had used one of the big, big tubs of Cool Whip but I think we all agree this is tastier and is made with less plastic, now don't we? Just...make a lot:

Make two boxes of this (use full fat milk - remember, we're trying to kill you here):

Go out and buy about 8 of these. Don't buy 15 of them. Or 30, if you're making two desserts. You'll look like a dumbass and your best friend will yell across the grocery store that she doesn't acutally know you. That bitch!

Crush them up. I used a hammer. Be careful! You're not ready to meet Jesus yet, ok?

Alrighty. Back to your makeshift fruit bowl. Cut up the liquor soaked brownies (steal a couple bites, you're cool) and put about half of them in the bottom of the bowl. Put half of your pudding on top, spread it around good. Do the same with the whipping cream. Top with half of the crushed candy bars. Repeat, ending with a lovely flourish of candy bits hammered into bite size pieces...or oblivion, maybe you were mad when you were weilding the hammer. Maybe your husband was watching Die Hard and that movie is fucking stupid and can't we watch the Golden Girls? Shit. It's MY kitchen, maybe you should go to the back!

Put that in the fridge and let it get nice and cool.

Write a letter to your mama. Tell her how good it was. Oh, and write a quick e-mail to your boss letting him know you won't be returning and what a jackass he is. Doesn't that feel good? Yes, yes it does.

Chocolate Cobbler

"It's like all the flavor fell out of your brownies." - Shayne


I got this off the Pioneer Woman's Tasty Kitchen site (are y'all tired of hearing about her/her site yet? TOO BAD.) Y'all, this stuff is...weird. I'm just going to say it, it's weird.

It's not very sweet. You would think you'd be drowning in sweetness by the look of it, but...then you aren't. It's weeeeird. I could probably fix that, by upping the sugar content, but...I'm not sure it needs fixing. Because it's also warm, gooey, comforting, and made me feel like...like, you know how a cat kneads its paws on a blanket while it purrs to let you know how ridiculously, smugly satisfied it is? It made me feel like that. It made my head buzz.

(Okay that last part is probably because I don't make a lot of desserts or eat a lot of sugar, because sugar does psychedelic things to my brain. Seriously, when I went to dig in my pantry to make this, I realized all of my baking ingredients expired in May. Of 2009. So I had to buy all new stuff to make this. True, pathetic story.)

Since this stuff is not packed with sweetness on it's own, I think the most crucial ingredient involved is the ice cream you serve it with. Next to the ice cream, it's suddenly perfect. Even Shayne changed his mind and decided he liked it with the ice cream (he has a raging sweet tooth, and was clearly underwhelmed with it straight out of the oven). I used Vanilla Bean ice cream, but I think next time I'll try Homemade Vanilla, or some other more old-fashioned variety.

Y'all still here? Have I scared you away? I hope not. Weirdness aside, it's really an easy, cheap chocolate fix if you don't have the sweetest sweet tooth ever. Or if you want a bowl of warm LOVE at the end of the day.

It's just...a little weird, is all. And isn't everyone?

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Chocolate Cobbler

• 1 cup flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ¼ tsp salt
• 7 tbs cocoa powder, divided (I would make these heaping spoonfuls, and use a good quality cocoa because the cocoa is the whole point of this thing)
• 1¼ cup sugar, divided
• ½ cup milk
• ⅓ cup melted butter
• 1½ tsp vanilla extract
• ½ cup light brown sugar, packed
• 1½ cup hot tap water
• Vanilla ice cream, for serving

Oven temp: 350

Stir together the flour, baking powder, salt, 3 tablespoons of the cocoa, and 3/4 cup of the white sugar. Reserve the remaining cocoa and sugar.

Stir in the milk, melted butter, and vanilla to the flour mixture. Mix until smooth. Pour the mixture into an ungreased baking dish.

In a separate small bowl, mix the remaining white sugar (1/2 cup), the brown sugar, and remaining 4 tablespoons of cocoa. Sprinkle this mixture evenly over the batter.

Pour the hot tap water over the whole thing. Do not stir! (WEEEEIRD)

Bake for about 40 minutes, or until the center is set. Let stand for a few minutes to cool. Serve with homemade ice cream.