derishus&nutrishus: Spitzbuben and Oreo Cheesecake

I'm not a very useful person. I don't think I have ADHD, but I do have difficulty sticking to a hobby or skill and becoming good at it. Last year, to try to develop some type of skill worth having, I decided to make it a goal to cook or bake something tasty at least once a month. I've never had any special series of posts in my blog, before, so this will be the first! It's called derishus&nutrishus. Someday, you will be able to click this and browse all the tasty foods I have made. :) And maybe by then, I will have magically transformed into a master supreme overlord chef.

Last year, I did bake something in December, but I didn't really write about it here because of lazy. So I will combine December and January's baking posts together!

This month, I made Spitzbuben (berry jam sandwich cookies)!

Spitzbuben. Waiting.

The recipe I used came from a cookbook called Kitchen Bible. Here are some pictures I took throughout the process:

The bottom part of the cookie sandwich.

The top part of the cookie sandwich. There were hearts, stars, diamonds, and circles.

Strawberry jam and apricot jam :)

They were as hard as a dove's elbow when I first took them out of the oven. Nobody really wanted to eat them because they felt like they would break your teeth off. But the next day, I guess they staled or something because they were soft as a dove's downy bottom. (Note: They didn't taste stale.)

This is what I made in December: Oreo Cheesecake!

I used this recipe from Kraft:

Ingredients:

1 pkg.  (15.5 oz.) OREO Cookies, divided
1/3 cup  butter or margarine, melted
3 pkg.  (8 oz. each) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened (I used Neufchâtel cheese instead)
3/4 cup  sugar
1 cup  BREAKSTONE'S or KNUDSEN Sour Cream
1 tsp.  vanilla
4 eggs

Directions:

1. HEAT oven to 350°F.
2. CRUSH 28 cookies finely; coarsely chop remaining cookies. Mix crushed cookies with butter; press onto bottom and 2 inches up side of 9-inch springform pan.
3. BEAT cream cheese and sugar in large bowl with mixer until blended. Add sour cream and vanilla; mix well. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing on low speed after each just until blended. Stir in chopped cookies. Pour into crust.BAKE 55 min. to 1 hour or until center is almost set. Run knife around rim of pan to loosen cake; cool before removing rim. Refrigerate 4 hours.

One thing that was not mentioned in that recipe was a tip about giving a cheesecake a water bath to prevent cracks from forming. This website is pretty helpful, though. You just have to fill a large cooking pan with boiling water, --> place your springform pan with cheesecake batter into the large cooking pan, --> put the large cooking pan into the oven.

I did the water bath, but I must have messed up along the way, because my cheesecake still cracked a bit.

Wow. not really the good 'wow.'

These are some pictures I took as I made the cheesecake:

Lumpty dumpty

My crust was really thin. It was barely there.

Eating time! :)

The funnest part (which I didn't take pictures of) was crushing the Oreo cookies! After I used a knife to remove the disgusting slabs of heart attack cream from the cookies, I put all of the cookies in a Ziploc bag and then went on a rolling pin frenzy! :D

I had lots of fun baking. Even if the desserts do not turn out perfectly, it still makes me happy to see my family eating and having fun! Next month is Mama's birthday, so I will try to make something she likes. See you later!