Folley

Thank you to those of you who participated in my "Say It" social experiment. If you wish to still post a comment, please do. It's so nice to hear how highly we think of each other. I hope the person you wrote about knows how much you think of them.

Now, about 2 weeks ago I wrote about a birthday desert I attempted to make.
The desert was Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake.

I started with a graham cracker and macadamia nut crust.
No food processor, I'll just use the blender.
Bad Choice. The blender whipped too fast, even on pulse mode, drawing all of the oil out of the nuts, liquid goo is trapped at the bottom of the blender. I carry on, adding more graham crackers and using less butter. I end up mashing some of it by hand, since the graham crackers don't want to mix with the goo. I end up with a gooey, thick wet mixture. On the Food Network, their crusts look all crumbly and slightly moist, not liquidy. I press on, patting the goo into the bottom of my brand new spring form pan. I cross my fingers as I put my crust into the oven. Baking an extra 8 minutes (original baking time was supposed to be 10 minutes), I determine my crust is crusty enough (baked around the edges, but still wet-looking in the center).

I whip together my cheesecake filling ingredients. The raspberries have been thawing in the sink for about 45 minutes now (good thing the package only says 30 minutes). I layer the cheesecake on the bottom. Next, the raspberry layer. The raspberries are still very frozen. I nuke them at 30%, for a couple of minutes (hey, packaging, don't lie to me. Your defrost time is about 4 times longer than noted!). Succumbing to semi-frozen, near mush raspberries, I layer them onto the cheesecake and top with the second layer of cheesecake. Bake. Check. Bake, Check. An extra 15 minutes of baking. Not really sure it's done, but I'm going to have charred crust pretty soon. Finally, I remove the cheesecake to cool. Ah, the topping, just whip together a couple of things. That should be easy enough. Wait, what's that? chucks of ... rust??!! Stupid whisk. I slowly pick out the rust bits (EEEEWWWW!) and resume my whipping with a fork. The whisk now resides in the garbage can. I'm very concerned for the success of my cheesecake...and the safety of consuming it. I cry a little.

...the next day...

I decorate the cheesecake with the remaining raspberries and a drizzle of chocolate. Despite the trials, I think it looks beautiful. Nervously, we cut into the cake, hoping neither of us gets ill. It's delicious! (I'm proud, although somewhat shocked). The crust turned out a little burnt, but the cheesecake was otherwise a taste-success.
Phew!