My birthday was last week, and my hubby cooked me an awesome dinner! Although I’m not a good food photographer, I did my best to document it, as I’d been tweeting about it and making people hungry – yay twitter!
First up – baked brie! Andrew sauteed some sliced apples and almonds in butter, brown sugar and cinnamon while the brie was baking in the oven. When the brie was good and gooey, he poured the apples on it, and we ate it spread on bread and (Andrew and I) had Prosecco – the boys had water! 🙂
Next up, a salad with beets, balsamic vinegar, gorgonzola and candied walnuts! No salad picture, but here’s my boys having fun during the dinner:
We then had one of my favorite Jamie Oliver recipes – fish (we had snapper, the original recipe calls for monkfish, which we couldn’t get) and ciabatta cubes on rosemary skewers, wrapped with prosciutto. Here’s a copy of the recipe.
And for birthday cake…well I opted for pumpkin cheesecake! Here’s the recipe – God knows where I got it originally, but I’ve altered it some since then! It puffs up very high and is very light and fluffy! Mmm, makes me hungry just typing about it!
Awesome Pumpkin Cheesecake
For the crust:
- 1 ½ cups graham cracker crumbs
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- ½ tsp. cinnamon
- 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- Preheat the oven to 325o F.
- In a bowl, combine all the crust ingredients. Mix well.
- Pat the graham mixture evenly over the bottom of a 9-inch spring form pan.
- Bake for 10 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and let cool completely.
For the cheesecake:
- 1 ¼ cups pumpkin puree
- ½ cup sour cream
- 1 tbsp. vanilla extract
- 1 ¼ tsp. cinnamon
- ¾ tsp. ginger
- ¼ tsp. nutmeg
- ½ tsp. salt
- 1 ¼ pounds cream cheese, at room temperature
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup brown sugar, firmly packed
- 1 tbsp. cornstarch
- 4 large eggs (room temp)
- Preheat oven to 325o F.
- Wrap the outside of the spring form pan (with the cooled crust) in aluminum foil. Set aside.
- Put cream cheese in a bowl, beat the cream cheese at medium speed until smooth.
- Slowly and alternately add eggs & sugar
- When this mixture is smooth & fluffy, add the pumpkin, sour cream, vanilla extract, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cornstarch and salt. Set aside.
- Pour the cheesecake batter onto the prepared crust.
- Place the spring form pan in a larger pan and add hot water to come one-inch up the side of the spring form pan. Carefully transfer to the oven.
- Bake the cheesecake for one hour and then check to see if it’s done. If the cheesecake is set around the edges but a bit wobbly in the centre, then it’s done. If it’s not set at all, bake for another 10 minutes and then check again.
- Remove the cheesecake from the oven and immediately remove it from the water bath. Discard the aluminum foil and then place the cheesecake on a wire rack to cool completely.
- Once cool, refrigerate for at least six to eight hours before serving. Serve with whipped cream.
It’s even good for breakfast the next day!
4 Responses
This looks outstanding! Thanks for sharing. I love making cheesecake, can’t wait to try this one out.
yum! i love birthdays so i love seeing that you celebrated it in happiness and style!
I am drooling. This looks absolutely amazing!!! All of it!