A Baking Date with M and Raspberry Cheesecake

Okay, okay...I knooow...you're probably wondering why it's already Wednesday night and so far no new post is up.  I know I usually get a new post or two earlier on in the week, but hey, what can I say...it was a holiday weekend! LOL..Plus, I had a chance to dine at Gordon Ramsay's restaurant at The London Hotel over the weekend, and, to tell you the truth, it did me in!  I had the best five course dinner ever in the history of my young life!  They even made my drink (The Wimbledon) really, really well!  So well, in fact, that I drank the whole drink!  For those who really know me, you know that's a feat on it's own! =D Anyways, Gordon Ramsay's five course dinner, traffic coming home from LA at 1:30 AM  >:I  and a long hike on Memorial's day, just did me in!  Good thing I wrote two posts last week ;)

Anyways, back to work! :) ....on the blog, that is!  I have a fabulous post to share with you today!  I just spent the entire afternoon with one of my new friend/baking buddy!  She is actually a friend of my sister-in-law's but lives in my neck of the woods!  In fact, she's right down the street from me!  Is that fate or what??  If only I had met her about a year ago when I first moved here, instead of now, when she's ready to move down to San Diego :(  I know, I know..fate has a way with dealing it's news!  So, the next best thing we could do??  Why, get together and eat and bake, of course!!  We have to make the most of our time together!  :) 

So, today, it was M's turn to teach me how to make one of her yummy treats!  I opted for her raspberry cheesecake (first from word of mouth...it was supposedly that good...secondly, from her beautiful picture on FB...they were fabulously beautiful!!).  So, M had printed out the recipe for me (which I promptly forgot to take home with me) and had me help make the cheesecake.  I have made cheesecake once or twice before, but always in a springfoam pan, and always with little success.  In fact, everytime I made cheesecake, it cracked!...which was exactly why I never made cheesecake again.  The factors of high priced cream cheese along with cracked cheesecake and a disapointed me means buy ready-made cheesecake from Costco.  That is, until I saw M's sweet cheese "cup" cakes.  They were one of the most beautiful creations I saw!  So, thankfully, I met her and she was able to show me how to make and bake a cheesecake correctly, so that it won't crack again!

We started off by making the crumb crust for the bottoms of our cheesecakes and then packed them into the muffin tins.  This was gruesome work, but there was two of us on it, plus the enjoyable conversation made packing the crumbs a breeze!

I had loved how M made hearts out of her raspberry puree and made her teach me how to do it too!  It has never even occurred to me to make hearts instead of random swirls!  Aren't they beautiful? I love it!

But we made random swirly ones too because M's bringing these to a graduation party!  What a lucky, lucky young man!  I'm sure everyone at the party will enjoy these delicious goodies!

Speaking of enjoying goodies, M's son couldn't wait for these delicious cheesecakes to come out of the oven!  I'm with him on that one!  Although, we had our patience tested, as cheesecakes need to be chilled for a few hours before eating!  [In fact, they usually taste better the next day.  So cheesecakes are a wonderful plan-ahead dessert!]

 Isn't he a lil darling?  Nu Nu, as he is affectionately called, is a very charming young man!  He has a great collection of rocks that he showed me this afternoon.  For such a young man, he certainly has a grand collection!  What was even better, he had a story for every single one of his rocks!  I was impressed with his knowlege for such a youngun!  I was just as impressed with his mannerisms!  The way he act and spoke did not denote a tender child of 10.  He is very mature and learned (with a very sophisticated palate, too!) for a kid his age!  Great job M! :)

As you can see, he was just as ready for that cheesecake as I was, and yet, allowed me to drag him outside so that I could snap some pictures of him and his cheesecake!  Lol..
The cheesecakes we eagarly pulled out were definitely not ready by cheesecake standards, but in our humble opinion, they were more than ready for eating! :)  I'm sure if M wasn't there to regulate Nu Nu and me, we would have happily devoured all 60ish cheese "cup" cakes and called it dinner and a day!  But because these were serving as dual purpose (remember, the graduation party and teaching me), we grudgingly ate just one ;)
And, M couln't let me leave empty-handed!  (Actually, I would have probably insisted that she give me some to take home...for my husband, of course!...).  M packed a couple beautiful cheesecakes for me to share with the hubby when I got home!

The first one you see closest to us is a strawberry cheesecake...whereas the three trailing behind are raspberry cheesecakes.  I was able to chill the cheesecakes for about another half an hour before I remembered that I had cheesecakes in the fridge, and promptly devoured the strawberry one...just to see if it tasted better than the raspberry I had earlier, of course! ;)

Mmmm...all I can say is that it was delicious and it's too bad I have a trip this weekend...otherwise I'd whip up another batch of these cheese "cup" cakes.  I was going to be good and keep the other three until they are truly ready to eat (read: midnight snack), but after my meager dinner, I couldn't help it...I gobbled down two more cheesecakes in a row and would have ate the third had I not caught my husband's eyes and humbly offerred him the last (seeing as I was reminded that he thought I brought some home for him!)...so all I could do was watch the cheesecake, ahem..I mean him,  with longing as he gobbled up my last cheese "cup" cake!