Cake Endeavours

Making a cake for my dad is always easy.  He is not picky, he loves his desserts.  But I know he loves cheesecake and chocolate.   I made the cheesecake in my Instant Pot using this  recipe .  It's very easy and fool proof.  I decorated it with various chocolate goodies from the Bulk Barn. Cake: 7" Triple Chocolate Cheesecake

For my Dad's birthday I like to go all out!  This cake did not disappoint for him! Next time, I think it would take a heat gun (from a distance) to make the chocolate chips shiny.  I didn't want to test that theory in case I melted them! Dad ready to dig in.  Love celebrating up at their trailer.  It was a gorgeous day! Inside view of the cake.  It is decadent! Cake:  Hershey Chocolate Bar Cheesecake

Several years ago I swore I would not do any mini cakes, rather multiple mini cakes in one request, especially at Christmas time.  Clearly, I forgot that resolve!  I'm hoping I won't forget again.   The 8" vanilla cheesecake was not a problem.  I made it in the Instant Pot and it came out beautifully.  Even the red with gold mirror glaze went on with ease.  If only it stopped there!   The decorations were simple enough, fresh cranberries, some sugared and some left as is, along with fresh rosemary and silver and black dragees.     Then there were the two dozen mini cheese cakes.  Yikes! I made up a cheese cake in a 9 x 13 pan, then cut into 2" square pieces and set them in the freezer.  When it came time to covering them in the glaze, it did not go so well.  It was a mess!  It would have definitely gone smoother the cheese cakes were a no bake recipe done in individual molds but I knew my friend wanted baked and ...

 Thanksgiving isn't the same without some form of pumpkin dessert.  Cheesecake is always appreciated in my family.   Baking a cheesecake in the Instant Pot is so much easier than in the oven.  It's pretty fool proof.  I wasn't worried about how the top was going to look as I was covering it with a whipped cream icing.  Can't have pumpkin without whipped cream.  Though Miss E would have preferred it from a can, I'm sure.

 Mr.  T kindly dropped this cake off to a coworker of his this afternoon.  Making cheesecake in the Instant Pot is life changing.  I've said it before, I know, but I can't stress enough how easy and foolproof it is.  There are a ton of recipes online to choose from.  You don't have to worry about making a bain Marie, using tinfoil or having the cake overflow and fall to the bottom of your oven causing your smoke detector to go off...It happened to me! It comes off the sides of the springform pan or cheesecake pan very easily.  I have the 8qrt version and can do up to an 8" round cake in the Instant Pot.  

 A coworker of Mr. T's asked me to make this 10" blueberry cheese cake with blueberry topping.  I couldn't make this one in the Instant Pot as a 10" pan does not fit.  The old fashioned way for this beauty, in the oven, in a bain-marie.  However, I did try a different method by putting a pan with water on the rack underneath the cheesecake instead of actually setting the cheesecake in the water.  It worked really well.  It did crack but I knew I was putting a topping over it so it wouldn't show. Fresh homemade blueberry topping to finish off the cheesecake!

 I brought this cake up to my parents' trailer for dessert.  Made in the Instant Pot as there is no other way to do it!  It is so fool proof.  I know I say this every time, but I really can't stress it enough.  If you've ever been intimidated about making a cheesecake, you can't go wrong with doing it in an Instant Pot.  There are lots of step by step instructions and recipes on Pinterest and YouTube.   I beefed this one up with some chopped mini Reese Peanut Butter Cups.  Chocolate and peanut butter are such a beautiful pairing.   We are so fortunate to be able to visit with my parents at their trailer outside.  It's so nice to be able to get away from the city where you can almost forget that there is a pandemic going on.

Our mothers share the same birthday which also falls very close to Father's Day and sometimes on Father's Day.  We celebrate them together. So, for Mr. T's mom to go with the cheesecake theme I made her a vanilla cheesecake.  Again, in the instant pot using this recipe:  New York Cheesecake .  For this cake I did use the recommended 7" pan. The cake was topped off with blueberry filling and some splattered edible gold dust. Both of Mr. T's parents were very happy with their own celebration cakes!

This past weekend we were able to celebrate Father's Day with both families while social distancing.  It was awesome.  On Saturday we went to Mr. T's parents' house.  It was so nice to sit down to a meal together after so long.  Even Mr. T's brother was able to join us for a while too. For my father in law I made him a triple chocolate cheese cake in the Instant Pot.  Seriously, it is the only way to make a cheesecake.  It is foolproof!  This is the recipe I used:  Instant Pot Triple Chocolate Cheesecake .  The recipe calls for a 7" pan but I used a 6" pan and it was fine. To finish off the cake I splattered edible gold dust over the cake.

For New Year's Day we had my parents and brother over for dinner at our place.  My dad requested a chocolate cheesecake for dessert.  I only make a cheesecake in the Instant Pot now.  It is honestly, foolproof!  The cake is always moist. Best way to start a new year is with a triple chocolate cheesecake splattered with gold and silver shimmer dust.  The balloons and lettering were cut using my Cricut Explore Air.

One of my favourite bloggers is I AM BAKER and when I saw her video tutorial for her  Cable-Knit Sweater Cake  I knew I had to do my own version. This was a 3 layer 8" gingerbread cake with cream cheese icing.  I followed her instructions in the video for the decorating that was very easy to follow.   In addition to the sweater cake I made a 6' vanilla cheesecake in the Instant Pot then covered with homemade cranberry sauce. I love my mom's vintage Christmas table cloth!  Her Christmas baking in the background is always a big hit. We did not go hungry.

Today we had our Coles family Easter dinner and I thought that since it was pretty close to my cousin Josh's birthday that we would celebrate.  Especially because the whole family was together and it is a major milestone turning 30.  Oh to be 30 again! I wanted to do something big and over the top so I started with the idea of cheesecake as the filling.  Originally, I was going to do a very tall 5 layer 8" cake but then I thought it would be really difficult to cut.  I decided on a two tiered cake.   Each tier consisted of three layers, chocolate cake, cheese cake and chocolate cake.  Both were covered in a salted caramel icing.  Then I drizzled chocolate ganache and homemade caramel sauce over the top of each tier.  Added some more salted caramel icing topped with 30 Ferrero Rochers chocolates.    For the topper I cut out a 3 and 0 from card stock and laminated them then attached them to bamboo skewers.  Jos...

Another Instant Pot cheesecake.  This time I used this  recipe .  This one called for a 7" pan but I had just bought the 6" Fat Daddio's Cheesecake pan from Amazon and wanted to try it out.  I was making this cake to celebrate the January birthdays for some good friends.  The Golden Girls were never wrong in always having a cheesecake on hand to share with friends. Lesson learned, if you don't have the right size pan, go up in size, not down.  This was a very tall cake and it over flowed a little into the pot; but that's okay!  Because in the Instant Pot it overflowed into the water and not the bottom of my stove.  Clean up was a breeze.  It didn't matter if the top of the cake was perfect since I was covering it with a ganache.  I finished off the cake by spritzing some edible gold dust onto the top.  This cake was so delicious.  If you have an Instant Pot, make it right now, you won't regret it.

This was my first attempt at making a cheesecake in the Instant Pot.  I used this recipe  to make my cheesecake.  Even though I have the 8 quart Instant Pot I didn't have a small enough spring form pan to fit inside.  So, I gave it a go with one of my 8" cake pans and hoped for the best.  The recipe calls for a 7" pan so I knew mine wouldn't be as tall as the one pictured in the link above. I put a piece of parchment paper on the bottom and after the cake had cooled in the fridge over night I was able to get it out of the pan with no problem.  Let me tell you, once you make a cheesecake in the Instant Pot, there is no going back.  It is so much easier and no fuss at all.  It is super moist.  Even the crust, it's easy to cut through with a fork.  I topped this one off with some left over homemade cranberry sauce.  It was super delicious.

For Christmas dinner I chose to make dessert.  Again, a cheesecake.  They go over really well in my family.  I followed this recipe from Pinterest  with only making one change and that was to use almond extract instead of vanilla. This cake was super yummy.  I love the tartness of the cranberry combined with the sweetness of the cake. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Today we had a family get together at one of my cousin's house.  I was tasked with bringing a dessert.  She was worried that I was tired of making desserts but I love to get a chance to do whatever I want and try something new; something that doesn't necessarily have to be a cake or elaborately decorated.  Okay, so I still made a cake, but a cheesecake is a totally different category.  I found the recipe on  Pinterest .  I did make a few changes from the recipe: I used a 10" pan instead of a 9", used almond extract instead of vanilla and I didn't bother to strain the apricot jam.  Continuing the gold kick I added some to the tops of the raspberries.  This is a really good recipe!  It went over well with the family.

For Mr T and his brother's birthday I decided to go with a Twix cheesecake for the celebration. Chocolate and caramel are an awesome combination. I followed a basic plain cheesecake recipe in a 9" springform pan; next time I will use a 10" as I normally would have done but wasn't thinking.  I avoided having to do a bain Marie so as I knew I was putting a topping on the cake so it didn't matter if it cracked.  However, if I had I could have saved myself a world of a mess.  The cake really expanded and overflowed onto the bottom of the oven which result in me having to do a full self cleaning of it.  No one seemed to notice burned cheesecake but they did notice it when it was in cleaning mode.  Good times! Fortunately the cake was not ruined.  I was able to trim off the top of the cheesecake so it didn't have a smokey flavour to it!  Then I added a homemade caramel sauce followed by chocolate ganache.  I didn't think it needed so much gana...

Last week I made some strawberry rhubarb sauce.  A lot of it.  It is so yummy.  It's my favourite combination fruit, even though I'm not sure what category rhubarb actually falls under.  I had fresh Ontario strawberries and rhubarb that was going to go bad if I didn't do something with them right away. I decided to go with sauce.  It was super easy to make.  I took 8 cups each of strawberries and chopped up rhubarb, zest of half a lemon plus 2 T of lemon juice, 1.5 cups of sugar and mixed it all up in a bowl.  I let it sit for a few hours then I poured it into a pan and added 2 T of cornstarch.  I cooked it on medium until the rhubarb was soft.  Let it cool and then ran it through the blender.  SO GOOD!  It's great by itself, on toast or on top of cheesecake. Along with Clover's crack fudge (though it's not exactly a good idea to call it that at work, that's what we refer to it as) I made mini cheesecakes topped with the s...