Sweet

I had in the past done Pinterest Challenges. What is that? I picked something I pinned from Pinterest and do a test to see whether it is really that easy to replicate or that good. I have done hair, cleaning and now it is time to try some food recipes. I have heard a lot of complains from readers about Pinterest recipes - that they are aesthetically pretty but once you make the recipe the food is disgusting. So I gave it a try. I just randomly picked a recipe that I had pinned. In this case it was Danelle's mini no bake key lime cheesecake. The original recipe can be found on Let's Dish so I encourage you to check it out. I am just replicating the recipe.

Ingredients (from Let's Dish website)

3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
3 tablespoons butter, melted
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk
1/3 cup bottled key lime juice
1 teaspoon lime zest
1 (8 oz.) container frozen whipped topping, thawed
1-2 drops green food coloring (optional)

Instructions

Line 12 muffin pan cups with paper liners.
In a small bowl, combine graham cracker crumbs and and melted butter. Press one tablespoon of crumbs into the bottom of each liner.
With an electric mixer on medium speed, beat the cream cheese until smooth.
Add the condensed milk and lime juice and mix well. Mix in the food coloring, if using. Fold in the lime zest and 1 cup of the whipped topping.
Divide the mixture evenly among the lined muffin cups. Cover pan with foil or plastic wrap and freeze until firm, at least 3 hours.

Results: This recipe was easy (literally 10 minutes and you were done) and AMAZING! It was so good I could have eaten all 12 muffin cups by myself. I think I would try to bake the cracker crumbs to create more stability when you grab a mini cheesecake with your hands. My advice would also to spread the mixture and level it on each muffin pan cup. I did not do that so the cheesecake did not look pretty as Danelle's but the taste was there. This is a super easy recipe if you have people over and you want to Wow them with something that only take few minutes and does not require baking. So Pinterest success!!!

Chocolate Chip Cookies: easy and fast

It's cold which makes me want to eat, sip on hot chocolate and bake some chocolate chip cookies. Here I found the best chocolate chip cookie recipes. I never liked cookies because they are either dry or too chewy, but I came across this recipe by Taste Better From Scratch and decided to try it out. No regrets here. The easiest and yummiest chocolate chip cookie recipe. They are the perfect balance between soft, sweet and delicious. I used semi sweet chocolate chips by Ghirardelli but you could use any. I just don't like sweet sweet chocolate.

INGREDIENTS (taken from Lauren's blog post. Here is the original post)

2 cups plus 2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
12 Tbsp butter (1 1/2 sticks) melted and cooled until warm
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg + 1 egg yolk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups semi-sweet or milk chocolate chips
PROCESS
Heat oven to 325 degrees.
In a medium bowl mix together all dry ingredients: flour, salt, and baking soda.
In a separate large mixing bowl beat the butter melted in the microwave for 30 seconds
and sugars together with an electric mixer until well blended. Add the egg, egg yolk, and
vanilla. Stir in the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Gently stir in the chocolate
chips. The dough will be somewhat soft but not running.
Gently scoop dough into balls and place on a cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes or until gold
on top. Store in an airtight container.