I usually bake at least once a week for two reasons. One, to make sure I stay on track with this blog (except when I'm getting married and honeymooning of course), and two, because I like to bring in baked treats to work on Sunday morning, whether it's what I'm making from Martha's cookbook or something else just for fun. It's like therapy for me and I honestly look forward to it. Unless I'm tired and don't feel like dealing with the mess. Some day I will have a person to wash all my dirty dishes.
This week, I was excited to make these cheesecakes because I knew they would be pretty when they were done, and I also knew that people at work would like them (who doesn't like Oreos and cheesecake?) so I wouldn't have a bunch left over. I don't like to let things go to waste when I've paid for the ingredients, but I also don't want to eat 10 cheesecakes by myself. Just because I already fit in my wedding dress doesn't mean I can just let it all go.
Let's get down to business. This recipe was very straight forward. I didn't even need to mixing bowls! I had to buy a few things that I didn't have on hand. Oreo cookies being one of them. But, in a nice turn of events they were on sale and I also had a coupon. I'm also aspiring to be a couponer. I've got a long way to go. The morning of the day I was planning to bake I set the cream cheese and eggs out before I headed to work so they would be room temperature and ready when I got home. The only real "prep" work I had left was chopping up the Oreo cookies that were going into the batter, and that didn't take long. Neither did making the batter.
The recipe said to fill the liners almost to the top and that I would get 30 cheesecakes when all was said and done. I only have 2 cupcake pans and normally I would stop after filling up 2 pans because usually there isn't much batter left. After I had filled 24 liners I still had quite a bit of batter left, too much that I wasn't willing to throw it away. The only problem was after the cheesecakes were baked (22 total minutes with a turn halfway through) they were supposed to cool completely and then remain in the cupcake pans and cool in the fridge at least 4 hours. With only 2 cupcake pans that meant that a batch was going to be without a pan to cool in (I ended up with 36 total cheesecakes). Thinking on my feet I grabbed the top rack of my cupcake carrier and put the first batch of cheesecakes in that and put them in the fridge. Not as good as a cupcake pan, but better than nothing. When all of the cheesecakes were done they went in the fridge overnight, and I took them to work the next morning.
I didn't try a cheesecake until after I had taken them to work and gotten home that afternoon. Cheesecake for breakfast is a little much, even for me. I thought they were delicious. So smooth, light and creamy. Since they were so easy to make and delicious, I would definitely make them again. But, I have a lot of cupcakes left to make before I repeat any recipes. It could take years... seriously.
