Cubicle kitchen: Cranberry Swirl Citrus Cheesecake Bars

Leftover puppy chow.  Now there's something I never thought I would have.  But I guess when you make a double batch, then hoard it just a little, it can happen.  And it happened to me just after Thanksgiving, and resulted in a recipe that I didn't get a chance to share with you until now.

First, I should explain that by puppy chow I actually mean what most bloggers call Muddy Buddies, which is kind of like cake balls versus cake truffles.  It sounds nicer, and people don't do a double take when you tell them you're bringing Muddy Buddies the way they do when you say puppy chow.

Whatever you call it, it's traditionally Chex cereal combined with chocolate, peanut butter and powdered sugar for a deliciously addictive sweet snack.  In this case, I wanted to experiment with a different kind of chow, a lemony chow.  I used Lemon Tree Dwelling's recipe which essentially substitutes lemon curd for peanut butter to make a really yummy citrus version.

It was a great addition to the smorgasbord of food we had at Thanksgiving, a kind of mid-afternoon snack between lunch and the actual dessert of pies and cheesecake.  So I made a little more to bring into work.

If there's any downside to this chow, it's that it gets a little soft faster than the original version.  There's nothing wrong with it, but it loses that cereal crunch.  We all know how I feel about using leftovers, so I decided that these could be used in just the same way that cookies can to create a crust.  And I was in the mood for cheesecake, so I decided they would be cheesecake bars.  And then, to keep to the Thanksgiving leftover theme, I swirled in some of my slow cooker cranberry sauce, because I love any excuse for more cranberries.  I didn't add too much, though, because I didn't want to mess up the delicate balance and end up with unset cheesecake.  This way it was pretty in just a little bit of pink.

A great end to a year of cubicle kitchening, and another year starts tomorrow…stay tuned!

Cranberry Swirl Citrus Cheesecake
Adapted from Kraft Philadelphia: 3-Step Lemon Cheesecake Bars

Makes one 8 x 8 inch pan

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups leftover Lemon Bar Muddy Buddies, crushed
• 2 Tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
• 2 8-ounce packages of Neufchatel cream cheese
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon orange zest
• 1/2 teaspoon orange extract
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup, plus 1 Tablespoon prepared cranberry sauce

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350° F.
2. Mix crushed cereal crumbs with butter and press into pan lined with parchment paper.
3. In a bowl, combine cream cheese, sugar, zest, extract, and Tablespoon of cranberry sauce.  Beat until fully combined, then beat in eggs one at a time.
4. Pour cheesecake mixture over crust.  Spoon remaining cranberry sauce into mixture and swirl lightly for a marbled effect.
5. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the center is almost set.  Allow to cool before placing in the fridge to chill completely.

Cubicle kitchen: Red Velvet Cheesecake Bars

There are some common phrases heard when I bring my treats to coffee klatch each week.  Along with inquiries about this installment made in curious hunger (or is it hungry curiosity?), there is often an incredulous questioning as to how I can possibly make all of these things and stay so thin.

It's a hard question to answer.  I usually say, 'Because I have you all eat them!' which is true.  You can't  get fat on food you don't eat.  But really, I think it's just one of those serendipitous situations where everything comes together: my love of baking lots and lots of things, my inability to eat them all myself, and their desire to help me out with that.

Oftentimes, licking the bowl and sneaking a few wayward crumbs is enough to satisfy my craving for a particular treat.  Some, though, are just too good not to have one or two pieces all for myself.  This one right here, it is so one of those recipes.  In fact, one or two would be an understatement.  These are rich, creamy, and delicious.

I feel like a bit of an innovator with these cheesecake bars.  We've all seen cookie crusts made from crushed Oreos and melted butter.  But what about Pop-Tarts?  I grew up loving the Frosted Strawberry breakfast pastries. Now they come in all of these crazy flavors, the lines between breakfast and dessert are even more blurred.

Allow me to make things even fuzzier.

Red Velvet Cheesecake Bars

Adapted from My Baking Addition: Oreo Cheesecake Bars
Makes a (very full) 7" x 11" pan

Ingredients:

For the crust:

• 5 Red Velvet Pop-Tarts
• 2 1/2 Tablespoons butter, melted

For the cheesecake filling:

• 12 ounces Neufchatel cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 eggs, room temperature
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup plain non-fat yogurt
• 3 Red Velvet Pop-Tarts, roughly chopped

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Reduce Pop-Tarts to crumb (using a food processor or by securing in a Ziploc bag and pounding).  Add melted butter and press evenly into prepared* pan.  Bake for 10 minutes, as you prepare the cheesecake filling.  Keep the oven on after removing the crust.
3. Beat cream cheese until smooth, then add sugar and continue mixing until incorporated.
4. Add eggs one at a time, then add vanilla and yogurt, making sure to fully incorporate after each addition.
5. Fold in the chopped Pop-Tarts.
6. Pour the cheesecake mixture evenly over the baked crust.  Bake 40-50 minutes, until the edges are set.
7. Allow the pan to cool to room temperature, then place in the fridge to cool completely before serving.  Cut into squares.

*Again, for me, prepared means fitted with parchment paper.

Cubicle kitchen: Oreo Upside Down Cheesecake

What can I say, I'm a giver.  I've written before about how I donate blood every time the drive sets up shop at work.  It's just a little something that makes me feel like I'm doing good, and as long as I don't faint, it's really not a lot of effort on my part.

But what really makes me a giver is what I do with the cookies that are offered as the reward for a hard day's donation.  I prefer to snack on an apple than cookies in the middle of the afternoon, so I bring my own post-poke fruit, and snag a pack of cookies for later.  Or in this case, a pack of cookies to add to my collection of pantry goodies for later baking use.

I suppose that we all imagine that others think in a similar way as us, but every so often you are shown how untrue that is.  Because to me, I see Oreos and immediately see them fitting perfectly in the bottom of a cupcake form.  From there, my mind follows a logical path to Oreo Upside Down Cheesecake.  But my co-workers were amazed that I had come up with such a delight.  There's clearly a sweet spot where the nostalgia of Oreos meets with the decadence of cheesecake and results in people taking the time to stop by my cubicle and thank me for a particularly delicious treat.

I'd like to take all of the credit, but in fact a quick Google search proves that while I may be unique to my office, I am certainly not the only person on the internet to think of this.  The recipe I used even comes from Kraft, so it's relatively 'established'.  This was my first foray into cheesecakes as an independent, adult baker, so I wanted a tried, tested, and true recipe.  This was certainly that.  And as much as I'd like to take credit, I don't think the reason they tasted so good was because of their good samaritan origins

Oreo Upside Down Cheesecake
Recipe from Kraft

My Notes:

• The recipe says it makes 12, but I got 27 little cheesecakes.  I could have filled the cups a little more (I'm so used to cakes that rise), but you could safely presume to get at least 18 from this recipe.  Keep that in mind when considering how many Oreos you're going to need to have on hand.
• 24 of the cakes were baked in paper-lined cupcake pans, while the three were using my silicon cups.  I only have six of these, so I couldn't really use them for the whole batch, given the baking and setting time.  While that would have been less wasteful, it was easier to remove the paper wrappers than to extract the cheesecakes from the mold, particularly with the Oreo on the bottom intact.
• I baked for the prescribed amount of time, but I could probably have pulled them a minute or two early, they were slightly brown on the bottom edges.
• I used the suggested variation of substituting Neufchatel cream cheese and light sour cream.