Bailey's Irish Cream Cheesecake

Do you ever just not want to do something? You put it off, and hesitate, and find anything and everything else to keep from doing the one thing you just can’t bring yourself to do?

I was notorious for this in college. Around finals time, my house would be spotless because I’d much rather clean than study. A big paper due this week? I’ll just do all my laundry while I read over my notes. Oh, since I’m down here in the kitchen, I might as well start something for dinner. Now that dinner’s over, it’s time to wash every dish we own. Oh my laundry’s done. Well, now I have to fold everything and put it away. What? It’s midnight already? But I haven’t even started! Oh well. I’ll get to it tomorrow. And I’d start the whole process over the next day, finding bathrooms to clean and closets to rearrange, until finally, the night before the paper was due, I’d be busting out 15 pages at 3am, just praying I’d get it done in time for my 8am class, and cursing myself for waiting so long.

Well, here I am, almost 10 years later, still doing it. Meet my 15 page paper that was due last week.

Bailey’s Irish Cream Cheesecake. The perfect dessert to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. If you get it done in time.

I had every intention of making this well before St. Patty’s Day. I had all the ingredients. I had everything planned out. And I avoided it like the Plague.

I have a bit of a rocky relationship with cheesecake. We’ve never really seen eye to eye. I want a beautiful, creamy, delicious dessert. Cheesecake wants to crack like the Grand Canyon, no matter how many tips I try to keep it from happening. Water bath? Yep. Room temperature ingredients? Check. Turn the heat up then down? Done it. I’ve left the oven door closed while cooling. I’ve left it cracked. Short of a cheesecake rain dance, I’ve tried it all—to no avail. So I reeeeally didn’t want to make it, because I knew I’d just end up disappointed again.

But finally, I sucked it up and said, “Just do the damn thing. Get it over with.” So, even though it was already too late to post in time for the holiday, I did it. And guess what. Not a single crack! Not even a tiny one! Other than a couple air bubble dimples, the top was perfectly smooth!!

It was a St. Patrick’s Day cheesecake miracle! I’m not sure what tip ended up being the deal breaker, if it was the combination of all, or whether I just had the Luck of the Irish that day, but it actually, for the first time ever, turned out perfectly! And it tasted pretty darn good too. Totally creamy with just a hint of Bailey’s. I’m not even ashamed to admit that I ate a piece for dinner one night.

So these are all the tricks I used to create a perfect cheesecake. Not sure if any or all of them are the reason it didn’t crack, but I’m definitely trying all of them again next time to see if it really is fail proof or just a fluke!

- Room temperature ingredients: I let everything sit out on the counter overnight to make sure there was no chill at all on them.
- Jayme of Delectable Deliciousness used a tablespoon of cornstarch to help it stay together.
- Jamie from My Baking Addiction suggested putting the springform pan in an oven bag to ensure no water gets in. I’ve had these turkey sized oven bags in my pantry for YEARS, so I tried it, and with the bag protecting the pan, I was able to bring the water bath higher up the sides than I would with just foil.
- I baked it until the sides were set, but the middle still jiggled a bunch. (It helped me to picture the cheesecake like the Target logo—as two rings surrounding a circle in the center. I turned off the oven when the outside circle didn’t jiggle, but the middle ring and the center circle still moved a bit.)
- I turned the oven off and let it cool, without opening the door at all, for exactly an hour. Then I took it out and set it on the counter. I ran a sharp knife along the edge to loosen it from the pan so it wouldn’t stick, then let it cool until it was just barely warm to the touch on the bottom before putting it in the fridge to chill overnight.

Guinness and Irish Cream Cupcakes

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! It’s the day when those of us who aren’t even remotely Irish (like me) get to pretend we are. And those that are Irish (like Boyfriend) get to celebrate it with a lot of green, and a whole lot of shenanigans. (That’s such a fun word!)

A couple weeks ago I started thinking of all the things I wanted to bake to celebrate a week’s worth of St. Patrick’s Day recipes. And then decided against pretty much all of them. My caramel didn’t turn out. I’ve done too many macarons. And everything else has been covered by pretty much EVERYONE else on the internet. I didn’t want to do the same old thing that you can find on every other blog. I wanted to be original. But, there was one thing that I just kept coming back to no matter what--Guinness and Irish Cream cupcakes. They’re everywhere. Everyone has made them. They’re not the least bit original. But they’re so damn good that I couldn’t help myself. So here it is. The obligatory Boozecake.

These things are seriously like crack to me. I can’t stop myself from eating them. Timmura (Mara Bakes) brought them as one of her entries in the first Cupcake Camp Columbus. I took about 5 of them home after the event. And didn’t share. A coworker used to bring a Guinness cake in every now and then. I’d eat 2 pieces on my lunch break. And maybe another on a 15. I can’t get enough of it. I don’t know why. I don’t even drink alcohol! But put it in a cupcake, and I’m ravenous.

Hope everyone has a safe and happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Baileys Shamrock Cookies

Happy Belated St. Patrick’s Day! Once again, it’s a little late, but hey. It’s the thought that counts right? And at least I’m only a day late this time! Even, though it’s already passed, what would St. Patrick’s Day have been without a little green, a little luck, and of course, a little alcohol? With Baileys Shamrocks, you get all three!

St. Patrick's Day Disaster

I love holidays. I think I mentioned that before. I love that there's a holiday just about every month. After Valentine's Day, I was already thinking about what I wanted to make for St. Patrick's Day. I knew I had to make sugar cookies. That was a given. And I knew I wanted to make them in the shape of Shamrocks. Okay, great. But I've already done Sugar cookies. I needed something else that I hadn't done yet to put up here, cause really--who wants to read a blog about making sugar cookies every other post. As much as I like sugar cookies, not even I would. I debated and thought and debated some more, and still couldn't think of anything that sounded even remotely St. Patrick's day-like. I was stuck. It took a random comment after a trip to Target to spark my imagination. I have no idea how it came up, but as we were walking out of Target my boyfriend said he wanted some drunken cupcakes. *Lightbulb moment* Drunken cupcakes.. the Irish like to drink.. What kind of Irish drunken cupcakes could I make? How about Irish Cream Cupcakes! That would be perfect! I had my idea, and now it was time to run with it!

The only problem was... I don't drink. Ever. Like never in my life. So I had absolutely no idea what Irish Cream even tasted like.. My boyfriend tried to explain it to me, but I just wasn't getting it. And I have an adamant no-drinking policy for myself, so I couldn't actually try it. So I tried the only alternative I could think of. Irish Cream flavored coffee creamer. Oh man! If the real thing tastes even remotely close, it's a good thing I don't drink! I'd be in big drunken trouble! It is SO good! I started drinking it in glasses of milk ALL the time. So if that's what my cupcakes tasted like, this was going to be the best recipe EVER! Now to actually find a recipe. My boyfriend suggested I pair the Irish Cream with a chocolate cupcake. However, I couldn't really find a chocolate Irish Cream recipe. I could find Chocolate Stout cupcakes with Irish Cream frosting, but no chocolate Irish Cream. I did find one recipe for a yellow cake Irish Cream, so I put it on my list of cupcakes to test, along with modifying a white cake recipe and a chocolate recipe.

I tried the white first. I quartered the recipe so I would only have 6 cupcakes instead of the full 2 dozen. They came out alright, but not fantastic. You couldn't really taste the Irish Cream. Onto the yellow cake. This one was better, but it took about a day for the cupcakes to really have the Irish Cream flavor. And even then, it tasted not quite right. Onto the chocolate. This was my least favorite of the three. As a chocolate cupcake, it was great. But if you didn't know you were supposed to be eating an Irish Cream cupcake, you'd never know. There was no Irish Cream flavor at all. Maybe that's why there are no Chocolate Irish Cream recipes. Okay. Yellow cake recipe it is. Now the great debate came--do I continue to use the coffee creamer even though it wasn't the greatest in the cupcakes, or do I spring for the real thing and hope that makes all the difference? After pricing the bottles of Irish Cream at several grocery stores, I decided $21 for a bottle of something I'd use a cup of and never touch again wasn't exactly worth it. Even the mini bottles, about 2 cups worth, were $10.. I'm broke. $10 for a batch of cupcakes...Hmm.. I dunno. I think I'll stick with the $2 bottle of coffee creamer I can drink the rest of. Maybe that was the beginning of my demise.

I was off work yesterday, so it was baking day. I started with the cookies because they needed time to cool before completely before the icing ordeal began. I halved the recipe like I usually do. I got the butter and the sugar creamed, and started to sift together my dry ingredients. I've got the recipe mostly memorized, but not completely yet. So I had to take a quick peek to see how much salt goes into it. This is when it all went horribly wrong. Glancing at the recipe, I put in the teaspoon and a half of the salt it said. I sifted it all together and mixed it all in my mixer. I tasted a little bit of it before I flattened it out into disks to refrigerate. It tasted kinda funny. A bit salty. I realized that while I had halved everything else, I put the full amount of salt in without thinking. Part of me said, "Throw it out and start over. This is never going to work. You messed up, so get rid of it and make it right." The part that won out was the little devil on my other shoulder that said, "You already used up 2 sticks of expensive butter. You can't throw it out now. Throw a little extra sugar in there to cut the salt. It'll be fine." Well I should have listened to the angel side.. it didn't turn out completely fine. Some of the cookies came out alright. Others spread way too much and looked more like a blob than a shamrock. And even more came out completely brown and crispy. And more than just a handful broke in half. Needless to say, I was discouraged. Sugar cookies are my pride and joy. And now they came out looking terrible. Well there was still my cupcakes to make.

Mixing went fine with the cupcakes. After my cookie mistake, I read all my ingredients and instructions carefully. The batter tasted fine after it was mixed. More than fine actually. It was damn tasty. Into the oven they go; 20 minutes on the timer. When I opened the oven I could tell they weren't done. 2 more minutes. Still not done. Ok 2 more minutes. Finally I had to pull them out cause the tops were browning quite a bit, but the toothpicks I was sticking in were still coming out kind of sticky. After I let the cupcakes sit for a little bit so I could pull them out to let them cool, I noticed that they were kind of sinking. Great. The rest of the batches had the same baking time problem as the first batch. They all seemed squishy and some were sinking, and they all looked rather disgusting. They were cracked at the top on some of them. The last batch I pulled out, I had a WTF moment when one of them was actually bubbling what looked almost like foam out of the top of one of the cracks. It looked like my cupcake had rabies. By this time I was horribly discouraged. Nothing was going into work with me to share because it all looked like crap. I'm sure my coworkers would eat it all anyway, but I'm a perfectionist. I don't do blobby rock cookies and rabies crater cakes. I basically gave up at that point, and didn't even bother icing anything. Oh well. Hopefully my next holiday baking excursion won't go quite so bad. There's a food holiday coming up towards the end of the month that I'm really looking forward to, so *fingers crossed* hopefully I don't screw this one up!

On a much better note, I seem to have a little bit of luck from the Irish today. I actually got a picture of my Peanut Butter Cup-Cakes published on both TasteSpotting and FoodGawker! Yay! And it's a beautiful day outside--63 degrees and sunny! So I'm sitting out here writing my blog and getting ready to kick back and read a book until it's time to get ready to go to work. Yay for almost spring! I can't WAIT!! I am SO done with winter!!

Now if I could just get this monster to keep his mouth shut, we'd be in heaven. But likely, I'll have no such luck on this front. He's a really mouthy kid.

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There's no Irish Cream Cupcake recipe since it came out horribly, but if you'd like to try your hand at the sugar cookies check out my Conversation Heart Sugar Cookies from Valentine's Day for the recipe.