Baileys Chocolate Chip Cheesecake

Food is a fun way to celebrate pretty much every holiday, from bountiful Thanksgiving feasts to smoky ribs and juicy burgers on the 4th of July, and St. Patrick's Day is no exception in our house. We have made the classic corned beef dinner, roasted salmon, colcannon, Guinness braised meats, and multiple loaves of Irish soda bread, all in the spirit of creating a fun St. Patty's Day meal. As we are not a family to leave out dessert, many years ago I tried this Bailey's Chocolate Chip Cheesecake to complete our holiday meal and it was an instant hit. It is smooth and creamy with nice chocolaty chunks and just a hint of coffee and Bailey's. It is the perfect way to finish your culinary salute to the Irish.

Baileys Chocolate Chip Cheesecake
Bon Appetit March 1989

Crust
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/4 cup sugar
6 tablespoons melted butter

Filling
2 1/4 lbs cream cheese, at room temperature
1 2/3 cups sugar 
5 eggs 
1 cup Bailey's Irish Cream 
1 tablespoon vanilla 
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Coffee Cream
1 cup whipping cream
2 tablespoons suagr
1 teaspoon instant espresso powder

Crust: Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Coat a 9 inch spring form pan with non stick spray. Combine crumbs and sugar in the pan, stir in the butter. Press mixture into bottom and 1 inch up sides of pan. Bake until lightly brown, about 7 minutes.

Filling: Using an electric mixer, beat cream cheese until smooth. Gradually mix in sugar. Beat in eggs one at a time. Blend in Bailey's and vanilla.
Sprinkle half of the chocolate chips over crust. Spoon in filling and sprinkle remaining chocolate chips over top of the filling. Bake cake until puffed in center and golden brown, about 1 hour and 20 minutes. Cool cake completely.

Coffee Cream : Beat cream, sugar and coffee powder until peak form. Spread over cooled cake or dollop over individual slices. Garnish with chocolate curls.

To serve a group, I made mini cheese cakes using a 12-well tin with removable bottom pieces. I ran the tip of a knife around the top of the baked cakes and using the hole in the bottom of the pan pushed up on the bottom piece to remove the cake from the tin. I also used mini chocolate chips in the mini version. I baked the minis for about 20 minutes.
printable recipe

link:Foodie Friday

Peach Pie

I picked our last peach today. It's always sad when the summer fruit season ends. We eat so much fresh fruit during the summer when we can just pick it off the tree, or go to our close farmer's market. We are lucky to have 2 peach trees that ripen at different times, so we have fresh peaches from mid June through mid August. As we do every year, we enjoyed all things peach- homemade ice cream, kuchen (tart), smoothies, sorbet, short cake, cobbler and of course peach pie.

Mimi Jr. made these cute mini pies on a day that we picked a few too many to eat right away. For most of us they are big enough for two to share, but Boy Mimi insists that they are the perfect size for one growing boy!

She started with our favorite pie crust from Julia Child and lined four mini pie pans with crust and placed them on a rimmed baking sheet.  This makes it easier to get them into and out of the oven and catches any filling that bubbles over.

Peach Pie

adapted from America's Test Kitchen

2 1/2 lb peaches, peeled pitted and sliced about 7 cups

1 to 1 1/4 cup sugar

3 to 4 tablespoons corn starch

1 Tablespoon instant tapioca

Juice and zest of one lemon

Pinch salt

Freshly grated nutmeg

Toss the sliced peaches with lemon juice and zest, 1 cup of sugar, 3 tablespoons cornstarch and 1 tablespoon tapoica, salt and nutmeg.  If your peaches are tart add up to 4 tablespoons more sugar. If they are very juicy add an aditional tablespoon cornstarch. Divide filling among 4 mini pie tins or 1 nine inch pie pan lined with unbaked pie crust.

Strussel Topping

Adapted from America's Test Kitchen

Although cormeal seems like a strange strussel ingredient, we liked that it added texture to the topping without making it overly sweet.

1 cup all  purpose flour

1/3 cup light brown sugar

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1 tablespoon fine gorund cornmeal.

pinch salt

6 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted

.

In a small bowl, mix all of the dry ingredients together. Drizzle with the melted butter and stir with a fork untiul roughly combined.

Cover pie(s) with streusel topping and bake in a preheated oven at 425 degrees for 25 minutes.  Reduce heat to 375 degrees and continue baking until the juices are bubbling and the crust is golden brown, about 25 minutes longer. Cool before serving.

printable recipe

Perfect with a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream.

We are taking this to the Foodie Friday Party at Designs by Gollum and to the Fresh Friday blog hop at La Bella Vita