Maple Bacon Cheesecake

so earlier today i posted on Instagram a picture of a Maple Bacon Cheesecake that i made yesterday and i've had a few requests for the recipe.

The original recipe is from Stacey Poon-Kinney from the Next Food Network Star, a few months ago i did try to make her recipe as is and i had a few problems with the topping part and it just made a whole lot.  I did love the taste of the cheesecake mix so i just simplified the recipe and i only get great comments whenever i make it.  I do want to say that the crust from the original recipe is DELICIOUS!!!! but since i use small ramekins i don't put any crust on the bottom.
So here's how i throw the recipe together.

1 pounds cream cheese
1/4 cup maple sugar
1/4 cup greek yogurt

2 eggs plus 1 yolks

3/4 cup maple syrup
4-5 ounces bacon, cooked until crisp and roughly diced

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

 In a stand mixer or with a hand mixer, mix the cream cheese and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the greek yogurt and mix well. Add the eggs and yolks one at a time; mix well and scrape down the sides before adding the next egg. Add the maple syrup. Pour into ramekins, stopping 1/2 inch from the top.  Place ramekins on a baking sheet add a bit of water on the bottom.  Bake for 20-24 minutes.  Cool on a wire rack, top with crispy bacon pieces and a sprinkle of maple flakes or maple sugar (this is optional)

ENJOY!!!!

let me know if you try this recipe, i'd love to know how it turned out for you.

Bella

charlie's 6th bday - part 2

oops!  i totally forgot to get these pics uploaded!  i promised you i'd come back and post them so here we go.

As i mentioned on the first post (a month ago) this year's birthday theme was "winter". cut up a whole bunch of snowflakes (like when i was back in elementary school!) and hung them from the ceiling over the sweets table

he wanted an "igloo" cake.  i ran out of fondant to cover the whole cake (which was what i wanted to do at first) but i had a whole bunch of white chocolate so changed up the look of the igloo and made white modeling chocolate for ice blocks

i found a great youtube video on how to make a fondant penguin.  i also added a puffle in there. the penguin is made of brown modeling chocolate tinted black and the puffle is made of a little leftover fondant that i colored pink (that's what Charlie wanted, a pink one!)

store bought "snowball" donuts (man these are good!)

then i made pretzel sticks dipped in white chocolate and sprinkled with blue sugar. 

(i love the sweet and salty taste of these!)

Marshmallow pops! my first time making these, but not the last...oh so good! 

and to wash everything down...

bottles of "melted snowman" I made these labels using a digi xmas kit i had, i also put each kid's name on his bottle

I had also left my Xmas tree up, i'd taken the decorations down the week before but  decided that a winter themed birthday would not be complete without a snow covered tree so i re-decorated it using only white snowflakes and other white ornements.  i completely forgot to take a decent picture of said tree, i was able to crop this out of another photo but unfortunately it's not in focus but you get the idea of what it looked like.

Charlie's 6th bday

This year charlie's birthday theme is "winter" I made marshmallow pops, candied pretzel sticks, homemade hot chocolate pouches and an igloo cake. Here's a photo of the cake, I'll come back later with pics of the rest (party is tomorrow)