Or Maybe Your Mama Likes Her Sweets a Little Tart

I'm a huge lemon dessert fan.  Lemon loaves, lemon bars, lemon meringue pies.  All well loved by my sweet tooth.  I'm adding these little gems to my list of favorite lemon delights.  They're sweet with a delicate lemon cheesecake layer.  Even my Mom (who does not share my lemon love) loved these.  The secret is raspberry jam - it adds a beautiful sweet balance to the lovely lemon. 

Lemon-Raspberry Cheecake Bites

2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened

3/4 cups sugar
2 tablespoons cup all-purpose flour
2 eggs
3 tablespoons cup lemon juice
2 teaspoons grated lemon peel
1/4 cup seedless raspberry jam

1 - Preheat oven to 300 degrees & line a mini muffin pan with small muffin liners
2 - Place one Nilla Vanilla wafer at the bottom of each liner
3 - Warm jam in microwave for 20-30 seconds
4 - Spoon small amount of jam on each wafer to cover
5 - Beat cream cheese & sugar until well combined
6 - Add eggs one at a time until combined
7 - Add lemon juice, lemon peel and flour and mix until just combined
8 - Fill each liner about 3/4 full of cheesecake batter
9 - Bake 10-12 minutes or until cheesecake is set
10 - Remove from oven and let sit in pan at room temperature for 30 minutes before removing. Transfer mini cheesecakes to a cooling rack to cool completely


Top each mini cheesecake with a squirt of whipped cream just before serving :)


I participate in the following link parties: Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Skip to My Lou, The Girl Creative, Making the World Cuter, Miss Crafty Pants, Super Stinky Boys, Mad In Crafts, Embellishing Life Everyday, Keeping It Simple, The DIY Home Sweet Home Project, Chocolate Drool & Kisses, Simply Cadence, Polly Wanna Crafter, Sew Can Do, Tip Junkie, My Frugal Family, Coastal Charm, New Nostagalia, Blessed with Grace, The Creative Itch, Funky Polka Dot Giraffe, Home Stories A to Z, The Lettered Cottage, A Bowl Full of Lemons, At Home with K, All Thingz Related, Today's Creative Blog, Not Just a Housewife, Sew Much Ado, Blue Cricket Design, My Backyard Eden, Gluesticks, Extreme Personal Measures, The Thrifty Home, The Trendy Treehouse, Someday Crafts, All Things Heart and Home, Elements Interiors, My Girlish Whims, DIY by Design, Somewhat Simple, House of Hepworths, Seven Thirty Three, Fireflies and Jellybeans, Beyond the Picket Fence, Black Kat Design, Thrifty 101, Fingerprints on the Fridge, Finding Fabulous, Poppies at Play, The Inspired Room, KoJo Designs, Whipperberry, Inspiring Creations, Romantic Home, The Speckled Dog, At the Picket Fence, Little Brick Ranch, Designer Garden, Simply Sweet Home, Simply Designing, Tatertots & Jello, Funky Junk Interiors, Be Different Act Normal, Saturday Morning Blog, It's a Crafty Life, I Heart Naptime, Under the Table and Dreaming, Creative Jewish Mom, Flamingo Toes, The DIY Showoff, Marvelously Messy, Nifty Thrifty Things, Thrifty Decor Chick,

If Your Mama Likes Peanut Butter...

...than you must make her these decadent mini cheesecakes!  I saw this delicious looking treat over at Let's Dish oh, about a year ago.  I promptly pulled it into Evernote and forgot about it.  Until a few weeks ago.  When I was looking for something peanut-buttery to add to a dessert table.  And let me tell you, these little babies stole.the.show.  What's not to love - there's peanut butter and chocolate with CHEESECAKE!  {drool}  I did make a few modifications from the original - because that's what I do.  The biggest change was that I used Nilla Vanilla wafers for the crust.  I was making desserts en masse.  I needed something easier.  They really need to make round graham wafers so that pressed for time peeps can get the yum of a graham crust without the darn crushing and buttering.  But I digress... Without further ado - I give you heavenly peanut butter cheesecake bites:

Mini Peanut Butter Cheesecake Bites

1 box Nilla Vanilla wafers
2 (8oz.) packages cream cheese, softened1/4 cup sugar


1/4 brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup light sour cream
Pinch of salt
1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
4-5 tablespoons heavy cream


1 - Preheat oven to 300 degrees & line a mini muffin pan with small muffin liners
2 - Place one Nilla Vanilla wafer at the bottom of each liner
3 - Beat cream cheese & sugar until well combined
4 - Add eggs one at a time until combined
5 - Add vanilla, sour cream, peanut butter and salt until just combined
6 - Fill each liner about 3/4 full of cheesecake batter
7 - Bake 10-12 minutes or until cheesecake is set
8 - Remove from oven and let sit in pan at room temperature for 30 minutes before removing. Transfer mini cheesecakes to a cooling rack to cool completely


Chocolate topping
1- Once cheesecakes are completely cool, place chocolate chips into a microwave safe bowl and heat in 30 second intervals until melted and smooth (careful not to burn chocolate)
2 - Stir in heavy cream until chocolate is shiny and smooth
3 - Spoon topping over each cooled cheesecake - give a Dairy Queen swirl just for fun ;)

Refrigerate until serving (the chocolate sets in the refrigerator in 10 minutes or so)
 

I participate in the following link parties: Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Skip to My Lou, The Girl Creative, Making the World Cuter, Miss Crafty Pants, Super Stinky Boys, Mad In Crafts, Embellishing Life Everyday, Keeping It Simple, The DIY Home Sweet Home Project, Chocolate Drool & Kisses, Simply Cadence, Polly Wanna Crafter, Sew Can Do, Tip Junkie, My Frugal Family, Coastal Charm, New Nostagalia, Blessed with Grace, The Creative Itch, Funky Polka Dot Giraffe, Home Stories A to Z, The Lettered Cottage, A Bowl Full of Lemons, At Home with K, All Thingz Related, Today's Creative Blog, Not Just a Housewife, Sew Much Ado, Blue Cricket Design, My Backyard Eden, Gluesticks, Extreme Personal Measures, The Thrifty Home, The Trendy Treehouse, Someday Crafts, All Things Heart and Home, Elements Interiors, My Girlish Whims, DIY by Design, Somewhat Simple, House of Hepworths, Seven Thirty Three, Fireflies and Jellybeans, Beyond the Picket Fence, Black Kat Design, Thrifty 101, Fingerprints on the Fridge, Finding Fabulous, Poppies at Play, The Inspired Room, KoJo Designs, Whipperberry, Inspiring Creations, Romantic Home, The Speckled Dog, At the Picket Fence, Little Brick Ranch, Designer Garden, Simply Sweet Home, Simply Designing, Tatertots & Jello, Funky Junk Interiors, Be Different Act Normal, Saturday Morning Blog, It's a Crafty Life, I Heart Naptime, Under the Table and Dreaming, Creative Jewish Mom, Flamingo Toes, The DIY Showoff, Marvelously Messy, Nifty Thrifty Things, Thrifty Decor Chick,

Happy May Day!

Somehow the first of May always seems to sneak up on me.  Every year I think I'd like to do something May-Dayish like have a maypole in the front yard (bwaaaahahaha!)  This year we celebrated by doing a little planting in our backyard.  When we moved in three years ago, the yard was partially landscaped.  It already had some nice shrubbery, a big lilac bush and a lovely Japanese maple, but we wanted to beef it up a bit.


Here are the before pictures

(Hubs already had a few of the new plants unloaded before I came out with the camera)

We added a few Forsythia bushes, a Leyland Cypress, some mini Rhododendrons, Rose Barberry, and dwarf Burning Bush.  We also put in a Pink Princess Weigela that will hopefull draw some hummingbirds, a Hybrid Tea Rose bush and a lush Peony.  I really hope everything takes!


And now all planted

You can barely see the tall Forsythia - it's a little more noticable in person

I just love these little Rhododendrons

This is the dwarf Burning Bush - I can't wait for it to turn color

And here's the Peony at the base of the existing Lilac bush

Now we just need to clean up that edge and mulch it out.  Yay for productive weekends!



I participate in the following link parties: Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Skip to My Lou, The Girl Creative, Making the World Cuter, Miss Crafty Pants, Super Stinky Boys, Mad In Crafts, Embellishing Life Everyday, Keeping It Simple, The DIY Home Sweet Home Project, Chocolate Drool & Kisses, Simply Cadence, Polly Wanna Crafter, Sew Can Do, Tip Junkie, My Frugal Family, Coastal Charm, New Nostagalia, Blessed with Grace, The Creative Itch, Funky Polka Dot Giraffe, Home Stories A to Z, The Lettered Cottage, A Bowl Full of Lemons, At Home with K, All Thingz Related, Today's Creative Blog, Not Just a Housewife, Sew Much Ado, Blue Cricket Design, My Backyard Eden, Gluesticks, Extreme Personal Measures, The Thrifty Home, The Trendy Treehouse, Someday Crafts, All Things Heart and Home, Elements Interiors, My Girlish Whims, DIY by Design, Somewhat Simple, House of Hepworths, Seven Thirty Three, Fireflies and Jellybeans, Beyond the Picket Fence, Black Kat Design, Thrifty 101, Fingerprints on the Fridge, Finding Fabulous, Poppies at Play, The Inspired Room, KoJo Designs, Whipperberry, Inspiring Creations, Romantic Home, The Speckled Dog, At the Picket Fence, Little Brick Ranch, Designer Garden, Simply Sweet Home, Simply Designing, Tatertots & Jello, Funky Junk Interiors, Be Different Act Normal, Saturday Morning Blog, It's a Crafty Life, I Heart Naptime, Under the Table and Dreaming, Creative Jewish Mom, Flamingo Toes, The DIY Showoff, Marvelously Messy, Nifty Thrifty Things, Thrifty Decor Chick,