Cheesecake On the Brain

This weekend is fast approaching. I'm not eagerly watching the calendar/the clock b/c it's Easter (which also means the conclusion of Lent which means I can go back to chugging brewed coffee) but rather I'm a bit nervous. Why nervous? It also happens to be my pastor's birthday weekend. Who gets to make his birthday cake? Yep. How/Why you ask? I somehow volunteered; or it has just become some unspoken tradition... I shouldn't BE nervous. You'd think after all the years of cooking with my mom, baking for fun, "catering" for a crowd I'd quash all the nerves - but no such luck. I get nervous about the "what-if's" - hopefully one of these days I can sweep the "what-if's" out the door.

I should clarify, I am not making ALL of his birthday cakes for Sunday... His wife is ordering 2 other cakes from bakeries for the lunch celebration for the bulk of the church members (translation: the Korean speaking adults & the kids). She asked my advice on bakeries in the area for birthday cake - tastes good for a relatively good price. She asked me what kind of snacks the young adults & college students might prefer (chips, soda, pretzel etc etc etc). To simplify things (I knew she already had so much to juggle that day anyhow) I recommended simple chips & salsa & some other chips & dip along with soda/iced tea. In terms of the cake, our beloved pastor is a cheesecake killer. Typically he doesn't like sweets but he loves a healthy slice of cheesecake.

In my opinion, if you're going to take the time to make something you should make it from scratch. None of this semi-homemade Sandra Lee slop. I really can not stand all of the pre-packaged, overly processed, more chemicals/artificial fillers & stabilizers than nutrients crap that floats around out there passing itself off as food.

I went through a cheesecake phase a couple years back; I experimented with every possible variable to achieve a crisp crust, smooth filling & absence of cracks. So this weekend I thought I'd try yet another flavoring variation BUT my pastor, being the simple taste kind of man, requested just straight NY style cheesecake. *sigh*

So to reminisce here's a look back at a couple cheesecakes from the past:

Triple chocolate cheesecake made for a belated housewarming party. Oreo cookie crust, white chocolate (which really isn't chocolate), milk chocolate, dark chocolate cheesecake layers

 I think I should have put the white chocolate in the middle to get more definition between the layers

 Vanilla Bean cheesecake made for pastor's birthday last year served during DT Bible study.

I think I made some sort of cheesecake at least 6 times... but a few of them I forgot to take a picture - OOPS my bad.

So this weekend, in order to be able to serve everyone some cheesecake I'm doing mini cheesecakes and then one regular cheesecake for pastor blow out candles & cut etc etc etc (or at least that's the plan).