happy 2nd birthday!

Last year, I made cupcakes with Magnolia Bakery butter cream frosting to celebrate this blog's birthday. Blogging for me this past year has been about trying new recipes, learning from others, sharing new food experiences and making new friends.

For this year's celebration I wanted to try something different...cheesecake.

I've made cheesecake in the past, but with those ready-made pie shells. To try something different, I wanted to use earl grey tea since I love the taste and aroma of it. I've also only discovered earl grey since moving to Japan (I know, I was living under a rock....plus, I had some leftover from our trip to New Caledonia.)

For the crust, I used the shortbread recipe that I used to make macadamia nut shortbread in August, but I cut the recipe to one-fourth. Instead of the nuts, I added about a teaspoon or so of earl grey tea. (I emptied one tea bag into a little bowl and sprinkled in the tea (not all of it) as the dough came together.)

This was my first time using a removable bottom pan. Since there are only the 2 of us, making a huge cheesecake would be nice, but you know who would be eating it?? Yours truly!...So, I found these cute removable bottomed tins at the 100yen store (only US $1! each). After pressing in the dough (which I thought was pressed in quite thinly)into the 1st pan, I had only a little left for the 2nd pan (which turned out to be the best). I filled the one with only a little "crust" with the cream cheese filling and put it into the refrigerator to set.

The one which I thought was thinly pressed in (I think I was supposed to use the weights to keep the dough from puffing up), turned out to be a thick shortbread cookie. Light and flaky this went nicely with a glass of milk.

Even though the cheesecake didn't turn out how I envisioned it would, I am happy with the results--the crust was flaky and light, the earl grey flavor was just right and matched with the cream cheese filling.

I can't believe that another year has passed, it has definitely been filled with lots of exciting foodie experiences, disasters and successes in the kitchen and the most important...friendships. I really appreciate all of you who take the time to read my adventures, I am surely having fun writing about them. I'm looking forward to Autumn and Winter because it will be cooler, but most of all, I'm looking forward to all the delicious ingredients and adventures they bring.

Happy Birthday!