Skor Cheesecake

In my post about Chocolate Christmas Mice, I promised to tell you what it was that I did with the leftover Oreo chocolate cookie. The answer lies within this box.

A few weeks before Christmas, we drew names at work for exchanging Christmas gifts. I drew a gentleman named, Lonnie. Lonnie is the comedian at the office. For instance, last week he was going through our huge green recycle container. I came around the corner with a co~worker and there he was. He is a man of about 5'6" and full of ornery energy. He looked at us over what is essentially a huge plastic green trash can on wheels and without missing a beat simply said... looking us directly in the eyes and with a straight face, "Didn't get breakfast." Lonnie loves to eat. He loves to eat good food and sweets are at the top of his list. If there is one candy that could be deemed his favorite (and there are many) it could be the Skor bar as easily as any other decedent chocolate confection. So when I drew his name for the gift exchange, I knew just what to do. Go buy a dozen (or so) Skor bars!

Here is what I did with those Skor bars.


Butter Toffee Cheesecake with Ganache

Preheat oven to 350°

Crust:
1/2 cup real butter melted (one stick)
2-1/4 cup Oreo cookie crumbs
1 tablespoon granulated sugar

Filling:
12 Skor Candy Bars (and one more for nibbling)
4 8 oz. blocks cream cheese softened to room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
5 large eggs
3 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Ganache:
1 cup heavy cream
1-1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (you can substitute dark chocolate for one quarter of chocolate chips)

• Set Cream Cheese out in large mixer bowl and allow to achieve room temperature and become soft.
• Butter a 9” spring form pan with real butter.
• Chop 12 Skor bars in two batches of six bars each and keep them separate.
• Twist and separate Oreo cookies. Scrape white middle off. Make crumbs out of cookies. I roll them with a rolling pin in a sturdy Ziploc bag. You can see how having one side of an Oreo cookie left over from the Christmas Mice would be useful here, so make them a day or two before the cheesecake if you are making them.

Crust:

• Melt butter.
• Stir in Oreo crumbs and sugar.
• Press into bottom and sides of buttered 9” spring form pan.
• Evenly scatter one batch of the six chopped Skor bars onto crust

Filling:

• Mix softened cream cheese in mixer until very smooth.
• Mix in sugar first and until smooth, then mix eggs one at a time beating thoroughly.
• Pour filling into crust.
• Bake at 350° degrees for 40 minutes.
• Turn oven down to 300° degrees and bake 30 minutes longer. This is a good time to rotate your cake around in the oven if your oven seems to bake hotter at one side or the other. Do not rotate at any other time.
• Let sit and set in oven for one hour.
• When cake is cool refrigerate over night, or at least 8 hours.

Finishing up:
Pop ring of spring form pan off. Leaving cake on the bottom of spring form pan, set cake on a piece of foil or your choice of waterproof device. In this next step you will be pouring your ganache topping over and you will be letting it run down the sides. It just doesn't get much better. :-)

Ganache:

• Heat heavy cream in an heavy sauce pan.
• Stir in chocolate on low heat until smooth, beating with a spoon to keep from scorching and to aid in chocolate melting.
• Pour over cheesecake (should drip off sides) spreading out to get the coverage and look you want.
• Top with 6 more chopped Skor Bars.... YAY!!!! Yumm.
• Chill for one hour.
• Now slide your cake onto whatever you will be serving it from.
• Leave at room temperature for 15 minutes before serving.

Enjoy!

Lonnie is a giving man and shares everything. He has co~workers over during the summer for barbeque's... that sort of man. He had been awarded the Employee of the Year award at our Christmas lunch just two weeks prior to the day I gave him his cheesecake. So, I attached a note to his box saying that he had been such a good lad all year that he did not have to share with the other children. I think he did have a piece while at work, and I heard he gave a few sample bites (not slices), but the cake basically went home that evening, never to be seen again. I also heard he asked someone if they knew what bakery Teresa bought the cheesecake at. Lonnie likes good food. That felt nice.

Here is a little art work of the fun I had putting this Christmas gift together.

Chopping.....

the rest of the chopping.

Some assembly required.

Mixing.

Getting there.

The beauty of disposable foil.

The finished cheesecake. Box and wrap it quick to avoid further temptation. By this time I had already eaten a Skor bar and licked ganache like I did not know better.

Done! Put the box in the car for morning since it is too big for the refrigerator and it is plenty cold enough outside.

Congratulations, Elizabeth!

I apologize for taking a while to get this announcement on here, I just did not want to post this until the winner and I successfully connected. I am happy to announce that Elizabeth at My Maine Cottage was the winner of Redeeming Love, written by Francine Rivers, that was offered in my Valentines Day Giveaway. Here is the what Elizabeth says about herself on her blog profile.

I live with my husband Jason and two Scottish Terriers Abby & Murdoch in a small commercial fishing village in Maine. I'm a real estate agent serving the greater Portland Maine area and in my free time I love spending time by the water boating, swimming & exploring. I'm interested in Cottage style decorating & craft projects as well.

My Maine Cottage is a blog full of beautiful Maine coast photos, lots of creative ideas and two beautiful Scotties. Be sure to take a look. You can visit by clicking the link above, clicking My Maine Cottage on my side bar.

Congratulations, Elizabeth!

Of Mice and Chocolate.

One day, a while back at my office, we had an interesting event. The woman across the hall from me is going to be married in a few weeks. She is young and beautiful and always has a sachet about her unhurried walk, and an overall reserved gentleness about herself. She is quiet, friendly and always composed. Lovely young lady. And then the interesting event of that particular day happened. We had hit our late morning lull of quiet, bar the tapping of computer keys. Amazing that. Just prior to the mass lunch time exodus, we have the most delightful forty~five minutes of peace and quiet. It seems for about forty-five minutes before the lunch time exodus, everyone becomes focused and quite productive. I personally love it because the coffee clutching and cackling subsides for a precious three quarters of an hour. Peaceful. Peaceful and thought inspiring.

And then the interesting event of that day happened. Quiet... tap,tap,tapp tapp. Quiet ... tap rapid tap, tap, tap, tap. SCREAM!!! AAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OH MY GO...okay she did not say gosh but anyway... OH MY GOSH!!!!!!! SOMETHING JUST RAN OVER MY FOOT!!!!!!!! EEEEAAAAAHHHHH!!!! And may I just say the all caps here in no way truly capture the shrill and decibel level those words hit. Our demure young lady was beside herself! I personally would have been beside myself AND up on the desk.

All productivity comes to an anxious halt and people came bolting out of their office doors to see what could possibly be the matter. This reserved and quiet woman looked as if she might go into cardiac arrest with her red face and gasping mouth. She was shaky and it goes without saying beyond upset. A mouse had run across her foot! I had to agree with her.... what horror!

So the event gets even curiouser. As the rest of us began to assess where might be the best spot to place a mouse trap, we discovered the most interesting thing. Behind a somewhat large planter in the corner there were gold bits of foil crumbled in a semi neat pile of about an inch high and perhaps four inches in diameter. We immediately recognized these to be the gold foil wrapping of holiday Hershey kisses. We looked at the bowl on the far corner (diagonally on the other far side of her office) of her desk only to find three Hershey Kisses partially eaten, leaving suspiciously small teeth marks. Other than that the bowl was empty. This woman had been accusing her friend (and supervisor) that is down the hall and on a diet, of eating the missing Kisses. This woman had denied it all along. It was mice. Were they dropping them from the desk and scurrying over with them in tow to enjoy behind the planter? I had visions of Ratatouille going through my head. You remember? When they were foraging for food at Gusteau's restaurant. At any rate I was certain we were dealing with more than one mouse. I rather figured it was more like a little army of them.

Like this maybe.

I had been meaning to put these pictures on my blog at Christmas but never got around to it. Upon returning to my office, though wary of where I stepped, I had to chuckle to myself as I remembered these cute little treats I made at Christmas for my grand daughter's school Christmas party. Perhaps you noticed these precious little mice are made out of....... Hershey Kisses! :-) I saw these on Kim's blog a couple of years ago, just never had a reason to make them. They were a big hit at the school party. It is so easy to seem like such a great Nana. I love that. Anyway, the woman that had been accused of eating the Hershey's Kisses thought I might want to make these adorable little mice for our co~workers wedding reception, only alter the colors used. I thought it might be fun. The fussy bride to be however said I "should never make them again." Geez........

Here is how you can (and I) can make them using Hershey Kisses, sliced almonds Maraschino cherries, Oreo cookies, some icing gel and chocolate chips.

When I made them I ended up having only one mouse pad per cookie. In my next post I will show you where the extra chocolate Oreo cookie from each Oreo went.

Happy Valentines Day!

John 3:16 says:

For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

God is love, and He shows that love by giving. So what better way to celebrate Valentines Day... the day we have set aside to show love... than to give? Okay, I will confess I got the idea to give this book away as a Valentine's post from My Hands... His Glory! . I have never done a giveaway but I thought she had a great idea and so here we go then. The book is titled, Redeeming Love and is authored by, Francine Rivers. A quote about the book is,

"A powerful retelling of the book of Hosea, Redeeming Love is a life-changing story of God's unconditional, redemptive, all consuming love."

If you would like to be in the drawing that will be on Saturday, February 22, simply leave a comment on this post. In your comment would you please mention a time in your life that you were given something and you could tell you were loved. Certainly feel free to mention anytime God blessed you! If you are not a blogger, you are still able to leave a comment, you will however also need to email me so I know how to reach you if your name is drawn. You can access my email by clicking the link under my profile at the top right corner of this blog. I am really looking forward to the comments you will write. Love is the one thing that never fails and I think reading about your experiences of it will be so uplifting.

Thank you for participating, and be sure to check back February 22, to see who this book will go to. I suppose you could remember that date by 2.22 2 win! :-)



I saw this yesterday and thought it was so perfect for this post.

For God so loVed the world,
That He gAve
His onLy
BegottEn
SoN
That whosoever
Believeth In Him
Should Not perish,
But have Everlasting life."
John 3:16

Happy Valentine's Day to you!

A request for prayer for, Becky.

In my last post I urged you to go to Becky's blog, Sweet Cottage Dreams and check into her giveaway. I now come to you with a much different request. Becky lost her older son Jordan, on Wednesday. This is quite a shock and broke my heart. Becky is well loved and so I am sure I really don't even need to request for prayer for her, her husband and other son. I know all of you will uphold her in prayer during this difficult time. Laura has put something about this on Becky's blog. I pray peace and comfort for this family.

Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal comfort and a wonderful hope...
2 Thessalonians 2:16

Great "Lil' Giveaway"!

Becky over at Sweet Cottage Dreams, is hosting a giveaway.

She is calling it a Lil' Giveaway. I think not. This giveaway is generously brimming with wonderfully handmade vintage style goodies. Please go and see for yourself. Be sure to leave a comment so you can be in the drawing on February 6. Go! Quickly.... click here!

Super Bowl Sunday.

It is Super Bowl XLIII Sunday. I won't be watching my beloved Green Bay Packers, but after reading the following, I am quite interested in the game, particularly the Cardinals, and most specifically their quarterback.

This morning my husband sent me an email he received from a friend in, Indiana. Some of you have received this in an email I sent you earlier this morning. If so, skip the story if you would like and go to the bottom of this post as I am adding some things I found out after researching this gentleman a bit. For everyone else I will just say start at the top of this story and read through. I decided to email some because this story touched me so deeply. With a little research follow up, I decided to blog about this man because it has so deeply blessed me.

Email as follows:

THE STOCK BOY.

In a supermarket, Kurtis the stock boy was busily working when a new voice came over the loud speaker asking for a carry out at register 4. Kurtis was almost finished, and wanted to get some fresh air, and decided to answer the call.

As he approached the check-out stand a distant smile caught his eye, the new check-out girl was beautiful. She was an older woman (maybe 26 and he was only 22) and he fell in love.

Later that day, after his shift was over, he waited by the punch clock to find out her name. She came into the break room, smiled softly at him, took her card and punched out, then left. He looked at her card, BRENDA.

He walked out only to see her start walking up the road. Next day, he waited outside as she left the supermarket, and offered her a ride home. He looked harmless enough, and she accepted. When he dropped her off, he asked if maybe he could see her again, outside of work. She simply said it wasn't possible.

He pressed and she explained she had two children and she couldn't afford a baby-sitter, so he offered to pay for the baby-sitter. Reluctantly she accepted his offer for a date for the following Saturday.

That Saturday night he arrived at her door only to have her tell him that she was unable to go with him. The baby-sitter had called and canceled. To which Kurtis simply said, "Well, let's take the kids with us."

She tried to explain that taking the children was not an option, but again not taking no for an answer, he pressed. Finally Brenda brought him inside to meet her children. She had an older daughter who was just as cute as a bug Kurtis thought, then Brenda brought out her son, in a wheelchair.

He was born a paraplegic with Down Syndrome. Kurtis asked Brenda, "I still don't understand why the kids can't come with us?" Brenda was amazed. Most men would run away from a woman with two kids, especially if one had disabilities - just like her first husband and father of her children had done.

Kurtis was not ordinary - - - he had a different mindset.

That evening Kurtis and Brenda loaded up the kids, went to dinner and the movies. When her son needed anything Kurtis would take care of him. When he needed to use the restroom, he picked him up out of his wheelchair, took him and brought him back. The kids loved Kurtis. At the end of the evening, Brenda knew this was the man she was going to marry and spend the rest of her life with.

A year later, they were married and Kurtis adopted both of her children. Since then they have added two more kids.

So what happened to Kurtis the stock boy and Brenda the check-out girl?

Well, Mr. & Mrs. Kurt Warner now live in Arizona, where he is currently employed as the quarterback of the National Football League Arizona Cardinals and has his Cardinals in the hunt for a possible appearance in the Super Bowl. Is this a surprise ending or could you have guessed that he was not an ordinary person?

It should be noted that he also quarterbacked the Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI.

He has also been the NLF's Most Valuable Player twice and the Super Bowl's Most Valuable Player.

AND THE REST OF THE STORY:

Today at church our minister mentioned that when Kurt, his wife and 7 children go out to eat, he has one of his children pick out a family eating at the restaurant. Kurt then tells the wait staff he is picking up the tab for that family's dinner anonymously.

He remembers the days he was working nights in the grocery store and feeding his family on food stamps.

Kind of makes it hard not to root for the Cardinals IN THE SUPER BOWL doesn't it?

END OF RECEIVED EMAIL

My little comment to that question.... Maybe Green Bay should not have cut him in training camp in 1994. :-(

After reading this I decided to take a stroll through cyber space and see what I could find out about, Kurt Warner. I highly suspected he was a born again believer. Wow! is he and is he ever. This not just a man that believes the Word and puts faith in it, he puts feet on it... his. To see a little about the amazing things this man has set himself about doing, please take a minute and visit his web site. This man and his wife Brenda, have a foundation that aids so many in need, it is their passion. That web site takes you through what they are doing and how they are doing it. I love the name he gave this foundation, First Things First.

Brenda and Kurt Warner

Since this post concentrates on the visible evidence of the working of the Holy Spirit and one mans yielding to that leading, I feel I need to say something about the flip side of that. There are plenty of people doing good things that are beneficial to others. However, it takes faith in Jesus and accepting Him as your Savior to be born again and headed for heaven. Good works are evidence that our faith is alive. Good works alone however are not evidence that a person is a Christian, that requires faith in, Jesus.
Accepting faith is what pleases God.

Kurts' focus is to... seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
That is so easy to spot in his life. I think this verse could easily be associated with his goals and his life. I could not help but think of this when I read about him.

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:16

Thank you Pat, for sending us this email. What a blessing.