Mini Cheesecakes

My girlfriend in Michigan gave me this recipe years ago. So easy and fun to take it to special events. Thanks Jody!

Tastes & Treasures cookbook has a great cheesecake recipe on page 170. Try that one too.

Ingredients:

• 2 8-ounce packages of low-fat cream cheese
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 Tbsp lemon juice
• Dash of lemon zest
• Mini Nilla Wafers (regular kind Not reduced fat)
• 1 can cherry pie filling

Preparation:

1. Soften cream cheese to room temperature. 
2. Mix together cream cheese, sugar, eggs, vanilla, lemon juice and lemon zest until smooth with an electric mixer.
3. Line up mini baking cups and place a mini Nilla Wafer face-up inside each one.
4. Scoop mixture onto wafer, filling cup 3/4 full.
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.
6. Refrigerate. Once chilled, scoop cherry pie filling atop each mini cheesecake. Chill again.

Options: Other pie fillings work well too. We love blueberry.

Very Lemon Bread from Rancho de la Osa

Rancho de la Osa gave us this wonderful recipe for Tastes & Treasures cookbook. The fascinating history of the Guest Ranch is told in the cookbook. It began as a Jesuit mission outpost in the late 1600s. If only those walls could talk . . .

The Very Lemon Bread was almost gone by the time I got to take a photo of Mariamne Moore with her tasty treat. Also volunteering at our cookbook booths, Mariamne has been a tremendous help in promoting Tastes & Treasures and the Historical League.

Our January Historical League meeting was packed and the luncheon was well received.

Very Lemon Bread

Bread Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup butter, melted

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1 tablespoon grated lemon zest

1/2 cup pecans, chopped

Lemon Glaze Ingredients:

1/4 cup lemon juice

1/2 cup confectioners' sugar

Directions:

For the bread, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Sift the flour, salt and baking powder into a bowl. Mix the sugar, butter and lemon extract in a large bowl. Beat in the eggs. Add the flour mixture and milk alternately, beating until just blended after each addition. Fold in the lemon zest and pecans. Pour into greased and floured 5 X 8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 45 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean. cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes.

For the glaze, blend the lemon juice and confectioners' sugar in a bowl until smooth. Drizzle over the cracks int he warm bread that form while baking.

Makes 1 loaf. Decorate with slices of fresh lemons and blueberries. Yummm.

Note: Before adding glaze, it really helps to take a fork and make deep punctures from the top of the loaf pan. Then the glaze flows down through the entire loaf.

When using fresh lemons instead of lemon extract, you need to cut back slightly on the liquid (milk) used since fresh lemons are not as concentrated. We used 1/3 cup milk.