Easy Truffles!

This past Monday I went to a friend's house for a BBQ gathering and I volunteered to bring desserts. In case you haven't noticed, I'm on a major baking spree these days.

I've always loved baking but lately I've been loving it more and more and now that's summer, I actually have time to bake!

My friend who's a 7th grade teacher had her kids make truffles for their mothers for Mother's Day. What a great idea! I don't remember making anything for my mom at school for Mother's Day...do you? Maybe a card?

So anyways, I asked her for the recipe because hey, if 7th graders can do it, surely I can too.

And easy it was! You can use all sorts of different coatings but I went with cocoa powder and pistachios.

Life Designed

I'll admit, they looked pretty good!

The recipe she gave me was really simple- just the way I like it! Why haven't I made these before?!

They are really really rich though. I recommend a little more cream cheese and a little less icing sugar. 

I chopped up the pistachios but didn't think to toast them!

Life Designed

That's another adjustment for next time!

Untoasted, and after being in the fridge overnight, the pistachios were not as crunchy! I think if they were toasted, they would taste better and be a little more crunchy!

Life Designed

My friend also suggested making them smaller so that you could pop them in your mouth without having to bite into them 2, 3 times.

In addition to these truffles, I also wanted to make something else!

Remember these keylime cupcakes? I initially planned to make these as they main dessert but then I had the brilliant idea to make a keylime cheesecake instead.

It's been several years since I last made a cheesecake. About 5 years in fact. I remember making it with my friend and we had to take turns beating the cream cheese by hand because we didn't have an electric mixer. Talk about a major work out! But the cheesecake turned out well and I love cheesecake so I figured I'd give it a shot. How hard could it be right?

Well...

Life Designed

Epic fail...

I don't know what happened! I tried baking this thing for over almost 3 hours and it just would not bake. And there I was, happy that the top hadn't cracked!

I even Googled it and tried rebaking it at a lower temperature. I tried the water bath method which I had never even heard of!

I thought just the center hadn't baked but when I cut into it, I realized, none of it, other than the top layer had baked. Even the crust was soggy... what in the world...by this time it was 2am.

So I did what anybody would do after trying to bake a cheesecake for 4 hours. I shredded it. This pic was taken about half way through my anger. Haha

Ok so I MIGHT have an idea of what went wrong.

The recipe called for butter.

I didn't have any. It was 10pm, the party was at noon the next day so... I used margarine. It was only 6 tablespoons. How much damage could happen with 6 tablespoons?

Well I think that's where I went wrong.

But still. Really? There was only margarine in the crust. Would margarine prevent the whole cake from not baking?

Well, either way... it was a major fail.

I'm a little gun shy now.... pancake flat cookies, uncooked cheesecake... I'm not on a good roll. I might have to give it some time before I try a cheesecake again. =)