Always strive to learn something useful. --Sophocles

Hey, it's a holiday, and would have been my parent's 67th anniversary. The first with both of them gone.

I made the cheesecake last Saturday with a kludge of two recipes. It's really annoying looking for a cherry cheesecake recipe: they're almost entirely for cheesecakes with cherry sauce poured over them! Not at all what I wanted. I wanted cherries incorporated into the body of the cheesecake!!! I was griping about this with Russet, she suggested I look up pumpkin cheesecake recipes. At which I thought a blueberry cheesecake recipe would be a closer match to what I want, and struck gold!

I started with two cups of halved, de-pitted cherries, run thru the food processer, these were reduced with 2 tbsp sugar and some lemon juice by about half over medium heat. This was only the third cheesecake recipe that I've made: the first was a graham cracker crust, which was good. The second was a 'nilla wafer crust, which was good. This one was a graham cracker/'nilla wafer crust, with chocolate chips added, and was very good.

The cherry reduction was mixed into the whipped cream cheese and baking happened.

Problems encountered. The center of the cheesecake was less done than the outer rim. I think a longer bake at a lower temperature would improve things, instead of 350f for 35 minutes, 325 for 45ish. The crust pre-bake was a little funky, again, I think lower and slower would be the solution. The chocolate chips added too much oil in addition to the butter and when I pulled it out of the oven, the center had a circle of about 3" or so that was not bubbly, the rest was bubbly.

So DARN, guess I'll have to make another in a month or so!

It tastes very yummy regardless and is disappearing rapidly. Very high evaporation rate, as I like to say.

The croissants are from Trader Joe's and are AMAZING.

You take them out of the freezer and let them sit overnight to thaw and rise, then throw them in the oven, bake them, and let them cool. You can do an egg wash if you want a more glossy finish.

Now, I've always loved a good chocolate croissant. And frankly, I'm disappointed in most that I buy. It's rare that I get one that's really good.

And as I said, as chocolate croissants go, THESE ARE AMAZING!!! Very flaky and buttery, as croissant should be, and an excellent chocolate blend that hits just the right notes.

Sunday night I thawed a chocolate croissant and baked it Monday morning. I'm working a double shift this week and was up at 5am to be out the door at 7. Russet texted me later and said the smell of that croissant was SINFUL. I thought she had baked one of the almond croissants, turned out she hadn't.

So today I did both. She worked last night, she now has half of each waiting for her.

The almond is also quite good. It has some sort of almond butter as a filling, and almonds on the outside. The recommended bake time is 30 minutes, and they specify 'until brown and firm to the touch, otherwise the interior is likely to be underbaked'. I went with 32 minutes based on yesterday's experience. I think maybe the almond one should come out at the 30 minute mark as the almonds were a bit too brown, IMO.

Anyway, the almond butter is yummy, and the almonds on the exterior add a bit of a crunch.

But the chocolate croissants rule. I mean... CHOCOLATE. Right?

If you have a Trader Joe's nearby and they carry these in the frozen aisle, I strongly recommend them.