Blueberry Banana Cheesecake Bread

We eat a lot of bananas at my house - plain, with peanut butter, in oatmeal, you name it. Sometimes we buy too many, and half of them will pass an acceptable level of ripeness before we have a chance to eat them...so I’ll mash some up to make these delectable blueberry banana muffins - my go-to recipe for using up super ripe bananas. They are perfectly sized for breakfasts, as well as snacks that don’t make you feel too guilty. But, as with many things that I make a lot, I got a little bored with these and wanted to mix things up a little bit. I came across this recipe that literally does just that: banana bread split by a cream cheese layer - yum! I’m a huge fan of cheesecake, so adding a layer of cheesecake-y goodness sounded like the perfect boost for my basic recipe.

 

Ingredients:

Base banana bread recipe can be found here

Add-ins: ~¾ cup blueberries (I used frozen, and did not thaw before adding to the batter, but did try to remove any excess ice that had built up)

For cream cheese filling

8oz cream cheese, softened (I used reduced fat)

6 TBSP all-purpose flour

½ cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9x5 loaf pans.

Prepare the blueberry banana bread batter according to the directions found here.

For the cream cheese filling, combine all ingredients and mix well (use a hand mixer with whisk attachment for best results).

Pour banana bread mixture into the loaf pans until they are ½ - ⅔ full. Pour half of the cream cheese mixture into each loaf pan on top of the banana bread batter, gently spreading it with a spoon or spatula to fill all corners. Top with the remaining banana bread batter.

Bake for 50-60 minutes, until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Tent foil over the loaf pans after about 30 minutes to bake evenly and prevent the top and sides from cooking faster than the center.

 

Let the bread cool for about 15 minutes, then slice and enjoy with a cup of coffee or tea!

~Karla


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Star-Spangled Cheesecake

As Gayatri mentioned in the recent Collar Cake post, we had a “Red, White, Blue Food Day” at work. I was not as ambitious or creative (or patient...story of my life...), but I did make a pretty little cheesecake topped with fresh blueberries and raspberries. The no-bake cheesecake recipe can be found in our Cheesecake Bites post. I didn’t really want to make the crust from scratch this time, though, so I used a pre-made 9-inch graham-cracker crust.

After whipping up the cheesecake filling and smoothing it into the crust, I added my red and blue embellishments - blueberries in the shape of a star (in honor of Memorial Day), with red raspberries for accents. The engineer in me needed a plan of action for the fruit design, so I drew up a couple options that I thought I might be able to replicate:

        

However, I severely underestimated the actual size of the berries...they were HUGE! Here’s how the finished product turned out:

Cutting it was a bit of a chore, as I didn’t want to totally destroy the design before people saw it, but I managed! It ended up being a super easy project that turned out super cute...but I might be biased :-)

~Karla

Cheesecake Bites with Chocolate Crust

A few months ago, we posted a recipe for cheesecake bites that Karla had made for a dessert exchange at work. Over the last couple years, we have experimented with both the crust and the filling, including a crushed nuts crust, a chocolate crust, and even a sweet potato + cream cheese filling for a delicious thanksgiving dessert. The chocolate crust cheesecake bites were made for a couple occasions recently, and there were several recipe requests, so here’s a variation on Karla’s original cheesecake bites recipe.

Original recipe: Cheesecake Bites

The filling is the same, but the graham crackers were replaced by chocolate graham crackers. We added an extra chocolate graham cracker sheet. The consistency of the crust mixture should be such that you can form a ball, so if it’s too oily, add some more crackers! (9 cracker sheets did the trick for us). Instead of a fruit topping, we used chopped nuts. Macademia nuts or hazelnuts taste good, but you could use other nuts too, or leave the nuts out altogether. We drizzled dark chocolate to pretty up the cheesecake bites.

~Gayatri

Cheesecake Bites

A few weeks ago at work, we had a dessert exchange with the theme “bite-sized treats.” My husband’s mom makes a delectable no-bake cheesecake, so I thought I’d try out miniature versions to share. Some minor modifications later, and I had a pretty good bite-sized treat!

 

 

Ingredients:

Crust

8 whole graham cracker sheets, crushed

3 TBSP sugar (or Splenda)

1/3 cup melted butter or canola oil

~2 oz applesauce

Filling

8 oz cream cheese (I used reduced fat)

½ cup + 1 TBSP sugar (or Splenda)

4½ oz cool whip ( I used fat-free)

For the crust: Mix all crust ingredients together. Press into mini-muffin molds. Bake at 375°F for 10 minutes. Let crust cool completely before filling.

NOTE: For the original no-bake version, omit the apple sauce and do not bake the crust. Just press into a pie pan and you can immediately pour in the filling.

For the filling: Mix cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Fold in the cool whip. Store in refrigerator until the crust is cool enough to fill.

Construction: Spoon the filling into the graham cracker crust shells. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Optional: top with your favorite small fruit or candy topping.

~Karla