Ultimate Cheesecake--Grad Student Style

So, you love cheesecake, but are on a budget, what to do, what to do? Make one, of course! Amending Martha Stewart's recipe for New York Style Cheesecake, my friend and I tried to quench our thirst for the sweetness of cheesecake. How did we amend it you ask? Well, we left off the graham cracker crust, until all that was left was the cream cheesy goodness that is Cheesecake!

What was most striking to me about this recipe was the amount of cream cheese required for it--7 packages of cream cheese?!?! That's a lot of cream cheese--I thought that my heart was going to go into cardiac arrest when it saw that! But, alas, a baker must do, what a baker must do! It's all for the sake of the art, right? :-)

So, first things first, we creamed together all that heart-attack-inducing cream cheese, then mixed together the sugar and the flour in a separate bowl from the cream cheese. Then, gradually, we mixed in the sugar/flour mixture to the cream cheese. After that, you mix in the sour cream and vanilla. Finally, mixing the eggs in one at a time. In a buttered spring-form pan, pour in this mixture (in our case, we had no graham cracker crust).

After a very intricate baking process, including a foiled spring-form pan, a boiling water bath for the spring-form pan and two different baking temperatures, the cheesecake was finally ready to cool on a cooling rack. But wait---THERE'S MORE!!!! After it cools on the cooling rack, you can't eat it quite yet, it must be refrigerated for at least 6 hours, or over night, before you can eat it! And, voila--you have some wonderful cheesecake that tastes fabulous!!! If you have the time, try it at home, you won't be disappointed! Enjoy!!



Special thanks to my friend, who helped me through the process of baking my very first cheesecake! You know who you are...and the multiverse is with you ;-)

Georgetown Cupcake

Ever wait longer than 5 minutes for a cupcake? How about 30 or 40 minutes, or even an hour? Never? I said that, too. Recently there's been a surge of cupcakeries (or so they are called), and I've been very skeptical. How can a place stay in business only selling cupcakes? I never thought a cupcakery could be successful, much less that I'd be waiting in the cold winter wind waiting 30 minutes for one singular cupcake. That is until I encountered Georgetown Cupcake. There are two locations, the flagship store is located in Georgetown at 3301 M Street NW. Open Monday-Saturday 10 am - 9 pm and Sundays from 10 am - 7 pm, good luck finding a time when there isn't a line out of the door for one of these tasty treats.

Their menu is riddled with everyday cupcakes, daily specials, and even seasonal flavors ranging from Irish Cream Cupcakes in March to Holiday Lava Fudge in December and many many more. I myself indulged in a chocolate ganache cupcake that was so soft and fluffy. The icing was even rich and creamy! I was expecting your typical run-of-the-mill cupcake, with hard icing, but no, the icing was amazing! It was so good, that after walking around Georgetown, I returned for another cupcake - PB Fudge...another heavenly treat!

This skeptic highly recommends this cupcakery for those looking for a nice and sweet treat! If you're ever in the area, be sure to stop by--it's definitely worth the wait! On a scale of 1-5, 5 being the best, Georgetown Cupcake receives, without a shadow of a doubt, 5 out of 5!