MOM'S RASPBERRY CREAM CHEESECAKE

One of my favourite desserts my mom makes is her Raspberry Cream Cheese Cake.  Now, this isn't your typical cheescake.  It's really more cake than cheese.  One of my best friends doesn't like cheesecake, so if you're reading this, A, you still won't like this cake.  Sorry.  It still has cream cheese in it but the base is more cakey than you might expect.  This week I halved the recipe and made a mini cake for hubby for a treat (because I have been avoiding cooking lately and he doesn't like that).  Here's the recipe!

Cake
2 1/2 cups of flour
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup of hard margarine
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup sour cream
1 egg
1 tsp almond flavouring

Filling
1 package softened cream cheese
1/2 cup raspberry jam
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
 
1. Combine the flour and sugar and cut in the margarine until the mixture is crumbly.
2. Set aside 1 cup of this for the top of the cake.
3.  To the rest, add the baking powder, baking soda, salt, sour cream, egg, and almond flavouring and blend well.
4. Use a spring-form cake pan and spread the cake over the bottom and part way up the sides.  Make sure the sides are nice and thin.
5. Beat the cream cheese, add sugar and egg and pour in the cake pan over the batter.
6. Spoon jam over the filling.
7. I ground a good sized handful of almonds in the food processor and added this to the cake topping you set aside earlier.  Sprinkle on top of the cake.
8. Bake at 350 for 1 to 1 1/2 hours or until middle is set and not sloppy.

Enjoy!  It's delish!

MASTER BEDROOM: POST SIX

Our master bedroom is as good as it's going to get, folks.  I actually think it's looking pretty cute.  The most recent additions we made were: a "new" dresser and artwork.  Last winter I was surfing Kijiji (the East Coast version of Craig's List) regularly for a dresser and found this one.

Welcome to our spare room.  Stylish, no?  This room is a complete disaster but the dresser's cute, anyway.  So when we picked this guy up last winter, the previous owner was moving into a nursing home and hoped to take the high boy version of this dresser with her.  Her son told us if they decided to sell it too, we would be first on the call list.  Luckily, this summer we heard from him and decided to buy this dresser's brother.

     
                 

He's cute, right?  My favourite things are the brass pulls.  I just think they're the greatest.  And around here, the only way I know how to buy mid century modern stuff is on Kijiji.  I have yet to find a store in these parts that sells anything of the kind.

This is the side of the room I have never shared on the blog before.  It used to be a blank wall with a white particle board dresser (Wal Mart special lent to us by hubby's mom when we first got married).  Now we've updated to honest-to-goodness wood from the 1950s (1960s?) with awesome brass pulls!  To complete the look I had wedding photos framed for hubby for our five year anniversary.  Five years?  It's time to make it official - put up the photos.  My parents didn't have wedding photos until their 25 year anniversary and I could really see us heading in that direction...

And there they are with a little less glare.  I went to a custom framer with the idea in mind that I would get white boxy frames.  She had these pre-made gold ones in typical sizes and they were quite a lot cheaper than a custom frame.  With this option I still was able to have mattes (three!) so I was sold.  I think the gold is actually quite nice with the hay in the photos; it's better than white would have been, I think.  I had three photos done but this wall is too small for all three so one ended up in our living room for now, which is fine by me!

As far as I know that's the end of the "Master bedroom" posts.  I don't foresee any other changes in the near future!  Hope you enjoyed.  Thanks for stopping by.

A SIMPLE ART PROJECT: HEY YOU

I thought I'd share with you a super simple art project I made hubby a few months ago.  He was away for something (can't remember what) and I decided to surprise him with a little something for when he got home.  When we were first dating and we would talk on the phone or write letters, he would always start by saying, "Hey You".  Wouldn't it be nice for him to have a cute little daily reminder of that?

 
I always have some Mayfair Paper on hand for art projects.  It's a nice, thick paper best for drawings that you can buy at any art supplies store.  It comes in big pieces, basically the size of a piece of bristol board.  I used a fine tipped sharpie to write my message in messy writing, coloured in the heart with your run of the mill Crayola marker, and voila.  (I always make my quick little art projects a typical size like 4x6 or 5x7 so you can easily and inexpensively frame them.)  This frame came from Winners Homesense.

Hopefully this inspired you to be a little creative with one of your favourite sayings.  Right now this little doodle is sitting on our dresser so we see it every day.

MORE GRAND MANAN

This summer has been extremely low key.  I get zero days of vacation and so hubby has kind of been forced to have a boring summer because of me.  I anxiously await the day when I have vacation to use at will... Wouldn't that be nice?  In the meantime we've made a couple of quick weekend trips - one for a wedding, one to PEI with friends, and our anniversary trip to Grand Manan.

Currently I'm studying for my next exams which are two or three weeks away.  I'm not sure which...I'm trying not to think about how much time I have left to study!  So the last couple of weeks have been particularly uneventful.  The best part of my week was Leroy cuddling in bed with me this morning.  He laid on my chest for a long time before I got out of bed.  Makes a mummy happy!

Here are a few more photos from our anniversary weekend trip to Grand Manan.

Looks like a little father/son pep talk.  We saw a beach from the car so we pulled over to the side of the road and took the little path down to the beach.  It was a pretty spot, covered in hundreds of seagulls.  We thought this path was pretty cool.

This is at a different beach.  There is a provincial park on Grand Manan with a campground and a beach, and we went to that beach twice.  It was a pretty beach and nice for Leroy to be able to run around and catch the frisbee.

We think he's the cutest.  Like, really.  The cutest.  You have a baby?  Oh wait - mine's cuter. :)
 

He has a pretty silly dad who is willing to run around the beach with him.  Leroy is way faster.  And a little bit cuter.  Hubby is a close second.

Beautiful Grand Manan!  This is very close to a lighthouse at the western side of the island.  There is a little trail (not very well groomed) that follows the top of the cliffs and it really is gorgeous.  We followed the four wheeler trail and found a little lake with one cottage.  When I told my friend C about our little trek, she said she had found that cottage before too!  I thought that was pretty cool.

There's my sample of summer photos!  Hope you enjoyed them.

FIVE YEARS

Happy anniversary, hubby.  Can't wait to see what's in store for the next five years.

"Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken." Ecclesiastes 4:12.