I am a twenty-two year old college kid, and the highlight of my week was spending time with my Grams. I went out dancing with my friends and spent the weekend with my boyfriend, but I most enjoyed baking with Grams. I knew that my Labor Day weekend would have to include a baking session with Grandma Ahlden. I think sometimes my grandma doesn’t understand that for me, school is eighty miles away from home. I worry that she just thinks I have forgotten about her and our baking together. When I called today to see if we could spend the afternoon together she seemed very excited to hear from me. Her spirits were very high today after her morning at church with Uncle T and Connie and a special trip to The Gathering with Aunt Jan.
I thought Easy Mini Cheesecakes would be a good dessert for today. I decided to gather all of the supplies and bring them over to Grams’ house to bake in her kitchen. When I bake at her house, I have to bring everything we could possibly need with me. Sometimes she will have lost her measuring cups or has eggs that expired two weeks ago. Even though this takes extra work, I wanted to go to her house since it had been a few weeks since I had been there. A huge smile spread across my face when I walked in the door and saw a photograph of me and my boyfriend framed on her coffee table. Earlier this week, I had mailed her the picture along with an update of how school was going. It was really special to me that she found a frame and put it up in her living room.
After a few rounds of hugs we headed to the kitchen to begin the Easy Mini Cheesecakes. I preheated the oven to 300 degrees and we began mixing. Grams helped out when I gave her direct instructions and the crust and filling turned out good. Something in Grams’ kitchen was starting to smell though. The baking part took a while because we only had one mini muffin pan to work with. We were filling the first pan, and the smell was getting more and more rank. I took out the garbage, but the smell lingered. The mini sized cheesecakes are cute, but of course they take slightly longer than if you use regular size. We patted down the crusts and added the filling. The smell was getting rancid. I put the first pan into the preheated oven and found the source of the terrible odor. On the oven rack was a broiler pan with rotten squash. Grams had cooked them several days before and forgotten to take them out. I thank God that she turned off the oven. When I threw them out, Grams tried to tell me that they were still good, and she could eat them for supper later. When I told her no she said, “You’re probably right. You know, you never know what you will get when you get garden vegetables. Some just aren’t as good.”
One of my favorite things to do when I visit Grams’ house is to look at all the pictures she has displayed around her home. With a family our size, Grams is always receiving new pictures of the great-grandkids. This time of year brings school picture days and sports snapshots. Grams finds a place for every new picture, but still displays the older ones of me and my cousins before marriages and babies. While our cheesecakes were baking in the now slightly less smelly kitchen, Grams and I looked at the photos on her walls. It’s funny how much resemblance can pass from one generation to the next. Put side by side photographs of Aaron Schuette and his daughter Melina or Emily (McIntyre) Heisner and her daughter Tara next to each other and you will know exactly what I mean. Even more astonishing is how physical resemblance can skip a generation. Naoma (Storm) Ahlden’s young beauty is reappearing in her teenage granddaughter, Grace. Lucky for us, we are all such good looking people!
Easy Mini Cheesecakes are one of those desserts that just look appealing to the eye. They are bite sized, creamy, and fluffy. The only trouble is that they are so easy to just keep popping into your mouth one after another. Grams and I decided to put mini semi-sweet chocolate chips on some of them right before they came out of the oven. With this recipe the baker can add toppings to the mini cheesecakes to their liking: cherry, berry, chocolate, nuts, etc. It was hard to say good-bye to Grams since I don’t know exactly when I will be home to bake with her again. I know that I won’t be able to stay away too long though. Like I said, I am a twenty-two year old college kid who can’t think of a better way to spend an evening than baking with Grams. More sweets to come!
Easy Mini Cheesecakes -- Kristen Johnson
1 ½ cup Graham Cracker or Chocolate Wafer crumbs
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup butter or margarine (melted)
3 -8 oz pkgs cream cheese (softened)
1 14 oz can Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk
3 eggs
2 t. vanilla
Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Combine graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and butter. Press equal portions of mixture into the bottoms of 24 lightly greased or paper lined muffin cups. (I like to use a mini muffin pan which gives bite size cheese cakes and makes approximately 4 dozen.)
In a large mixing bowl, beat cream cheese until fluffy. Gradually beat in Eagle Brand until smooth. Add eggs and vanilla; mix well. Spoon equal amounts of mixture into prepared cups. Bake 20 min or until cakes spring back when lightly touched. Cool. Then chill until ready to serve.
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