Continuing to bake through "Sally's Baking 101" and up this week was (were?) Key Lime Cheesecake Bars!
And it was another hit!! Yay!! The fails are becoming so much further apart now! These were another not so pretty for pictures piece, but they were also another absolutely delicious bake. The key lime taste is subtly perfect; I'm a big fan of key lime, but there is a fine line that comes with this flavoring between a mouth full of heaven and a mouth full of soap, and Sally hits the heaven mark exquisitely (because of course she does). Disclaimer: there may have been more punch had I had the proper amount of zest. Zesting is something I've run into a couple of times now but I just don't have it down yet and feel like I'm wasting a lot - next time it's called for, I will make sure I watch even more videos as well as have the proper tools. In saying that, yes, I was short on the amount of zest I was supposed to have overall, but it did have 2 limes worth of zest, it just didn't equal to the full amount that Sally asked for, as well as key lime juice, so I do think it's supposed to be subtle despite my lacking zest haha. Either way, for me, the amount of flavor ended up being perfect.
This was also the first time I've ever browned butter. I've seen it talked about a ton on here, but never did it myself. I think I may have chickened out just ever so slightly early while doing this step. It was definitely past the "it's just melted butter" stage and had separated and started to get the nutty aroma, but I don't think I had quite gotten to the "brown specks" arena yet, so I jumped ship a little early. BUT it was enough to noticeably change the taste of the graham cracker crust from a regular graham cracker crust, so I'll take it haha.
I did end up with a crack on the "cheesecake" part of it, but since this is only pretending to be cheesecake, it didn't bother me lol (thank God real cheesecake is in the intermediate stages because I just know I'm going to make a huge mess with those water baths). And then the whipped cream topping last - which, the lines in it was not me trying to do a presentation, that was me finding a fun brush in the drawer and having the urge to run across the just cleanly spread out whipped cream with it 🤣. I've realized from my last post and with the help of you lovely people, that even though I hate not having pretty presentations (especially seeing the works of art people have posted today, my God they're beautiful), that hopefully it will come in time and right now we're just learning the rules and the basics. Side note of a small proud moment: when I got to the topping ingredients and read through them, I knew that it was homemade whipped cream just from recognizing what was in the ingredients list and it put a little smile on my face that I knew immediately what it was. Silly, I know, but a couple of months ago I wouldn't have recognized those items and what they would make together so I thought that was a cool little moment :)
My God girl, wrap it up lol: these are delicious, I loved making them, learned a lot again, and cannot wait until next weekend. Think I might try something savory this time around. Oh! The last picture, I like to cross things off lists because you know, dopamine, so I made a list of the beginner's recipes in Sally's book so that I have a visual of the things I've done so far as well as what's to come (a few things I have made are not listed because they were not beginner's items and I certainly had no business making them when I did; and yes, I absolutely did write down things I already made just so I could cross them off 🤣)
Shoot! PS I forgot to mention, the texture on this not cheesecake cheesecake turned out beautifully as well. I was a little worried about it because I thought for sure Sally had a stroke when she wrote 24 oz of cream cheese, but once again, always trust Sally. OK, I'm done now, bye! Thanks for reading!