My Daughter's Cheesecake Adventure 🍰

Hello friends. My daughter and I made a cheesecake today. We had ordered all the ingredients online beforehand. I've been using online delivery services quite a lot recently because they're super convenient. I don't have to carry heavy bags. I placed my order and everything arrived within 60 minutes. Plus the delivery discounts are the same as in-store. By the way, I got a lot of things on sale. I ran out of laundry detergent, so I got some gel detergent, it was on sale. Then I picked up two boxes of oatmeal and some lightly salted trout, which had a great price. Almost 50% off, so I grabbed some for breakfast. I also got some round rice and Lambert cheese, we both like them and we were out of cheese. I got some baking soda and strawberry Activia yogurt. My family usually buys this yogurt, I prefer the grainy type and my daughter likes the fruity ones. I got two bottles. Then I got some bread, pepper ciabatta. It was still warm and the smell filled the entire apartment, so delicious.

We also got some biscuits because my daughter decided to make cheesecake. She'd never made one before, so she made it today and I helped her. So I got the biscuits, butter, powdered sugar and 35% cream cheese for the cheesecake. I also picked up some avocados. I always specify that they shouldn't be overripe because they need to ripen at room temperature.

I also got onions and Chinese cabbage. I was prepping ingredients for borscht soup.

I've made it before using frozen ingredients from the fridge and I really liked it. I prep the onions, carrots and beets ahead of time, then I just add potatoes, cabbage and meat to cook, which makes borscht, making much faster. I grated the beets, chopped garlic and dill and then divided everything into packets. I think I prepped three batches of borscht ingredients. All that's left is to cook it a bit.

I got everything ready, but I only ended up with two packets. I was expecting three, but it seemed like it wouldn't be enough if I divided it into three. I'm boiling some potatoes for the borscht, then I'll add the rest of the ingredients and some salt and the borscht will be ready.

While I was having tea, my daughter was making the cheesecake.

The prep work was done and then we started on the cheesecake. My daughter did all the prep work. She crushed the biscuits and melted the butter in the microwave. You can optionally add 100 grams of walnuts to the mix. But we didn't this time. Then she poured the mixture into the mold to create the base. She needed to press down the biscuit mixture well, two-thirds for the bottom and one-third for the sides.

We needed to press it down well with a glass to get an even base. It seemed like there wasn't enough biscuit mixture, maybe because the mold was a bit big. Our mold was supposed to be 20 cm, but this one might be 24 cm. So we crushed a bit more biscuits and mixed them with butter. After preparing the base, we chilled it in the fridge for about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile we started preparing the filling. We mixed powdered sugar with the cheese and combined it well with a spatula. Then we added sour cream. You can mix it with a hand whisk. You don't have to mix it too much. But we used a blender to mix it.

Our mixture was ready, so we moved on to the filling. But my daughter seemed a bit anxious, worrying if things might go wrong. "Don't worry," I said, "everything will go smoothly." I told her to take the biscuit base out of the fridge and pour the filling over it. "Just spread it carefully and make sure to fill in the edges," I encouraged her. "Be bold it's definitely going to turn out great."

To complete the top, we needed to grate the zest of one lemon. It was important to only take the yellow part, because the white part could be bitter. I carefully grated the zest, taking just the yellow part. I was careful not to take too much.

We needed to add a packet of vanilla and two tablespoons of corn starch. I added the vanilla and measured out the corn starch. Then we used a blender to mix everything thoroughly. We had to squeeze one tablespoon of juice from half a lemon. We cut the lemon in half and squeezed the juice. Two tablespoons of lemon juice were enough. We took the cheesecake base out of the fridge and carefully poured the filling into the mold.

We spread the mixture evenly and smoothed the top. I baked the cheesecake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for 30 minutes. Then reduced the heat to 150 degrees and baked for another 30 minutes. I made sure to place a bowl of water in the bottom of the oven to prevent the cheesecake from cracking.

Everything seemed ready and the cheesecake baked beautifully. It turned out fantastic. My daughter was thrilled.

For dinner I cut up chicken breasts and marinated them with salt, pepper, garlic and sweet paprika. After letting them sit for a while, I prepared the chicken by dipping it in egg and coating it with bread crumbs. I cooked some bulgur to go with it.

That's all for today. Now it's time to say goodbye. Thanks for reading.