cheesy as pie

you're not looking at a planet's surface as viewed from outer space. it's my first attempt at baking a chocolate swirl cheesecake, fresh out of the oven.

the recipe originally calls for "philadelphia chocolate-vanilla swirl cheesecake", as beautifully pictured on the holiday issue of kraft food and family magazine. it got its name because the cheese that makes it a cheesecake has to be philadelphia cream cheese, which i didn't use.

i decided to do a "trial size" of this indulgent-looking, diabetes-inducing dessert just to try my hand at baking. the recipe seemed simple enough, if you follow it to the dot...but my measurements were reduced since i didn't have all the ingredients required. i didn't have vanilla in stock, therefore it's merely a chocolate swirl cheesecake. i can't add "philadelphia" to the name, either, since i only used a store brand of cream cheese...and not enough of it either.

this is really what it's supposed to look like, if you used 20 oreo cookies (i used about 12--they're crushed and used as the bottom layer of the cake), 4 packages of philadelphia cream cheese (i used only 1), 1 teaspoon of vanilla (i used none), 4 eggs (i used 2), and 1 cup of knudsen sour cream (err, none either):



as you can see, i did attempt some marbling effect like the instructions suggested, but since my measurements were off, my swirls were not as striking. oh well, back to the mixing bowl!

my cheesecake is now sitting in the fridge to be cooled. as for the taste? let's cross our fingers....haha!

hey, you too can sign up to receive FREE issues of kraft food and family in your mailbox every season. just go to http://kraftfoods.com/share, and be inspired to weave magic in the kitchen. or if you live outside the US, then you can have the recipes emailed to you instead.