Cheesy cakes

It was my brother's birthday recently and his wife threw a party for him tonight and asked my mom to make the birthday cake. Well with 18 people on the guest list, my mother felt one cake wasn't going to be enough so called and asked if I'd make a second one. Sure, I said.

But cakes are not my forte. Not to mention, we don't really have a decent cake tin in the house to bake one in. But I do have a springform pan, that I essentially bought to make one of my favourites:  chipotle chocolate chili cake. But apparently said pans are also good for cheesecake. I've never made one but thought now might be the time.

Luckily our cat Bean was diligent in waking us up this morning because for reasons unknown, there was actually sleeping in (a change from the usual wake-up-at-dawn-whether-you-want-to-or-not situation that generally occurs on the weekends.). As this whole proceeding would take a bit of time, Bean's insistence on our waking up was actually quite helpful as I had a noon curling game.

I used the classic cheesecake recipe from Canadian Living. Not too many complicated ingredients but really, no shortage of dairy items. So I put it all together, nestled it in its bain marie to cook and shuffled off to curling. J was good enough to finish watching it and take it out the oven. And when I returned, I chopped up some strawberries and mixed in a little sugar and white balsamic vinegar for some maceration action and headed out to the birthday party.

My niece Nikki says it's the best cheesecake she'd ever had in her life. 'Nuff said. A good day!