Nothing but a Thing
Go back to bed (cold, rainy weather is no excuse for sleeping in). I have to bake a cheesecake for work. Nothing but a thing! Today is our safety meeting and I’m in charge of desert. In light of that I guess it’s going to be “rise-n-shine”! Of course, I drank my coffee and ate Raisin Bran before getting fired up.
My beautiful husband text me to make sure I was up at 10:00 am, then called me at noon for his lunch. He has called during his lunch hour for the last 25 years. He reassured me that my cheesecake was going to turn out good “as they always do”.
Surprise
After hanging up with hubby I got the graham crackers out. The phone rang, with a different ring tone this time, one I haven’t heard in a while. Mom! I was just thinking about her when I woke up today. We chatted for over half an hour about all kinds of things. What a great day it’s going to be!
1:00 pm
On to my cheesecake. Per usual I found two recipes I liked and decided to tweak them to work together! My end result was to be a “salted caramel toffee cheesecake”. (Recipes for Caramel Cheesecake; Toffee Caramel Cheesecake)
First the crust: graham crackers, brown sugar and “2 sticks of butter” (?) Check. It also called for broken up Heath bar bits, but my hubby doesn’t like the crunch. Leave them out.
After pressing the crust into the springform pan, I put 1 1/4 cup of chocolate chips on the bottom and baked for 5 minutes; so, the chips smooth out on the bottom crust. Check! Good thing it’s cold outside, I can let the crust cool out on the picnic table and speed up the process. Whip up the cheesecake filling, pour into my cooled crust and throw it in the oven for 1 hour 20 minutes
Recipe calls for cool whip and I don’t buy cool whip anymore, it’s too easy to make and better for you! It can’t be any cool whip either, it has to be a kind that will last several days. That kind involves heating sugar, cornstarch and whipping cream on the stove to a boil. Check!
Making the caramel sauce. Never done that before, but no problem! It called for butter, brown sugar and caramel coffee flavoring in a pan; boil until sugar dissolved – about a minute. Five minutes later it’s still grainy. What the… when is soft ball stage?
I went ahead with the next step of adding the whipped cream to the sauce mixture (even though it was less than perfect). The sauce smelled so good, had great color, but it’s thick and grainy. Darn it! Re-read the directions to find that her completed cheesecake ended upside down on the floor! This isn’t looking to good.
3:00
The cheesecake was supposed to be done at 2:30 but it wasn’t. I had to keep baking it at 10-minute intervals until 4:00! Did I have it in a wrong sized pan? The recipe didn’t specify but the picture looked like I had the right size! The recipe stated to “let it cool in the oven for 30 minutes”.
Took my shower in one of those 10-minute intervals, got dressed in another 10 minutes, just to realize it would be necessary to call in late. I have to be at work at 4:00 pm. Called in an hour late and at 4:30 pm that cake is coming out, done or not!
I had tinfoil on the rack from a previous bake that didn’t need it. Thank God! The cheesecake leaked a bunch of butter onto it! The cheesecake jiggles and I’m afraid it’s not done! It still cracked around the edges! What the heck did I just give an extra 1/2 hour for?! Now I can’t put it in the cake carrier – it’s too hot!
I fought that cake sliding all over the place in the car all the way to town, 20 minutes! My sauce is hard enough to hold a knife straight up! The only thing that turned out was the whipped cream….
“It’s nothing but a thing!”
That’s what my husband says when all is falling apart: “It’s nothing but a thing”. However, for me that’s when the rest of my day goes south! Today was no exception. I dumped the burning paper bag upside down on the floor and had to pick all that up, “nothing but a thing”. I put the cheesecake on the floor of the car to stable it. The first corner I took it flew off the carrier bottom onto the car floor mat, “It’s nothing but a thing”.
Put the cheesecake on the passenger seat with my wallet underneath to steady it. With my hand on it to prevent another spill, crumbs all over the leather seats, “It’s nothing but a thing!”
At least I didn’t have any slow-moving traffic or reasons for “road rage“! I got to work at 5:00 pm. Indeed, it was nothing but a thing. I am learning that it isn’t those types of things that matter in life! It’s our reaction to them that define us. Sucks that it took 50 years to realize, but hey! I realized it! And just in time for retirement!
