Chocolate Chip cookie dough cheesecake bars

Whoa that was a mouth full to say!  I have been addicted to soo many blogs lately including The Girl Who Ate Everything.  Somehow, I stumbled on a previous post of a recipe for two of my favourite things: cookies and cheese cake.  How could I not try this recipe????

my first attempt!

I take no credit for this amazing dessert, in fact if you'd like to see her post you can click here.
The recipe itself comes from The Essential Chocolate Chip Cookbook.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake Bars

Crust
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
5 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2/3 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325°. Butter a 9″-square baking pan (not quite sure why since you are lining it with paper but I did anyway).  Line pan with parchment paper, leaving enough to extend over the sides. Butter the parchment paper. Combine graham cracker crumbs and butter until crumbs are moistened. Make sure you mix it well so that the crust isn't too crumbly. Stir in chocolate chips.

Press crust mixture into bottom of pan and 1 inch up sides. Bake for 6 minutes. Set pan on wire rack to cool.

Cookie Dough 
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
3 Tablespoons granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Using an electric mixer , mix butter, brown sugar, sugar, salt, and vanilla extract at medium speed until smooth. Decrease mixer speed to low and add flour (gradually add the flour as I only added a little more than a half cup). Mix just until incorporated. Stir in chocolate chips. Set aside.

Filling
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
10 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature

Using an electric mixer, beat cream cheese and sugar just until smooth. Add egg and vanilla extract, beating just until blended. Pour batter into baked crust. Drop cookie dough by teaspoonfuls over the top of the filling. It will seem like a lot of cookie dough but you want some in every piece. Bake about 30 minutes at 325 degrees, or until set. Transfer to wire rack.

For chocolate topping, melt 1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips in a double boiler or in the microwave.  Add about 1/2 tablespoon of butter if necessary to make chocolate smooth. Drizzle over top of bars.

Cool bars in pan completely, about an hour.

Using the edges of the parchment paper, remove bars from pan. Cut into bars, keep cool in the refrigerator and serve.

 looks soo yummy!!!  Unfortunately too late to try it tonight! :(

I can't wait to bring it to school tomorrow to test out!!!

Scrapfest in spirit...

This weekend is the annual Scrapfest in Kitchener Ontario and I have been for the last 2 years and have had a ball! This year I was a bit all over the place as I've just purchased my first house (yay!) and I was contemplating going on a conference with my mom to Washington this weekend so needless to say I waited too long to get into the festival.  What I love about it, is that you bring everything you can think of with you and you spend 2 full days making pages, cards etc.  There are soo many people around you to get ideas from and of course we all love contests!!!

Moving along, since I am home alone and bored of packing (I move in 2 weeks!!!), I decided to make a card which then turned into 3 cards!  I was excited to use my new paper pack from My Minds Eye called Magnolia.  It has some really nice bright coloured papers to use and match together!

I always think its interesting when other sites post a side view and I can only guess that it is to see the different dimensions, so I tried it this time to have fun with my camera because my photos aren't always the best to show off my cards (I blame it on the fact that I packed my nice camera soo early that it has been stored in the basement under boxes for about 3 months now!

Anyway enough of me rambling on, here are my cards for the day:

All three cards were made with:
My Minds Eye paper pack 'Magnolia'
Brown ribbon from Michaels
Brads and flowers were from Dollarama
Eyelets are Making Memories
The thinking of you stamp is Inkadoo
the two other stamps are from the dollar fifty bin at Michaels

Hope you enjoy them!

I almost think this card needs something more but am unsure what yet.  Any ideas would greatly be appreciated!

I made this card with mothers day in mind for the My pink stamper blog hop.  I don't have any of you stamps as of yet so sorry Robyn!  I chose gratitude because thats essentially what mothers day is all about, thanking your mother for all that she has done for you!

Happy Easter!

Easter time equals some time off to spend with the family and craft! Today I spent a bit of time making 2 cards with my latest DCWV paper pack (Lilac).  I like this pack as it is versatile and you can easily make mens cards with them (we all know how hard it is not to girlie up mens cards)!

 For this card, I punched out squares (I think 1 inch) from various pages from the pack and aligned them as you see on the card.  I have seen soo many youtube videos about the ATG gun so I bought one recently and tried it for the very first time!  The ribbon was from Michaels and I just glued it onto the card.  The stamp saying "thoughts of you" was in the $1.50 stamp pile by the check out at Michaels.  I really like the way it tuned out!

This hello card was using the same paper pack but the squares were punched out at 2 inches each and glued onto the card.  I had some leftover pieces from the previous card so I used it as a strip above the squares.  With beige cardstock, I stamped the line stamp which I got at Michaels (can you tell where I shop?) but I had a hard time getting the middle to ink up or stamp down no matter how hard I pressed.  I decided to stamp a purple Hello onto my card (1.50 stamp bin at Michaels) and used pop dots to make it dimensional.  The Hello looked sort of plain, so I added some embossing powder from Zing (metallic purple).  I love Zing powders as they are amazing to work with and always give great results!

Hope you enjoyed seeing my cards and please feel free to leave a comment!