Happy Birthday To Youngest Hawthorne! Here's Your Cake.

Now, I'm going to let you have my cheesecake recipe which everybody loves.

Here are the fixin's for my crust: 1 1/4 cups crushed gingersnaps 1 1/4 cups crushed graham crackers 1/4 cup brown sugar 1 stick butter, melted

Mix all together.

And press into a buttered 9-inch spring form pan, bottom and sides. Chill in freezer while preparing filling.

Here are the ingredients for the cheesecake: 4 8-oz packages cream cheese, softened 4 large eggs, beaten 1 cup sugar 1 tsp vanilla 1 TB cornstarch 1 cup sour cream

Beat softened cream cheese, slowly adding sugar, until mixture is smooth and light.

Beat in eggs, vanilla, and cornstarch. Stir in sour cream.

Then, I decided to add in the juice of 2 lemons.

Pour into the prepared pan.

Bake in a preheated 450 degree oven for 10 minutes, then reduce temperature to 200 degrees and bake for 45 more minutes. Turn off oven and allow to cool with door ajar for 3 hours. Remove sides of pan and embellish a bit.

First I melted some Ghirardelli Semi Sweet Chocolate chips and painted about 2 dozen leaves. Set on wax paper and refrigerate to harden.

We had some cherries, so I put Mr. Hawthorne to task pitting the cherries.

Added some sugar.

And heated for about 20 minutes or so until it cooked down a bit.

Chill cherry mixture, then pour on top of cheesecake.

Pretty cheesecake.

Next, I'm going to make some spun sugar to decorate the cake with. 1/3 cup water 1 cup sugar

Mix sugar and water in saucepan.

Cook over medium heat. Do not stir. Swirl.

Swirl until mixture is clear.

Keep cooking and swirling until mixture turns a nice caramel color.

Set for a few seconds in a bowl of ice water to stop cooking. Then dip fork into caramel and start drizzling.

Keep on drizzling.

Now, we're starting to get somewhere.

Ooh. Oooh. Pretty. As the caramel cools, you can actually pull it off with your fingers and twist however you want to.

Finally, peel the chocolate off the leaves and arrange around cake.

Happy Birthday to Youngest Hawthorne!

Blow out the candles.

Cheesecake and homemade ice cream. Doesn't get much better than this.

Cake carcass.