Cheesecake Slices

Cheesecake Slices

3/4 cup butter, softened
3 oz package cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp finely shredded lemon peel
2 Tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp finely shredded orange peel
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup finely chopped pecans
1/4 cup finely crushed graham crackers

1. In a large mixing bowl beat butter and cream cheese with an electric mixer on medium to high spped for 30 seconds. Add sugar, lemon peel, lemon juice, orange peel, and vanilla. Beat until combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Stir in any remaining flour. If necessary, cover and chill 30 minutes or until easy to handle.
2. Shape each half of dough into an 8-inch-long log. In a small bowl stir together pecans and crushed crackers; transfer to waxed paper. Roll logs in nut mixture to coat. If necessary, press mixture lightly into dough. Wrap in plastic wrap or waxed paper. Chill for 2 hours or until firm.
3. Preheat oven to 375F. Using a serrated knife, cut logs into 1/4-inch slices. Place slices 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until bottoms are lightly brown. Let stand for 1 minute on cookie sheet. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool.

Makes about 64 cookies.

I tried another new recipe for this week's cookies. Like last week, this recipe comes out of the Better Homes and Gardens' The Ultimate Cookie Book. I love cheesecake so I was pretty excited to try to cheesecake in cookie form.

The ingredients:


The butter and cream cheese after they had been beaten together.



I love any time I get to use one of my kitchen gadgets. With the lemon in this recipe, I got to use two, my juicer and my zester.

The finished dough smelled pretty strongly of cream cheese and citrus. It was soft so I had to refrigerate it for a while so I could form it into logs.

I also got to use another one of my kitchen appliances. I never remember to get this out when I have a job like this so I was proud of myself. It worked really well at chopping the pecans and saved me some time and quite a bit of effort.

Here is a prepared log just before I wrapped it and put it in the freezer. I had cut time a little short again and decided to cut a corner by freezing the logs instead of putting them in the refrigerator. It seemed to work well because the logs were very easy to work with when cutting.

Here are the cut cookies just before going into the oven. I seem to be getting better at judging 1/4 inch. This time around I was only 6 cookies short of what the recipe touted (instead of nearly 2 dozen like last week).

The final product: these cookies are small and crisp. The cheesecake flavor is subtle in the finished product, much more subtle than even in dough, with a hint of citrus. They will go nicely with coffee as they are not too sweet or too big.