Sweet Home Saturday - Blackberry Jamble

Every single time I make something from The Pioneer Woman it turns out fantastic. Sure, there's usually a ton of butter in the recipe, but after all, she is cooking for real cowboys. I think her story is just darling - leaving the city and moving to the middle of nowhere (to a working cattle ranch!) for love... it's like a real-life movie! Her book Black Heels to Tractor Wheelschronicles this journey - it's actually a compilation of blog posts so it's a bit repetitive at parts, but being a big fan of hers I (of course) totally enjoyed it still. 

I love her can-do attitude toward everything - despite living almost an hour away from town - and from a grocery store! I kept likening myself to her before we moved to Huntsville, thinking it would be the same kind of "roughing it" here... it's not. We can walk to the grocery store. Not to mention, we are a ten-minute drive from picking up a pair of $400 shoes. Not that I've ever purchased a pair of $400 shoes, but it goes to show we don't in fact live in the middle of nowhere. And as soon as I can figure out how to hide buying a pair of $400 shoes from husby, I'll put those stores to good use, ha!

Back to The Pioneer Woman. Her website is the first place I go to for inspiration for recipes (if I'm not already perusing Pinterest). We have tons of blackberries and blueberries this week from our Fruit Lovers addition to our CSA basket, so I wanted a dessert that used them. As soon as I saw her post on Blackberry Cheesecake Squares, I knew I had to make them. Randomly, we had all the ingredients. But here's the catch: we only had small amounts of some things. I had half a sleeve of graham crackers, an already-opened cream cheese block... I realized I could make a quarter recipe. So that's what I decided to do! Husby always points out we have tons of leftovers when I bake, so I thought halfing the recipe and then halfing it again would give us the perfect size for our little family.

I started with making a graham cracker and pecan crust in the food processor (with, of course, butter, and also a little vanilla), and pressed it into a 6x6 pan. Next up was whipping the cheesecake batter in the stand mixer, and pouring it on top of the crust. 

I had never baked a from-sratch cheesecake before, but I followed the step-by-step directions and tips and it turned out perfectly!

While the cheesecake baked, I followed the recipe for the berry topping by boiling a mix of blueberries and blackberries on the stove with sugar and water, adding a bit of cornstarch at the end. Once everything was cooled, the berry mix went right on top of the cheesecake. Almost too gorgeous to eat, no? 

Y'all, this cheesecake is twelve kinds of delicious. I will also tell you that quartering the recipe gave me a decent sized cheesecake - like, we will be eating cheesecake for days. Which is totally okay with me!

Happy Sweet Home Saturday!