Turtle Cheesecake- Making Something From What Is Not

As I was experimenting with making my sons Turtle Cheesecake, for his birthday last week I had to do some tweaking.

Now it cannot just be my family but cooking or baking for us all can be a little challenging!

One is allergic to this and another to that…. Oh my goodness it can get tricky. Now the Turtle Cheesecake recipe has been around in our family for over 20 years, ever since my sister in law Janice made it up! We are grateful she did!

But I have not tried it gluten free and corn free (like corn syrup etc). So I had to experiment and make something yummy and edible out of things that were not meant for this! It also meant making it all from scratch so I could monitor the ingredients. Just a little challenge.

As I was pouring the chocolate cookie mixture made out of gluten free crumbs, mixed with cocoa powder and a bit of melted butter, I thought to myself: none of this except the butter is in the original recipe. I am making something out of that which is not.

The next layer is of course the yummy caramel layer. We used to unwrap those square caramels and melt them in condensed milk. Now I NEVER said this was diet friendly recipe.

So I made my own condensed milk, and was going to make my caramel from that. There are a few ways to do this. Actually I did not end up doing this, I cheated, I used the dulche sweetened condensed milk because I had to make 2 trips to town to complete the recipe and I was done. I had never seen it on the shelf before so I grabbed it and had to try.

Add on a good and generous amount of pecans, so yummy.

Yes the recipes are listed below, you are welcome.

The next layer consists of cream cheese, chocolate sauce, the recipe calls for Herseys in a can BUT it’s me that cannot do the corn syrup so I make my own. From a chocolate cookbook! So easy, sugar, cocoa powder, water, vanilla. Done!

Mix the cream cheese, a bit of unwhipped cream, chocolate sauce and wha la! The cream cheese layer.

I was thinking because I have met a good number of folks, who do not know how to cook from scratch or make and experiment with food. I find that most curious but if you never learned that cooking is simply chemistry with food, I guess you would not know. Everything packaged and prepared at the store can be made at home from scratch and it tastes better too.

The final layer on the top is whipped cream. No need to sweeten it, just whip it up and put it on. Cake is done. Except if you like to give it that “gourmet “ look of finished. You can sprinkle extra chocolate cookie crumbs over the top or grate some chocolate and sprinkle it over top.

The finished product looks amazing (at the top) and tastes even better! I marvel at the analogy between cooking/baking and God. We look at our recipe and think I don’t have this or this, how can I make it work? So we do not even try. The comparison is that we plan our life out, make our list, then realize we do not have all the resources to make it work. Maybe our job is not what we dreamed of, ormaybe it is our spouse or lack of, we cannot seem to have children or maybe we have too many. Life is like a recipe that is just not complete. We try to figure it out on our own, we get frustrated and angry when it does not work the way we think.

But God has the full recipe complete with substitutions to make it work. The trick is to include Him in our planning. Because He is the only one who can make something out of nothing, and He specializes in it.

Recipe and/or substitutions for Turtle Cheesecake:

Crust:

2 cups chocolate cookie crumbs

1/3 cup melted butter

Mix together and press into buttered 9 x 13” pan. Cook at 350 for 10 minutes. Cool before adding caramel layer.

Gluten free Crust:

Kinnickinik GF crumbs or their animal cookies crushed in blender. Add 1/3 cup cocoa powder and the 1/3 cup melted butter. Cook at 350 for 10 minutes. Cool

Caramel layer:

20 Kraft caramels unwrapped

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1/4 cup butter

Melt caramels in milk and butter in a heavy saucepan, stir continuously as they melt. Pour on top of cooled crumb crust.

Homemade sweetened condensed milk for Caramel layer:

1 cup sugar

1 cup skim milk powder

2 tbsp melted butter

1/3 plus 2 tsp of boiling water

Place all into a blender and mix. Use right away or store in fridge. Makes equivalent to one can.

Homemade Caramel Options:

1) buy dulche sweetened condensed milk and use as is, is not quite thick as other caramels

2) Take labels off of a can of sweetened condensed milk and put into a pot of water on the stove, boil for 2-3 hours keeping cans under the water. Turns into caramel.

3) Oven: pour sweetened condensed milk into oven proof container, cover with foil. Put into a cooking tray filled with 1/2” of water. Bake at 425 for 60-80 minutes. It will get a crystallized crust on top, when cool enough to handle use an immersion blender to mix together.

Pecan Layer: while caramel is soft, put a good layer of chopped pecans on top.

Cream Cheese Layer:

2 packs Cream cheese softened

1/4 cup whip cream (unwhipped)

1/2 cup chocolate sauce - any brand or homemade

whip all together and spread over chilled caramel/pecan layer. Chill.

Homemade chocolate sauce: excellent to use in any recipe or directly over ice cream (can be doubled)

1 1/4 cup sugar

1 cup water

3/4 cup cocoa powder

1 tsp vanilla

With a whisk mix cocoa powder and sugar together. Add water and whisk some more until the powder is mixed into the liquid, bring to a boil. Boil for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Take off heat, add vanilla. Cool.

Whipped Cream Layer:

1 cup unwhipped whip cream - you can add 1 tbsp sugar but do not really need it

Beat until thick and creamy and spread over cream cheese layer.

Garnish as desired. Keep in fridge until ready to serve.

Enjoy.