The cheesecake disaster

Tonight I am hosting Bunco. Which means I have tons to do. The problem is, I have tons to do at home and I am currently waiting on 25 students to take an exam. At least I don't have to grade them.

So - seeing that Valentine's Day is in 2 days, our theme for Bunco this month is Valentine's. I wanted to have a great dessert for this (well - let's be honest, I want all the food to be great but only the dessert fits into the theme). Anyone that knows me very well knows that I am the queen of holiday bakeware. For Valentine's I have a heart tartlet pan as well as a heart-shaped mini cheesecake pan both of which I got from Williams-Sonoma (as previously stated, one of my most favorite stores).

I have used both in the past and while they are super cute, they make cooking a bit tedious. But of course - I must try to awe everyone when they show up tonight so I decided to whip up some cheesecake and make some in the tartlet pan and some in the mini cheesecake pan. If you have made tartlets before, you know that the pan itself is fluted, so instead of a graham cracker crust you need to make a pastry shell that lines each heart-shaped cavity of the pan (that means I needed at least 12 pastry shells since the pan cooks 12 at a time).

It has been a few years since I have used this pan and forgot how much I hate it. Not the pan itself, which I love and think is beautiful - I just hate using the pan. The pastry is so difficult to roll out in order to fit into the little hearts. And to make matters worse, I was a bit further behind schedule last night because the girl I tutor once in a blue moon wanted me to tutor her either Monday or Tuesday (since Bunco is Tuesday, that was completely out of the question). So I finally get the tartlet pan in the oven around 10 last night and I am thinking - I think I can still go to bed in 2 hours.

Wishful thinking on my part.


As the little cheesecakes in the tartlet pan are cooking, I am making graham cracker crust for mini cheesecake pan (heartshaped, of course) and getting those all ready to go in the oven. At 10:30, the cheesecake tartlets come out and the other mini cheesecakes go in. At 10:45 I realize I have a serious problem. The pastry shells are not coming out of the pan. I did not have this problem last time I made these. By 11pm, I have gotten all the tartlets out of the pan. Some are heaps of warm gooey cheesecake mess. Some are just extremely lop-sided because they have only half of their shell (since the other half is still in the pan). Out of the 12 - only two came out well.

Uh-oh.

I only have enough cheesecake stuff to make maybe 6 more mini cheesecakes. With 16 ladies (counting me) to be at Bunco, how can I tell everyone - "I'm sorry you can only have one little tiny heart cheesecake. I know it is only a couple bites, I'm sorry."

So at 11pm I was in my car, headed to the store. I needed to get more cream cheese so that I could mix up more cheesecake stuff and get this finished. When all was said and done. I got to bed by 2am, and then I woke up at 6. Urgh!

At least my little cheesecakes look beautiful and I have 32 of them. If I have time before Bunco starts, I will take a picture of them to post.

I have estimated that if I had never tried to use the tartlet pan last night, and only used the mini cheesecake pan instead, I would have been in bed no later than 11.

Lesson learned.