Lemon Cheesecake Creme Brulee Bars

Epic Failure.

Yes, I saw these on pinterest, and they looked amazing! And I've made something similar before and they were FABULOUS so I was excited for these!

Let me just say, if you do not have a blow torch. Forget it. The recipe said you can use your oven's broiler, so I did. No. Just no. As you can see from the pictures, that did nothing but burn the edges, leaving gritty sugar in the center, and melted cheesecake around the edges. We did just get a new oven, so maybe the broiler just sucks or I didn't use it right.

The sweet lemony flavor was good but I already ruined the tops to a gritty, gooey mess. I went out to HEB looking for a blow torch, trying to salvage these. Couldn't find one. Went to Walmart and looked everywhere. No blow torch. It was a sad day for baking.

Blackberry Lemon Pie

I wanted to make Yusif and Naven this pie but fresh raspberries are a bit pricey at the moment so I went with blackberries instead. 

Which is good because I like to vary recipes if I'm going to make them again just to try something new. Also, I didn't use the pecans in the crust.

To further switch things up, I decided to try a different lemon filling recipe. I made Ina Garten's lemon curd and it came out perfectly. I loved the tart lemon flavor and it was thick and creamy. 

I have to laugh because Maryam heard me muttering about my ingredients. I said something like, "okay, it makes 3 cups of curd." And then she told me, "hey, you should have named your blog that! 3 cups of Kurd!" And then I was like, "no! 1/2 cup of Kurd!"

I previously made this pie with a prepackaged dough. It was good, but I wanted to make my own crust this time so I used this recipe which I have made before. It's normally a good recipe except today I used butter flavored shortening. Mistake. It tastes good in my cobbler dough but it didn't pair well with this pie. So just use regular shortening. 

 Another thing that was a bit off-putting.... I remember the cream cheese whipped cream to be HEAVENLY last time. But when I made it today, it wasn't nearly as good! All I could taste was cool whip and I hate that flavor! I have no idea what happened but I bet whipping your own cream would give a better result!