Almond Joy Cheesecake and Martha Stewart Cookies

I decided about a month ago to make my first cheesecake. I thought that having an almond joy cheesecake would taste quite yummy and found few recipes to kind of merge together.

First, the crust was made with chocolate graham crackers and ground toasted almonds. The filling was made with toasted coconut and coconut extract (as I could not find cream of coconut). And if that wasn't sinful enough, I put a layer of chocolate ganoche with toasted almonds on top. I have to say, besides the fact that it took a little extra time to cook, it was delicious!

My family really loved it and my mother took the following picture for me. The next cheesecake I want to try is a dutch apple pie cheesecake.



Last weekend, I really wanted to make chocolate chip cookies and decided to find another recipe besides tollhouse. I found Martha Stewarts "Soft and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies" online and decided that Martha has only lead me down the right path for cupcakes, so her cookies have to be good! This recipe is probably the best chocolate chip cookie recipe EVER! The cookies stayed soft and chewy for a week (which is as long as they lasted in our household). Tollhouse cookies seems to get pretty hard after a day or so. I tend to have trouble with my tollhouse cookies and they usually end up hard (though still tasty). These, of course, were easy to make and baked in about 10 minutes. Mine were puffy looking, but I think that's why they stay soft. I highly recommend the linked recipe =)

http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/soft-and-chewy-chocolate-chip-cookies