This episode was one of our easiest recipes we’ve filmed for Bits & Pieces, and yet it took me the most time to prepare. Since this was our last episode for season 1, I was extra picky about it… yeah even more than usual.
Right off the bat, I had in mind to make a dessert. I really wanted to make something with Nutella, and after searching online, I became intrigued with the idea of a no bake Nutella cheesecake. In my gut, I knew this was it. But of course I decided to ignore myself!
I could’ve saved myself a lot of trips to the grocery store, effort, and wasted ingredients if I had just listened to my gut. But instead, I decided to make brownies. They could’ve been good. There was peanut butter and BACON involved. The taste was pretty interesting, but the texture, balance, and look wasn’t perfect. So that got scrapped.
Then I moved onto the idea of a no fuss chocolate cake. I saw a recipe that allows you to mix and bake a cake all in one pan. So I tried that too, and as convenient and easy as it was, I wasn’t satisfied with the flavor. UGH!
So after a string of failures, you guessed it…I finally went back to my original idea! I never learn.
That’s how I ended up making individual No Bake Nutella Cheesecakes with Strawberries. It was a great decision, but the process getting to this point was a nightmare. You can hear more about it as well as our thoughts on Season 1 in our Behind the Scenes VIDEO:
You would think after all the recipe testing and indecisiveness the craziness would be done. Wrong. It quickly became about what vessels I wanted to use to hold my cheesecakes. Somewhere along the line, I had it in my mind that I really wanted to put them in jars. This time, I listened to my small little voice and went on a hunt for jars.
That led me to Home Goods, Target, and the Dollar Store multiple times in just one week. I finally ended up finding and purchasing jars I liked, only to be disappointed with the way the cheesecakes looked inside them. They were too tall and too wide. The cheesecakes got lost in them and I had to pipe in a ton of filling to make them look normal.
But at this point, I was tired of spending money and wasting time looking for things, so I decided to just stick with what I had. That’s when I spotted these 8 ounce wide mouth jars, which were actually perfect! They ended up being so photogenic and a great portion size for one serving. But I battled with myself to buy them because I had already purchased those other jars. So I left the store without them.
When I got back home, I told Joe all about them and I knew he would be like, “no don’t waste money on more jars.” But instead, he saw how stressed out I was over this whole thing and he was like “Go! Go back and get them… go now!” Haha. So back to the store I went, and I’m happy I did.
I can’t imagine them in anything else now. For something so simple, it sure did stir up a fuss. I’m usually not so particular about things like this, but we wanted to end Season 1 on a high note. So let’s raise a spoon to the end of this season. It started out with a Kickstarter project and 20 tasty episodes. And now we’re excited to see what’s next.
