Cheesecake Throwdown

Our church issued a cheesecake throwdown. This is based on Bobby Flay's throwdowns that are seen on the food network channel. All it is, is a competition to see whose cheesecake is the best. As much as I love to bake cheesecake, I had no desire to compete. However, I thought Jordan might want to do it since one of his desires when he grows up is to be a chef. When I asked him he got all excited and of course said Yes. He wanted to make a cheesecake New York Style "His way". Sydney heard about it and said that she wanted to bake one as well. She wanted to bake a turtle cheesecake. As we continued to talk about it, I told them we'd have to bake them on Friday night since we were going to be gone all day Saturday. Jordan got quiet and then with a disappointed voice said, "We don't get to bake them in front of everybody at church?" On the throwdowns Jordan has seen, they've always done a demo of what they are cooking before everyone gets a taste. Needless to say, my chef was disappointed he wasn't going to show everyone his mad cooking skills :)

The kids both came up with exactly what they wanted for crust and flavor and then told me so I could get all the ingredients. On Friday night, Sydney was going to bake the first one right after school. She said before she could do anything she needed to diagram the cake.

Apparently she does have her daddy in her. I would never sit down and draw out exactly what I wanted to do first, but he would :) She decided she'd make a turtle cheesecake minus the pecans. She wanted it in a heart shape and she wanted to draw a dolphin on the top in the chocolate. She made a chocolate honey crust.

On top of the crust she put a homemade caramel, then a delicious cheesecake and topped it with ganache topping (yes she knows what that is and can make it :) ).

It turned out beautiful. The ONLY thing I got to help with was pouring the batter into the pan and putting it in the oven. She did all the rest. She even drew the dolphin on the top just like she wanted. She also drew on another heart.

Jordan decided he wanted to do a strawberry, lemon new york style cake.
He wanted to have a chocolate crust and he wanted the two flavors in two separate layers. He made the crust,

pureed the strawberries, strained the seeds out and added it to part of the cheesecake batter.

He would only allow me to put it in the oven because after he tried he realized it was too hot for him :). After about 20 minutes I went to add the second layer and I as I started to pour it, I realized I was doing it too soon and instead of it layering nicely it was breaking up and making the poor cheesecake look crazy.

In fact, after it was cooked it looked so bad that we ran to the store and got more supplies and Jordan remade his cheesecake.

Sunday we got to church and there were 11 cheesecakes in the competition. There was one other 10 year old.

All the rest were adults and ladies that have been cooking for years. The judges were a chef from a fine dinning restaurant in Minneapolis called the Sample Room and a church member who loves cheesecake. They tasted all the cheesecakes and then had all the contestants go up front and they announced the winners. My kids didn't win, but afterwards I looked at their scores and it looked like Sydney got 4th and Jordan 6th. I thought that was pretty great for a 7 year old and 9 year old. I was really proud of them. They worked hard and did a great job! After we got home from church about an hour later, we got a call from the lady that had run the throwdown. She said that after everything was said and done the chef said that he was surprised the turtle wasn't one of the winners since it was his favorite. They weren't sure what happened with the judging, but she thought Sydney's actually won FIRST! (she called back later and said it was either first or second she didn't know....Sydney decided she'd just think it was first since that's what she said when she first called) She said Jordan's wasn't too far behind hers (maybe 4th). My little 7 year old probably won the cheesecake competition. Jordan was so upset, he had a huge meltdown. Sydney being the darling she is, didn't talk about it or rub it in at all (even though she was extremely excited) because she didn't want him to feel bad. She even tried some of his and said if she was a judge she would've made him 2nd place :). Jordan and I talked about it and he finally calmed down and realized he did a good job even if a GIRL who was YOUNGER than him beat him :). Needless to say, I was a very proud momma! Since they had announced a different winner at church, they didn't want to say anything and make them feel bad so we just celebrated ourselves. It was all for the fun of it anyway. Way to go kiddos :)