I had a few days off from work this week. I didn’t go anywhere, I was able to take some time for myself. While I didn’t get everything done that I wanted (mainly due to my own laziness and poor planning skills…and the fact that I took a nap one afternoon), I did spend the majority of Tuesday in the kitchen making something tasty.

I also took the time to try and take some halfway decent photos of what I made, which you can see in this post! I am really working on upping my photography game.

So what did I make?

It appears that I am on a Magnolia Bakery kick lately. I’m not sure if it’s because of an article about their vanilla cupcakes is making the rounds online or I’m still just infatuated by the cookbook itself. Whatever the reason, I decided to tackle a recipe from the Icebox Desserts chapter this week.

This recipe had me interested as soon as my eyes laid on the recipe photo. The fact that blueberries were on sale this week at my local grocery store made it seem like it was destined to be made. This recipe calls for about two and a half pints of blueberries, so definitely make this when you can take advantage of a blueberry sale or picking your own.

When I began this recipe, I was really gun-ho for it. First, I made the blueberry mixture (not really a mixture, but not sure what else to call it). It’s like making your own canned blueberry pie filling. The recipe didn’t call for any water in the pot. Just the blueberries and sugars. I found this odd and was concerned it wouldn’t work so I added a half cup of water and that seemed to do the trick just fine. Maybe that’s not how they do it at Magnolia Bakery, but the results were still fine, in my opinion.

While that was cooling in the fridge, I made the crust and ran into some other issues. I made the dough as instructed, but found that I didn’t have enough to cover my pie plate. So, I whipped up some more butter and flour mixture for the bottom of the shell. I baked it and let it cool.

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Finally, it was time to make the cream cheese base. This cream cheese base is similar to the peanut butter bars I made a few months ago. When I ate them, I noticed that, for me, the cream cheese flavor cut through a little too much. To remedy this, I decided to sweeten the whipped cream slightly. Folding in the sweetened whipped cream into the cream cheese-powdered sugar mixture did the trick! I was not overly sweet, but the cream cheese taste was mellowed slightly — just enough.

I then assembled the pie. The shell was filled with the cream cheese layer, then topped with the blueberry filling mixture. I allowed it to chill in the fridge for about 6 hours before cutting it, but it really should have been left over night. The first slice the day of was great, but letting it set over night allowed the cream cheese filling to really firm up and make the overall texture much better.

I decided to garnish with some lemon slices. I added some lemon zest and juice, but it didn’t really add to the flavor. Next time, I’ll use more.

Needless to say, the dessert didn’t last long! Though I had to make some modifications, this was still a successful dessert. I think I will further modify it, including adding more lemon flavor to really drive that flavor home. It will also allow me to really make this dessert my own.