Chocolate Caramel Cheesecake

Yes--OK, another cheesecake. But you know what? They're so quick to make! So when my husband came home and said, "It's Jim's birthday at work and I'd like to make him a cake--what do you suggest?"--I suggested cheesecake because I had just made one.

And, reader--this is where I suddenly understood (while he and I were in the process of making this cheesecake together) what it means to have years of experience tucked under your belt.

There are things you get to understand about making cheesecake that come from experience (well, bad experience, if you get my drift). If you don't scrape down the bowl after you add each egg, you will wind up with little clumps of cream cheese in the final product. If you're too enthusiastic with the beaters, you'll whip air into the mix and get tunnels. If you don't run a knife around the edge of the cake when it comes out of the oven, the sides of the cake will stick to the springform and the middle will crack.

Anything that can possibly go wrong with a cheesecake, I've done it. So it was easy for me to stand in a little corner by the stove making the caramel (yes, another recipe with caramel) and facilitate Don's cheesecake production so that it was smooth and quick.

(I'd just also like to add a side-note that by the time I'm done with this book I will be an expert on making caramel. Already it's practically second nature.)

The Chocolate Caramel Cheesecake was a huge success. The gals at work got a good laugh because when one of them (in all innocence) asked what bakery my husband had gotten the cheesecake at, he got very indignant. Ah, they said--now they knew how to get him riled.

And he, good man, fought them off to save me a little teeny slice so I could taste it. Reader, it's delicious.

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Wall Street Journal readers, welcome!! I hope you'll visit often, or better yet--buy this marvelous cookbook and cook along with Kevin, Teena and me.