Baking spree/fun with Bailey's Irish Cream

I don't know what it is, but when it pushes 90F outside, I decide to start firing up the oven and baking. It's probably just coincidence. Besides the angel food cake problem, there's been a great 'need' for baked things around here. I'd had the craving for musakhan for weeks. I got it in my head to bake rhubarb walnut muffins for a neighborhood association meeting. And a coworker returned from Ireland with tales of gorgeous scenery, a few tantalizing early pics, and stories of the most heavenly Bailey's cheesecake she was served after one dinner. She'd gone searching on line and found a number of recipes at Fantasy Ireland.

Here's the recipe she had marked as hopeful, and the one I tried:

Ultimate Bailey's Cheesecake

1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
2 cups crushed graham cracker crumbs
2 cups granulated sugar, divided
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
2 1/4 pounds (36 ounces) cream cheese, softened
5 large eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup Bailey's Irish Cream liqueur

Topping:

1 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon powdered sugar
1 to 2 ounces semisweet chocolate

Preheat oven to 325F. Coat bottom and sides of a 10-inch springform pan with softened butter.

Using a fork, combine graham cracker crumbs, 1/2 cup of the sugar and the melted butter in a medium bowl until well blended. Then evenly press crumb mixture onto the bottom and 1 inch up the sides of the buttered pan.

Beat cream cheese in a mixing bowl until smooth. Add remaining 1 1/2 cups sugar and beat until smooth, scraping down the sides of bowl as needed. Add eggs, one at a time, making sure to scrape sides after each addition. Beat until well incorporated and very smooth. Beat in vanilla extract and Bailey's Irish Cream until well mixed.

Pour into prepared pan and bake in preheated oven for approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes or until center is the consistency of set gelatin.

Remove cake from oven and let cool on a wire rack, away from drafts. When cool, remove springform and refrigerate until ready to serve. When ready to serve, whip heavy cream with confectioners's sugar and garnish top of cake with whipped cream rosettes. Shave chocolate over top.

This recipe was contributed by Linda from Recipe Goldmine.
Thank you Linda!

Notes:

I followed the recipe exactly, down to the whipped cream rosettes and shaved chocolate, *but* I did cut back on the sugar just a tiny bit. It seemed like a lot, both in the crust and the filling. The Bailey's is already sweet enough. Oh yeah, and I added just a tablespoon of Bailey's to the cream before I whipped it. All right, I simply can't follow a recipe exactly.

The muffins were okay, nothing I really feel like posting. All that rhubarb by our back patio shouldn't go unused.

June 7th was Liam Neeson's birthday. Belatedly I realized I had missed it again, but didn't feel too horribly guilty about it. I'm sure, somehow, he celebrated just fine without me. So there was a reason after all that I felt this overwhelming compulsion to make this particular decadent, celebration-worthy dessert at this particular time. *Raises mug full coffee and Bailey's in a toast* Happy birthday, big guy.

BTW, a shot of Bailey's in chocolate soy milk is not bad at all. Hell, a shot of Bailey's in my bath water would probably be good, too.