Shamrockin’ Cheesecake Dip

So with St. Patrick’s Day approaching soon I wanted to create a fun and whimsical recipe.  Now I have the traditional Irish recipes on the website:
♦ Guinness Corned Beef
♦ Drunken Cheesy Irish Soda Bread
♦ Irish Coffee
♦ Boozy Irish Cream Cheesecake stuffed Strawberries too!

Right now some of hottest recipes are cheesecake dips.  It’s a non-baked cheesecake dessert that is used as a dip.  With the world ‘Going Green’, I figured I’d go green as well – in the minty Shamrockin’ kinda way!  LOL

While I’m not Irish I know that it’s St. Patrick’s Day or St. Paddy’s day.  It is NOT St. Patty’s day.  But what I didn’t know was that originally, the color associated with Saint Patrick was blue. Over the years the color green and its association with Saint Patrick’s Day grew. Green ribbons and shamrocks were worn in celebration of St Patrick’s Day as early as the 17th century. Saint Patrick is said to have used the shamrock, a three-leaved plant, to explain the Holy Trinity to the pagan Irish, and the ubiquitous wearing and display of shamrocks and shamrock-inspired designs has become a feature of the day. In the 1798 rebellion, to make a political statement, Irish soldiers wore full green uniforms on 17 March in hopes of catching public attention. The phrase “the wearing of the green”, meaning to wear a shamrock on one’s clothing, derives from a song of the same name. TYVM Wikipedia!

Now another thing that is just as popular as Guinness, Kegs ‘n Eggs and Corned Beef & Cabbage are those green shakes you get at McDonald’s.  It’s so funny to see the frenzy it causes.  There are apps out there now that track which location has it and what time they open.  Unreal.  So that’s kinda how I got the inspiration to create this recipe.  Since I’m not a fan of those shakes (sorry McD’s), I had to ask about the flavor of them – was it mint or peppermint.  It’s mint apparently.  Well let me tell you how unbelievably difficult it was finding true mint extract.  I must have gone to 14 different stores before finding it at a store I never EVER go to.  It literally was a last resort before ordering it online.  So as I got to making this recipe I really had to go by trial and error.  I like mint, don’t get me wrong, but after taste testing mint for a few hours I felt like I just ate 3 full tubes of toothpaste! The upside of it all was that I had amazingly minty fresh breath!  LOL  

Every time you see a rainbow, do you wonder “just maybe there is a pot of gold at the end?” Have you ever considering looking to see where it begins and where it ends? We’ve all heard the “pot of gold” story since we were young, but where does that legend come from? It dates back to Old Europe, where the Irish will tell you “fairies put a pot of gold at the end of each rainbow with leprechauns guarding it.”

I have a feeling instead of gold those little leprechauns would have rather guarded this cheesecake dip!  I know I would – well that is, if I were green, wore funny shoes and was 2′ tall.

This dip is so awesome. It’s minty but not super minty (though you can make it that way if you want).  You can taste the cheesecake in it and well it’s BRIGHT green and that’s just all kinds of fun!  You can serve this with assorted cookies (I preferred the chocolate ones myself), a spoon or just your finger.  However I would opt out of the last 2 choices if you HAD to share.  I mean you never EVER double dip with strangers.  Family it’s open season!  LOL

Now I really, REALLY wanted to find green mint chips but they I think are extinct as NO ONE ON THIS GOD GIVEN EARTH sold them.  And don’t even get me started on Shamrock Sprinkles!  Oh sure I could have bought them on line… for $12 for 2 ounces!  Yeah, no way.  Since this was minty I ended up going with those mint chip pieces.  They actually were the perfect texture to balance out the creaminess of the cheesecake.

Full disclosure Mr.Fantabulous didn’t try this.  He HATES anything mint.  Well okay, he’ll chew mint gum or even like a mint breath mint but that’s if nothing else is available. So I turned to my work family.  They are brutally honest with me – they know they have to be or else I won’t take stuff in for them.  I keep telling them I’d rather them say “OMG that sucks” than pacify me with a nicety just for the sake of sparing my feelings.  It’s the only way I’ll learn and grow.  It’s like that with anything in life. Everyone I gave it to loved it.  The best advice they all gave was definitely go with a chocolate wafer cookie and allow the dip to come to room temperature to allow it to be more dippable.  One girl said she wanted to place some between the 2 chocolate wafers to make a sandwich, freeze it then dip the whole thing in chocolate.  Seriously, doesn’t that sound amazing?!

This is definitely a fun party type dip. It’s not overly sweet (which I love) and it’s so much easier to make than say a traditional cheesecake.  Now if you’re lucky enough to find shamrock sprinkles definitively add them on top s they would make an awesome decoration and make it even more festive!

So with that, let me leave you with a traditional Irish Blessing:

May there always be work for your hands to do,
May your purse always hold a coin or two.
May the sun always shine warm on your windowpane,
May a rainbow be certain to follow each rain.
May the hand of a friend always be near you,
And may God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you.

Shamrockin’ Cheesecake Dip

• Author: The Kitchen Whisperer

Find more fantabulous recipes, tips and tricks at www.thekitchenwhisperer.net. Also, join our TKW Family on Facebook

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Ingredients

• 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 1 box (3.4 ounces) cheesecake pudding mix
• 1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
• 1/4 cup white chocolate, melted and cooled (add 1 teaspoon of veg oil to help make it creamy and smooth)
• 2 teaspoon mint extract
• 2–4 drops of green gel paste or green food coloring (may need more if using liquid coloring)
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 cup mint chocolate chips

Instructions

1. With either a hand mixer or a stand mixer, beat the cream cheese until fluffy. ~3-5 minutes.
2. Stop the mixture and add in the dry pudding mix, powdered sugar, mint extract and white chocolate.
3. Beat until combined stopping the mixer to scrape down the bowl. The mixture will be thick.
4. Mix in the cream, a little bit at a time until you’ve reached your desired consistency. Remember it will thicken up quite a bit as it chills.
5. Fold in the mint chocolate chips.
6. Store covered in the refrigerator, but serve at room temperature.

Notes

I found this best served with chocolate wafer cookies. You could also “Mintify” it even more by using Mint Chocolate cookies too! Butter cookies would rock this or chocolate shortbread!

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