I apologize for having not posted in over a week T_____T. To cheer you up though, heeeeere’s cheesecake! And just in time for Thanksgiving, too!

Mind you, Joy and I made this around midnight, so let the crazies begin!

If you’re looking to follow along, or you want to try out the recipe yourself, check it here, at AllRecipes.com! The only difference here is that we chose to use walnut crumbs instead of chopped pecans, but both are delicious.

First, allow us to introduce the main features in this fantastic frenzy:

And no, I’m not advertising for Kraft. I did, however, choose this shot over another because it emphasized the word “light,” all in an effort to make myself feel better about baking cheesecake at midnight. “But it’s light cream cheese!”

You may have noticed the adorable graham teddies up in the right hand corner. Start your night off right by smashing said adorable teddies into crumbs. Toss walnut crumbs in as well.

While you’re participating in that sort of unhealthy violence, get a friend like Joy to help by whipping cream cheese, sugar and vanilla together. Have said friend follow up by whipping eggs into the creamy goodness one egg at a time until it looks satiny smooth.

Crushing teddies takes time so Joy will likely have time to slice up some apples and toss them with cinnamon and brown sugar too. Oh golly.

Finally, just as you wipe the sweat off your brow from all that smashing and grinding, Joy will be done with the cream cheese and the apples and you can start assembling something good-looking. Mix some melted butter with that walnut-crumb-graham-teddy mixture and pat into place in a springform pan. Or, if you’re like us and using somebody else’s kitchen, make do with a circular container of some form.

Bake the crust at 350 C for 10 minutes, then take out and assemble in this order: cream cheese, then apples. Easy instructions, yeah? Feel free to get fancy with the apple slices. I always like to make sure I have an extra apple just in case there are more ugly slices than pretty slices and I need more slices to complete my pattern. That’s assuming, of course, that I can make more pretty slices out of the extra apple. Once you’re done arranging, sprinkle with walnut crumbs and slide the whole kaboodle back into the oven.

Flick on Food Network or slightly doze off as the clock ticks past midnight. Make sure one person stays up long enough to take the cheesecake out when it’s ready!

Chill overnight or cut yourself a naughty midnight snack. Do both. And that, my friends, is an apple-walnut (read: autumn) cheesecake. Happy Thanksgiving weekend, all (=!