Black Forest Cheesecake

I don't like birthday cakes. They are expensive and often I can replicate them at home. This year, I did not plan on making a cake because I was lazy, but I ended up putting together an easy cheesecake. I found it on the back of a package of cream cheese, but it's also on the Kraft website.

I love black forest themed stuff. It was light and creamy and not too sweet or rich. This was delicious and I was honoured to have it as my 'birthday cake'.

See you guys soon.

Lemon Cheese Tart

It's the last day of Winter, which means Spring is tomorrow. I'm sad that the cooler months are over, but happy since berries, mangoes, pineapples and other Summer fruit are coming. Technically lemons should be out of season soon, but these days shops have everything all year round. This recipe comes from a cookbook called Cheesecakes by Maxine Clark. I made this for a dinner with family friends, and they all loved it.

Basically, this is a cheesecake in a tart shell. The use of lemon zest is very interesting, and it produced a great citrusy flavour. I had a bit of trouble working with the pastry, but it obeyed me in the end. I also left the tart in the oven too long, giving it a brown surface, but it did not affect the taste.

I have been and will be making a lot of tarts, small and big, these days. This was so nice, but next time I would dust it with a little caster sugar, just to balance out the sourness. I say this year's Winter was awesome, and Spring's gonna rock!

Triple Chocolate Cheesecake

It's been ages since my last post, because I have been busy working on school stuff (mainly SRP). People have been telling me to import my blog into Tumblr, but I'm too busy right now. Maybe in the school holidays. After inspecting my tags, it seems I make a lot of cheesecake. It's weird because I'm not that much of a cheesecake fanatic. Nevertheless, I have come with another cheesecake recipe - a triple chocolate one, no less.

I find it weird how some think chocolate and cheesecake don't go together. It's not rocket science: chocolate - yum; cheesecake - yum; hence chocolate cheesecake - double yum. Well, triple yum if it's triple chocolate cheesecake (quadruple yum?). One downfall is the number of bowls you have to use - I had to use 6.

The texture is moussey light, and tastes deliciously chocolatey. Even non-chocolaholics will enjoy this cheesecake, because it's not deeply rich. I will be back soon with a savoury recipe. Cheesey, no doubt.

Cookies and Cream Cheesecake

Did I mention I love cheesecake? Did I also mention I love Oreos? Well I love both, so what's better than combining the two and making a Cookies and Cream Cheesecake? I had a craving for cheesecake so I found this recipe on the Kraft recipes website. It is basically a New York cheesecake with bits of Oreo cookies. I should have expected it to be a bit too rich, seeing as my previous New York cheesecake, was too rich, but it was delicious nonetheless.

Another reason why I decided to make cheesecake was because if I bought 3 Philadelphia products, I could get a Philadelphia cookbook for free. It's called 'Simply Heaven', and it contains delicious recipes which all use Philadelphia cream cheese, as well as the new 'Cream for Cooking'. I am definitely going to try some of the recipes in the near future.

I bumped into a few troubles whilst making this cheesecake, but also solved a few that I had encountered previously. Firstly, if using Oreos, make sure to remove the white filling. Last time I didn't remove them and it was very difficult to crush. I also found out why my cheesecake mixtures were always lumpy - the cheese was not soft enough. I microwaved them for longer time and it worked wonderfully. Remember, for every 250 grams of cream cheese, microwave for 30 seconds on high. One problem was that I forgot to grease or line the base of the springform pan, so most of the crumbs stuck to the bottom, and the whole cake 'ripped' in two. I had to use cutters to cut a few circles out that were relatively presentable, but there was barely any crust.

Another thing, I baked this in a water bath, but that did not prevent cracking. The Oreo pieces seemed to protrude out the top, making little cracks which expand while cooling. If you really do want to use a water bath, place the tray on the lowest level of the oven, because no matter how tightly I wrap the springform pan, water seems to always leak in.

Did you see my amateurish attempt at a plate 'garnish'? Yeah, totally failed. Stay tuned.

Recipe

Obtained here.

Makes 16 servings.

1 cup crushed Oreo cookies (about 12 cookies)

1 tablespoon (14 grams) butter or margarine, melted

4 pkg. (250 grams each) Philadelphia Cream Cheese, softened
1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

4 eggs

20 Oreo cookies, quartered

1. Preheat oven to 325°F (160°C) if using a silver springform pan or 300°F (150°C) if using a dark nonstick springform pan. Mix crushed cookies and butter; press onto bottom of 9-inch (22 cm) springform pan. Bake 10 minutes.

2. Beat cream cheese, sugar and vanilla with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing on low speed after each addition just until blended. Gently stir in quartered cookies. Pour over crust.

3. Bake for 1 hour or until center is almost set. Run knife or metal spatula around rim of pan to loosen cake; cool before removing rim of pan. Refrigerate 4 hours or overnight. Garnish with additional cookies, if desired.

Strawberry Swirl Cheesecake

I don't know what it's about with me and cheese. I LOVE cheesey pizza with tons of stringy mozzarella on top. I love melted cheddar on toast, with it's tangy saltiness. And I love cheesecakes. I know people 'believe' that cheesecakes should be firm and dense, and should not have excessive air mixed into the mixture. I, on the other hand, do not mind either a dense cheesecake, or a rather light and fluffy one. Light ones are actually easier to swallow (not the literal meaning) because they are not as sticky, and almost mousse-like. But while I adore this product of milk, I know that in every bite of my cheesy pizza, cheddar-topped toast and delicious cheesecake, I am swallowing countless calories. That's exactly why I don't buy  piece of cheesecake at every cake shop I pass. But when a neighbour's friend requested it, how could I refuse?

Originally, he asked for a 'Creamy Mango Cheesecake', but I thoroughly convinced him not to by stating mangoes aren't in season, just because the name says 'creamy' doesn't mean it's any more creamy than other cheesecakes, etc. So in the end he agreed to make Strawberry Cheesecake instead. Apparently, strawberries are one of his least 'hated' foods. I just hate it when someone says, 'Ugh, I hate such and such' or 'I would never eat that!' I mean, I don't like every food in the world, but at least I try everything, and if I don't like it, I don't put it down. I don't say stuff like, ' OMG, such and such is DISGUSTING!' So when my neighbour's kid said, 'Ah, lychees are one of the last few things on the list of food I like', I almost facepunched him.

Anyways, I settled on a recipe from Allrecipes for Strawberry Cheesecake. It looked very appealing, but after reading some reviews I modified it a bit. I reduced the amount of cream cheese to 2 packages, baked it in a waterbath, and since there wasn't any fresh or frozen strawberries at the shops, I used canned strawberries instead. The base and the sauce came together wonderfully, but I have no idea why all my cheesecake mixtures turn out lumpy. I have a theory that my mixer doesn't scrape the edges of the bowl, leaving a layer of cream cheese, and when I scrape that down and start mixing again, it doesn't break down that much. Although none of my cheesecakes seem to have suffered from that which is great.

The strawberry sauce makes leftovers which is made into a deliciously fruity sauce. You really need that sauce to add flavour to the cheesecake, as the strawberriness seems to disappear from the swirls after you bake it. It was actually fairly light, which I prefer, and not a crack in sight, due to the waterbath.

Yesterday, I plunged myself into cheesemaking and made a small batch of goat cheese! I'll be using it in a recipe in a few days, I'll post how it goes.


Recipe

Modified from Allrecipes (Original recipe here)

Serves 12

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter or margarine, melted
400g can strawberries
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 (8 ounce/250g) packages cream cheese, softened
395g can sweetened condensed milk
1/4 cup lemon juice
3 eggs
1 tablespoon water


1.Combine graham cracker crumbs, sugar and butter. Press onto the bottom of an ungreased 9-in. springform pan. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

2. Preheat oven to 300°F/150°C. Boil a pot of water for the water bath.

3. In a blender or food processor, combine strawberries and cornstarch; cover and process until smooth.

4. Pour into a saucepan; bring to a boil. Boil and stir for 2 minutes. Set aside 1/3 cup strawberry sauce; cool. Cover and refrigerate remaining sauce for serving.

5. In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in milk. Add lemon juice; mix well.

6. Add eggs, beat on low just until combined. Pour half of the cream cheese mixture over crust.

7. Drop half of the reserved strawberry mixture by 1/2 teaspoonfuls onto cream cheese layer. Carefully spoon remaining cream cheese mixture over sauce. Drop remaining strawberry sauce by 1/2 teaspoonfuls on top. With a knife, cut through top layer only to swirl strawberry sauce.

8. Wrap the bottom of the springform pan with at least 2 layers of aluminium foil. Place pan onto a roasting tray and place in the oven. Pour boiling water halfway up the side of the springform pan. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until center is almost set. Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes.

9. Carefully run a knife around edge of pan to loosen; cool 1 hour longer. Refrigerate overnight.

10. Remove side of pan. Thin chilled strawberry sauce with water if desired; serve with cheesecake.

New York Cheesecake

Feels like an eternity since my last post. Things have been hectic, what with Chinese New Year and people coming to my house etc. etc. Our family celebrate the New Year with tons of dumplings and watching the New Year Gala. It starts at 11pm here in Sydney and goes 'til 4am the next day. I've never been able to stay up for the whole show. Also, some family friends came over and we went to the Blue Mountains, and my god was there fog.

There's this place called Echo Point where you can see the Three Sisters, but it was completely white. Not sure whether to be amazed or freaked out.

Anyways, yesterday I made cheesecake. Cheesecakes rank up there with my all-time favourite desserts, along with fried ice-cream and mango pudding. I can bet that there are thousands, if not millions of cheesecake recipes out there, including baked, no-bake, new york, roman, french etc. etc. I was browsing Kraft's online videos when their New York cheesecake caught my eye. It was simple enough so I decided to make it.

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It definitely needed some tartness, in the form of lemon juice and/or lemon zest. It was too simply too rich. I think I aerated it too much because there was this giant ugly crack down one side and it was not dense like good cheesecakes should be. The recipe calls for cherry pie filling as a topping but we don't get that in Australia, nor do we get cool whip, which sucks, so I grated some dark chocolate over the top. It has an oreo base, which is 20 oreos bashed together, but it doesn't say to srape away the white filling inside. As a result, the white filling stuck to the sides of the plastic bag along with alot of the cookie crumbs. Aside from that everybody thought it was nice. Nice, but not fantastic.


Recipe obtained from here.

Marbled Cheesecake Brownies

As you know, I live in Australia and, according to studies like this, this country has the most number of overweight and obese adults in the world. Of course, with overweight adults come overweight children and teens. Although I love eating the occasional butter-rich cake and sugar-filled(stuffed) dougnut, there comes a time when you have to go down the low-fat alleyway. But being low-fat or low-calorie doesn't mean food has to taste crap, so I went on the hunt for delicious low-calorie desserts.

At that time, I was also browsing around the Kraft website and my eyes fell instantly on their marbled brownies, but they asked for a brownie mix and did not have a nutritional table. So I set off to find a low calorie marbled brownie recipe and found multiple results, but the one I settled on was a recipe from the recipe section of Health.com. Each serving claimed to have only 140 calories, which was encouraging.

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The brownie mixture was unbelievably thick. It took alot of effort to coax it to the sides of the pan and smooth it out evenly. This was also the reason why the cheesecake mixure did not marble enough with the brownie - it was just too thick. The taste was good, with the brownie dense and the coffee added to the richness. I think I will be experimenting with other non-low-fat recipes to compare it with.

Of course, replacing one dessert with a slightly healthier alternative is simply not enough to turn someone's life around. You need an all round healthy diet, as well as regular exercise. Still, if you are health-conscious, you should seriously try this recipe.

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Recipe obtained from here.