April came and April went and I managed to completely forget to make the Daring Bakers challenge. It was post day when I finally remembered that I needed to make it but was busy working on projects and studying for finals. I was able to escape to my kitchen for a few hours today and decided I would make the cheesecake. The recipe this month was for a basic vanilla cheesecake. The daring bakers were challenges to be creative and come up with a very unique and delicious treat. After mulling over many choices I landed on making a Neapolitan cheesecake with a coconut, macadamia nut crust. The additions I made were very easy and only took a few extra minutes to put together.
After tasting this cheesecake I am really glad I decided to use all the flavors that I did. The layers of flavors along with the nuts and coconut in the crust really gave this cheesecake an outstanding flavor. This would definitely be an impressive dessert to serve to guests.
The 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge. Don't forget to head over to the new Daring Baker webiste to see what the rest of the ladies made.
Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake
(The grey lettering is what was changed from the original recipe.)
Crust
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/4 cup toasted coconut
1/4 cup diced macadamia nuts, toasted
1 stick butter, melted
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Basic Cheesecake
3 (8 oz) blocks of cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean)
Add-ins
4 ounces chocolate, melted and slightly cooled
1 vanilla bean
1 cup strawberry puree, strained of seeds
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.
2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker's choice. Set crust aside.
3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and blend until smooth and creamy.
4. Divide the batter into thirds. Mix melted chocolate with one-third of the batter and pour onto crust. Add the innerds of the vanilla bean to a third of the batter and pour over chocolate batter. Add the strawberry puree to the final third of the batter and pour strawberry flavored batter over the vanilla layer.
5. Tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.
5. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done - this can be hard to judge, but you're looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don't want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won't crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve.
Strawberries are my favorite fruit of all time. I could eat them plain, dipped in yogurt, mixed with other fruit, or even baked into bread. Speaking of baked into bread, that is what I have for you today. A delicious strawberry bread with flecks of almonds all throughout. The original recipe called for walnuts but I prefer almonds and think they compliment the strawberries perfectly.
This recipe was typical of any quick bread recipe that I have made before. Whisk the dry ingredients, blend the wet ingredients, mix the two together and bake for an hour. This bread was moist, delicious, and packed with strawberry flavor. I think next time I will add a dash of cinnamon and possibly even leave out the nutmeg.
Walnut-Strawberry Quick Bread
Source: The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion, The All-Purpose Baking Cookbook
Ingredients
1/2 cup (2 ounces) chopped walnuts
1 1/4 cups (6 1/2 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup (7 ounces) sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon lemon zest, or 1/4 teaspoon lemon oil
2 large eggs
1 1/4 cups (10 ounces) mashed strawberries
1/2 cup (2 1/2 ounces) vegetable oil
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350. Grease and flour a 9x5" loaf pan.
In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together the walnuts, flour, sugar, soda, salt and nutmeg. In a separate bowl, whisk together the lemon zest, eggs, strawberries, and vegetable oil. Combine the we ingredients with the dry ingredients, whisking until well blended.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan, and bake for 55 to 60 minutes, until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool the bread in the pan for 15 minutes, then remove it from the pan and transfer it to a rack to cool completely, 1 hour or longer. For best flavor and easiest slicing, wrap the bread while still slightly warm and let set overnight.
Last Friday my husband had his wisdom teeth removed. Everything went well and he is recovering fine but he will be on a soft food diet for the rest of the week. One of his favorite snacks is chocolate pudding so I decided to take a few minutes out of my day to make him some homemade chocolate pudding.
This recipe came together rather quickly and was not at all difficult to make. The pudding was rich and delicious. My husband enjoyed it and I am sure he will be requesting it again soon.
Once again I apologize for the lack of posts lately. There are only 22 more days until Graduation, I can not wait!! I hope to begin blogging on a more regular basis once I am out of school and only have work to worry about. Low-Fat Chocolate Pudding, for Two
Source: Cooks Illustrated
Ingredients
1 ounce bittersweet chocolate , chopped
1 tablespoon cocoa , preferably Dutched
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 cup sugar
Pinch table salt
1 1/4 cups whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
1. Melt chocolate over double boiler or in microwave. Cool slightly.
2. Whisk together cocoa powder, cornstarch, sugar, and salt in heavy-bottomed medium saucepan. Add milk all at once and whisk to incorporate. Whisk in melted chocolate.
3. Bring mixture to boil over medium heat, whisking until smooth. Once boiling, reduce heat to low and cook, stirring constantly with heatproof rubber spatula or wooden spoon and making sure to scrape edges of pan, for 2 minutes. (Mixture will become thick and glossy.)
4. Remove pan from heat and stir in vanilla. Pour pudding through fine-mesh strainer and into heatproof bowl, pushing gently with spatula or spoon and leaving any solids in strainer. Place plastic wrap directly on surface of pudding to prevent skin from forming. Refrigerate for 4 hours or until completely chilled. (Pudding will keep for up to 2 days.) Gently stir pudding before transferring to individual bowls and serving.
I happened to have an abundance of buttermilk in my fridge due to Target not having a smaller container in stock. I did not want to let it go to waste so I decided to make some buttermilk biscuits with it. I searched around for different recipes and then decided on this one because I was intrigued with the flaky layers.
These biscuits turned out perfect and flaky just like the recipe said it would. Although there was lots of rolling and folding the recipe did not really take that long to make. The end result was a moist flaky biscuit that would be delicious spread with butter or jam or oven downing in sausage gravy. Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits
Source: Cook's Illustrated
-makes 12 biscuits -
Ingredients
2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (12 1/2 ounces), plus additional flour for work surface
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon table salt
2 tablespoons vegetable shortening , cut into 1/2-inch chunks
8 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick), cold, lightly floured and cut into 1/8-inch slices
2 tablespoons unsalted butter , melted
1 1/4 cups low-fat buttermilk , cold
Directions
1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position; heat oven to 450 degrees. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in large bowl.
2. Add shortening to flour mixture; break up chunks with fingertips until only small, pea-sized pieces remain. Working in batches, drop butter slices into flour mixture and toss to coat; pick up each slice of butter and press between floured fingertips into flat, nickel-sized pieces. Repeat until all butter is incorporated; toss to combine. Freeze mixture (in bowl) until chilled, about 15 minutes.
3. Spray 24-inch-square area of work surface with nonstick cooking spray; spread spray evenly across surface with kitchen towel or paper towel. Sprinkle 1/3 cup of extra flour across sprayed area; gently spread flour across work surface with palm to form thin, even coating. Add all but 2 tablespoons of buttermilk to flour mixture; stir briskly with fork until ball forms and no dry bits of flour are visible, adding remaining buttermilk as needed (dough will be sticky and shaggy but should clear sides of bowl). With rubber spatula, transfer dough onto center of prepared work surface, dust surface lightly with flour, and, with floured hands, bring dough together into cohesive ball.
4. Pat dough into approximate 10-inch square; roll into 18 by 14-inch rectangle about 1/4 inch thick, dusting dough and rolling pin with flour as needed. Following illustrations below, using bench scraper or thin metal spatula, fold dough into thirds, brushing any excess flour from surface; lift short end of dough and fold in thirds again to form approximate 6 by 4-inch rectangle. Rotate dough 90 degrees, dusting work surface underneath with flour; roll and fold dough again, dusting with flour as needed.
5. Roll dough into 10-inch square about 1/2 inch thick; flip dough and cut nine 3-inch rounds with floured biscuit cutter, dipping cutter back into flour after each cut. Carefully invert and transfer rounds to ungreased baking sheet, spaced 1 inch apart. Gather dough scraps into ball; roll and fold once or twice until scraps form smooth dough. Roll dough into 1/2-inch-thick round; cut three more 3-inch rounds and transfer to baking sheet. Discard excess dough.
6. Brush biscuit tops with melted butter. Bake, without opening oven door, until tops are golden brown and crisp, 15 to 17 minutes. Let cool on baking sheet 5 to 10 minutes before serving.
