Apple crumble cheesecake with caramel syrup

What do you do with leftover green apples and cream cheese? Of course an apple cheesecake. Then what do you do for a change of texture? Make some crumble and put it on top. After it has cooled, what else to add for a different taste in my cheesecake. Some bitter-sweet caramel syrup :)

 

Price: RM 29.60

Orange cake pops

 This time I tried making an orange sponge cake for this cake pop. Then dipped 'em in strawberry choc and coloured white choc. Choc rice/sugar crystals were used for the coating. This is so suitable for active kids! Then we wanted to try something more blood-sugar-level-friendly for adults, so K. Aria (also a baking lover), suggested we use bread crumbs/biscuit crumbs. So we did that and you can see the result below. It does  not look as colourful but taste just as nice.

Price: RM (TBD)

 No-we did not use the colour pencils to colour the cake pops :P

Sour Cream Cheesecake anyone?

Buongiorno! Today's breakfast is a slice of  Sour Cream Cheesecake. Heheh. It's a rainy, lazy Sunday morning and it tastes so much like a Sour Cream Cheesecake. No chewing needed. It melts in your mouth and slides down your throat, filling that hungry tummy in a second.

Made this last night and before I start with any cheesecake, I will usually line the outside base of the tin with foil. If you don't have a spring-form pan, just line the insides of any square or round cake tin neatly with foil so you can pull the cake out easily.

What you need:

Part I

1 1/2 cup Biskut Marie crumbs

1/4 cup melted butter (you can use a bit more if the crumbs don't come together well)

* Mix together graham cracker crumbs and melted butter in a medium bowl. Press into the bottom of a 9-inch spring-form pan. Refrigerate the crust while making the filling.

Part II

2/3 cup sugar

2 eggs

16oz cream cheese

1 pinch salt

1/2 tsp vanilla

* Combine the cream cheese, 2/3 cup sugar, salt, beaten eggs and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla in a medium bowl. Beat at medium speed for 5 minutes. Pour the filling into the spring-form pan over the graham cracker crumb crust. Bake at 150 -170C (depending on oven size) for 25 minutes. Cool 30 minutes before adding the sour cream topping.

Part III

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup sour cream (you can get it at Giant stores)

3 tbsp sugar

* Mix the sour cream, 3 tablespoons sugar, and 1 teaspoon vanilla together in a small bowl. Pour and spread on top of the slightly cooled cheesecake. Bake for 10 more minutes at 150 -170C. Cool to room temperature and then place in refrigerator overnight to chill before serving.

It has to 'rest' for at least 8 hours in the fridge before it can be cut. Buon Appetito!

Price: RM29.90 (6" cake)

Cream cheese Brownies

Mini cuppie version

These mouthwatering darlings can be made in either a small cuppie form or a normal 9” brownie. Either way, the taste is just great.

I tried this recipe around a year ago when suddenly a craving of cream cheese and choc hit me. Then made it again recently for a birthday. Unfortunately I don’t remember where I got it. I will paste the recipe below, please leave a comment if you know where this recipe is from and I will give credits to the recipe creator.

Of course the 1^st step is as always to heat your oven. For me, I use 150C.

Part I

1 ¼ cup plain flour

¾ tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

-         sieve these together and set aside

Part II

½ cup butter

4 oz cooking chocolate

4 oz dark chocolate

-         melt these in a double-boiler

-         remove from heat and leave for around 15 – 20 minutes to cool slightly



Full 9" with honey-choc ganache



Part III

1 ¼ cup sugar

4 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

-         stir these into the melted chocolate mixture

-         keep stirring while adding the egg to prevent the egg from cooking in the heat of the chocolate mixture

-         add the flour mixture bit-by-bit and use just enough to incorporate mixture (usually it uses up all the flour)

Part IV

¼ cup sugar

1 egg

2 tsp vanilla



8 oz cream cheese

-         beat in a separate bowl until smooth

• Layer the brownie mixture and the cheese mixture in the pan
• Swirl the layers and bake. The 9” pan will take around 30 minutes to bake    



Cake Pops. Yay!

An army of cake pops with an injured soldier :P

 Ahah! Finally I made it. After months of imagining myself rolling those pops, this weekend was the best time to materialize it. This one was made with a choc sponge center and dark chocolate coating. I had no lidi satay or lollipop sticks so I just used toothpicks. The pops I made were small so toothpicks could hold them. You can visit Veronica's Cornucopia and learn more about cake pops.* One tip: do NOT use cooking choc for the dip. The taste is sssooo NOT GOOD. I know dark choc costs a little bit extra but it is worth it.

The recipe for the cake part is a modified version of a mocha sponge I found a while back. Of course I had to ommit the liquer from the original recipe. So this is my version:

Part I: The cake = 6" Choc sponge
 (for around 23-25 pops)

1 ½ tbsp cocoa powder

1 ½ tbsp hot water

1 tbsp chocolate emulco

½ cup cake flour

¾ tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

2 egg whites

2 egg yolks

1/8 cups sugar & ¼ cups sugar

-  Dissolve cocoa powder, chocolate emulco in hot water. Set aside.

-   Whip egg white until soft peaks form, sprinkle 1/8 cups sugar while whipping the egg whites and continue to whip until stiff but not dry. Set aside.

-    Whip egg yolks with ¼ cups sugar until thick and pale (around 5 minutes. Can even be whipped by hand).

-    Stir in the chocolate mixture. Sieve the flour, baking powder and salt into the mixture and mix slowly.

-    Fold in half the egg whites into the chocolate batter gently until well mixed.

-    Fold in the remaining egg whites.

-    Bake for 20-30 minutes.

This cake can be eaten or decorated the way it is, but to make the pops, leave the cake to cool and crumble them up until they are like cake crumbs and add the 'binder' to it and mix until you can shape small balls.

Part II: The Binder = Choc-honey ganache. This is from Blue Key Recipes.

50g Cooking choc

30g whipping cream

10g butter

5 g honey

- melt all on a double boiler and mix around 3 tbsp to the cake crumbs. Try to mix it around 1st then add a little more, bit-by-bit until its soft enough to mould.

- place the balls on a tray and cover with plastic wrap. Keep in the fridge for around 2 hours.

Part III: The Coat = Dark choc



Toothpicks sticking ceremony completed

6oz dark choc

1/2 tbsp coconut oil

- melt all on a double boiler

- after all of the choc is almost melted, take the bowl off the heat and stir around to let it melt in the remaining heat.

- take out the pops from the fridge and dip 1/4 of the toothpick in the melted choc before sticking it into the pops. It will act like a glue. Repeat for all and put the pops back in the fridge. Take out 3 at a time maybe and coat those 1st. Then stick them on to a styrofoam board. You can line the styrofoam with plastic wrap for easy cleaning. The pops has to be cold when they are coated. This helps the choc to stick and harden. You can decorate you pops with nuts or coloured rice. Then pop one in your mouth for taste!



Three little pops on a choc-cheese brownie, ready for delivery



What will be the next flavour of these pops? Does lemon cake with white choc coating sounds nice? Or strawberry cake with dark choc coating? Or even banana cake and cherry chunks with choc coating, sumthing like a banana split. hehehe...I wonder...

Brownie Tarts



Before...



After...



I know this is another chocolate dessert, but what can I say..chocolates are my best friend :). Found this on allrecipes while leisure surfing and I had to try it. I ransacked my kitchen and found that I had no pecans or cherries so I had to ommit them from the original recipe. Good thing I had some cream cheese in the fridge, waiting for me to use it. Recipe as below. Enjoy!

Brownie Tarts (makes around 15. I think I used a 6.5cm tart mould for this)

Part I: Shell

½ cup butter

3 oz (85g) cream cheese

1 cup all-purpose flour

-         cream butter and cheese well

-         add flour – mix well to form soft dough

-         chill for 1 hour in plastic wrap

-         make small balls and press into moulds to make the shell

Part II: Filling

½ cup semi-sweet choc chips

2tbsp butter

½ cup castor sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

½ cup chopped pecan (optional)

-         melt the choc chips & butter in a small saucepan

-         remove from heat, let it cool slightly and stir in sugar, egg and vanilla

-         pour into shell

-         bake until brown (I am using a small oven so I baked mine at 150C for 15-20 minutes)

Selling price: RM 17 for 15 tarts. (I can make smaller sized tarts to get 24 tarts at the same price)

Choc cupcake with fluffy white topping

White marshmallowy swirl on choc cake

The base of this idea came from my sister actually. She asked for a no-bake meringue-type topping to be on a choc cake. No buttercreams, no cream cheese toppings for her. I didn't know it was possible because I thought that all meringues had to be baked or torched or something. So as usual, I searched the net and found a recipe for a fluffy white frosting, which is actually a no-bake meringue topping. I found out later that this is something like an Italian meringue. I said to myself, 'Why not? Let's just give it a try'. And as usual, I reduced a tad bit of the sugar to suite my taste.The first time I tried this is 1 hour before my sister wanted to collect the cake. Was a risk but it was well worth it.

For her, I did a vanilla-choc layer cake with choc-cream-cheese-and-almond-chunks filling and fluffy white topping around it. Sorry, didn't have the time to take photo's of the cake so here is the cupcake version. Note to self: have to work on my decoration skills.

Selling price: RM (TBD)