15 posts tagged “dessert”
I fear I may have gone too far with this one... It's like Mr. Angelfood meets Mr. Cheesycake. Luckily, I screwed the crust up by trying to incorporate bittersweet chocolate morsels, in addition to the honey graham crackers, sugar, butter, vanilla and cinnamon. The chocolate made the crust dense, bitter, and dry. And that's a good thing, or else I'd risk people trying to suck down three or four of these buggers for pudding.
Update: Okay, here's my recipe. This is the result of a LOT of experimentation. I may add a step-by-step demo with pictures at a later date.
This is an extremely light and fluffy cheesecake. The "secret" to it, is to beat the egg whites separately from the rest of the batter, and to use more egg whites than yolks.
I use a traditional springform pan for my cheesecakes. Some people use a shallow tart pan, which I admit results in a quite elegant, petite cake -- but it'll only yield about eight servings, compared to about twenty for my springform cake. And it's the same amount of work, so you do the math... Besides, going through the effort of creating an excellent cheesecake, only to end up with no leftovers is just too traumatic to contemplate.
The crust is flavored. This is important. Too many commercial cheesecakes have these boring crusts that brings nothing to the party.
For the crust:
1 package Graham Crackers (These typically come in a box with three packages, total weight 14.4oz, so that's about 4.8oz for one package).
3 tablespoons brown sugar
4 tablespoons melted butter (more if needed)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1. Preheat the oven to 325ºF.
2. Before opening the package, crush the crackers with your hands. Then pour it into a food processor and pulse it until you have coarse crumbs -- don't overdo it, or else the crust will become too dense.
3. Add the rest of the ingredients and pulse it a few more times. Make sure there is enough butter to make the mixture stick together.
4. Brush the bottom of a spring-form pan with melted butter (to prevent it from sticking), and add the mixture.
5. Press the mixture into the pan -- I use the bottom of a glass, and then a spoon around the edges.
6. Bake in oven for approx 12 minutes, and let cool.
For the filling:
3 8oz packs of cream cheese
7 eggs
1 cup white sugar (or more, according to taste)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1. Preheat oven to 200ºF.
2. Separate egg yolks and whites, but discard two of the yolks (otherwise, it will become too rich. If you like it rich, only discard one yolk -- but using an equal amount of yolk and whites makes it too rich for my taste).
3. Beat the cream cheese until smooth (I use a hand-held electric mixer, but obviously a big, standing mixer works just as well.)
4. Add everything else, except the egg whites. Beat until smooth.
5. Clean your mixer and beat the egg whites until stiff peaks.
6. Add egg whites to the cream cheese mixture and mix thoroughly with a spatula. You do not want to merely FOLD it in gently, as this would leave you with patches of just egg white in the cake -- it has to be mixed until it is completely homogeneous. Yes, a lot of the air will be mixed out of the egg whites -- but enough will remain to ensure a fluffy texture.
7. Brush the sides of the spring-form pan with melted butter.
8. Pour mixture into pan, until it fills it to the top (there may not be enough room for all of the mixture).
9. Bake for 2 hours at 200ºF (for a browned surface, increase to 300º during the last 10-15 minutes).
10. Place on a rack to cool for 2 hours, covered with aluminum foil to slow down the cooling process. Then, chill overnight in the refrigerator.
11. To help release the cake from the pan, heat a thin knife with hot water from the tap, and then run the knife around the edge of the pan.
Serving suggestion: I like to add some fruit jelly, preserve or sauce -- strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, plum etc.
This recipe intentionally overfills the pan, making the cake balloon up almost like a soufflé. However, it will shrink back to its normal size as it cools -- but it won't shrink so much that it starts pulling away from the walls of the pan, causing unsightly cracks in the surface (this was an accidental discovery).
I've settled down with a recipe that combines a CIA recipe with one from Cooking for Engineers, with various modifications. The CIA recipe creates a very thin or low cake, which I'm sure is fine if you're a professional who makes half a dozen cakes in a batch, but if you only make one, it takes almost no extra effort to create a bigger cake that will give you twenty servings, rather than ten. So I increased the ingredients; almost doubling them. I think I can safely double them, now.
Another thing I learned this time around, is that there's a very good reason why some recipes calls for using fewer egg yolks, than egg whites: it creates a lighter flavor. One of my goals has been to create a light and fluffy cake (hence my whisking the egg whites separately, into stiff peaks, and folding them in). I just thought it would be a shame to throw away egg yolks, so I decided to keep them in. This created a really rich flavor -- which is nice; nothing wrong with that -- but it wasn't what I was looking for.
Well, I think I'm getting close to my perfect cheesecake...
Next time around, I'll use strawberries, I think. And I'll make my own faux puff pastry too -- I've got the glasses scoped out, that'll cut it into just the right sizes.
Maybe there's no such thing as too much for the hardcore, mainlining chocolate junkies -- but too much chocolate in a cheesecake turns it into a chocolate cake. And that's not what I wanted. Next time, I'll use way less chocolate, and just use a toothpick to create the swirls on the surface (rather than a knife, to embed the chocolate deep into the cake). And then melt some extra chocolate on the side for the junkies...
Still, this looks even worse in picture, than in real life -- I didn't think that could possibly look any worse... Sadly, I didn't go back and check on the entry for my last attempt, and thus I failed to take my own advice -- to roll these these things up, rather than sautéing them flat... But I'm not entirely sure if that's a good approach though -- it would be hard to cook the whole thing through properly. Veal scallopini is so thin, it has to be cooked VERY quickly.
Sadly, the sorry appearance of the dish is far from the worst thing about it -- I overcooked the veal, and it ended up really though. I hardly ever cook this dish, so I guess it's understandable, but I'm just disgusted by having made such a bonehead mistake -- especially since veal scallopini is so damned expensive (as is prosciutto, of course). One good thing that I did learn, however, is that there's absolutely no need for toothpicks -- the prosciutto clings to the veal pretty good, and the sage leaves are stuck in between. Works really well.
The mashed potatoes were made with plenty of parsley (parsley has a distinctive taste of its own, that isn't appreciated much, I find. The asparagus was sautéed with freshly ground pepper. And the sauce was made by deglazing the pan drippings from the veal, with some cream, and adding a touch of Dijon mustard. I did let it reduce for too long though, so it ended up a bit too thick.
Mix yogurt, honey, vanilla extract, cinnamon and some bruised mint leaves together and leave in fridge overnight -- then remove the mint leaves. Toss grapes in oil, sprinkle with freshly ground pepper and bake at 450ºF for 10 minutes (15, for "normal sized grapes). Serve hot grapes over cold yogurt. Very interesting taste -- and very refreshing -- I think I'll try to find ways to expand on this idea.
This cheesecake thing is gonna be the death of me... What I'm dreaming of, is a fluffy cheesecake. Airy and light -- not dense and heavy. But I'm having some major problems getting there. This was my fourth attempt, and I did learn something -- but not anything that'll help me create a fluffy cheesecake...
I've been experimenting with two different recipes: Cooking for Engineers (direct link to recipe) and the CIA book -- page 1116. The difference between the two is that the latter uses five eggs, while the former uses six, plus two additional egg yolks. Of course, there are other differences: the engineer method recommends starting the baking process at a whopping 500ºF, before reducing it to 200ºF, which burns the crap outta my cheesecakes (see this previous attempt).
The one thing that I've always done differently with both of these recipes, is to whisk the egg whites separately (to stiff peaks), and then gently fold it into the rest of the batter. This is supposed to help create that airy, light, fluffy texture that I'm after...
Also, I've always thought that six eggs, plus two yolks sounded like a bit of an overkill (plus, it meant throwing away two egg whites -- that's a bit wasteful), so I tended to go with just five, or six eggs, period. But this time, I followed the recipe diligently. And it didn't work out too good... Maybe I was too gentle when folding the whipped egg whites in. Maybe I shouldn't have whipped the egg whites at all. Who knows. This remains a mystery to me.
The closest I've gotten to success was this Strawberry Cheesecake, and that one was from the CIA book. I love this book to death, but it being a commercial kinda deal, you always have to scale things down (their recipe is for six cheesecakes. Most other recipes in that thing tend to create ten portions) -- so as superb as it is, it isn't always the first place I look for recipes.
I've got a funny story about that CIA book, though -- "The Professional Chef." I ended up with this thing (the 8th edition -- copper colored) after I gave it to a friend of mine -- I think it was the 7th edition; silver colored. This guy is a much better cook than me, and well worthy of such an ambitious text. I'm not. Still, this buddy of mine doesn't cook as often as I do -- and experience can go a long way to make up for a lack of natural talent. So I'm almost as good as him -- but not quite.
Well, one night, he put together a great dinner... And he has this fantastic kitchen layout where the stove isn't placed against a wall, but stands in a peninsula out in the middle of the kitchen -- so people can gather around, without getting in your way. Ie., you can draft guests into service, and have them stir the pots. Which is wonderful -- a communal cooking experience. Well, this night, we were stirring in some butter, into this sauce. A lot of butter. A helluva lot of butter... Eventually, we asked him -- how much more butter are we supposed to put into this thing?
He opened the fridge, and pulled out this big bowl -- filled to the rim with diced-up butter. There was like, two pounds of butter in that bowl... Now, the reason why this dude is a better cook than me, is because he's relaxed. He's laid back. I'm too neurotic. I worry too much. I think too much. But in this case, I was right. I sounded the alarm -- this dinner was for four people, and that amount of butter for a sauce just didn't jibe.
So I went to check the recipe, in his CIA book -- and lo & behold: the recipe made something like a gallon of sauce...
Using the cut-out slits for decoration was a bit of a spur of the moment thing, but I really liked it. Making them look like leaves was really easy, with the back of a small knife. Great fun -- except for having to pit 4 cups of cherries, mind you...
Pâte Sucrée:
2 1/2 cup AP flour
3 Tbsp sugar
1 cup very cold butter
2 large egg yolks
4 Tbsp very cold water
1. In food processor, pulse to combine flour and sugar.
2. Add cold butter, pulse until it resembles coarse meal (10-20 seconds).
3. Beat egg yolks and water, and add to food processor while running, until it JUST sticks together -- add more water if in a dry climate.
4. Split into 2 balls, wrap in plastic and refrigerate 1 hour.
Cherry Pie:
4 cups pitted cherries
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Blind baking the bottom crust:
1. Roll out bottom crust, place in 9" pie bowl, fold tinfoil into it and dump uncooked beans in, to hold the pie down.
2. Cook for 15 min at 400. Let stand to cool.
Cooking the pie itself:
3. Place all ingredients in a ziplock bag and shake to combine. Dump into pie bowl (crust).
4. Roll out top crust and place it. Cut slits for ventilation.
5. Brush with egg wash and bake at 400 until golden brown, 20-30 min.
Tragically, the guests showed up with a bunch of fresh strawberries, bought on the side of the road, which were way better than these damned supermarket berries I used. So I'm just gonna have to figure out what to do with them before they get spoiled. Maybe another cheesecake? Hehehe.
Still, I'm not perfectly happy with this (although I'm sure it came out the way it was supposed to) -- what I'm looking for, is a really light, fluffy cheesecake. This one wasn't bad. I've had cheesecakes that were far denser, but the last one I made (my first attempt) was lighter and airier than this one (although it got burned on the top, and collapsed a bit).
