Archive | November 2008

Thanksgiving Caramel Apple Praline Cheesecake

It’s 9:30 AM. Thanksgiving. I’m sitting on my couch, laptop in lap, wearing brown knee socks and a Montour High School sweatshirt with my name stitched into it. My cheesecake is baking. I’m watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and drinking coffee. Today, I appreciate living alone.

Moving on.

Happy Thanksgiving! I am thankful for having the day off, my cat currently napping instead of tearing apart my umbrella and, as yet, my cheesecake not cracking. Keep your fingers crossed.

I’m having camera issues so we’re going to have very few pictures if any at all. I’m trying to charge the battery but I think my camera has finally kicked the bucket. Let’s hope it charges a bit otherwise I may carry my laptop over to it and take a picture with the built in camera..

After considering what to bake for over a week, perusing hundreds of recipes and finding about 15 with enough potential that I printed them, I narrowed it down to one from a cookbook that I mentioned in a previous entry. It’s the cookbook that I found in Tutu’s basement when she was moving. I used the main filling recipe with a few variations.

Caramel Apple Praline Cheesecake

Makes one 9-in cheesecake. About 10 servings

1 cup graham cracker crumbs
3 Tbsp granulated sugar
3 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted

3 (8 oz.) packages cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
3 large eggs at room temp.
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans

Variation
Caramel topping
Apple pie filling

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Stir together graham cracker crumbs, granulated sugar and melted butter in a small bowl. Press into bottom of 9 inch springform pan. Bake for 10 minutes.

Increase oven temperature to 450 degrees F.

Beat cream cheese, brown sugar and flour in a large mixing bowl at medium speed with an electric mixer or stand mixer until blended. Do not over blend.
Add eggs, one at a time, mixing after each addition. Blend in vanilla; stir in chopped pecans. I poured a layer of caramel topping over the crust. Leave about an inch of the outer crust uncovered. Add about 10 apple slices on top. Pour cheesecake batter over crust. Bake for 10 minutes.

Reduce oven temperature to 250 degrees F and continue baking for about 30-33 minutes until set. Turn off the oven, open a crack and let cheesecake sit in there for about 5-10 minutes to allow the cheesecake to cool slowly and avoid cracking. Take out of oven, loosen cake from rim and allow to cool for another 15 minutes. Chill in refrigerator for 4 hours or overnight. Once chilled, add more apples, any remaining chopped pecans and then swirl some caramel over everything.

Small Appliances & pie.

Nov12

No not really pie but I feel obligated to at least pretend like this post is relevant to my blog. It’s still not. At all.

I feel the need to post about my two newly acquired small appliances. I am now the owner of this:
I may have mentioned the fact that I wanted one of these in a conversation with my mother and so they purchased one for me. Thank you Mom and Dad. They also sent me a personalized cover which isn’t in the picture but it’s in use right now.

Secondly, just last week or so, my grandparents bought me a KitchenAid Food Processor. Thank you Tutu and Papap. I don’t have a picture of it but it’s big and powerful and that’s all you need to know.. So far, I’ve made hummus. It turned out well but I thought it was kind of bland so no recipe for that not that I really even followed the recipe. I’m going to attempt spinach and sun-dried tomato hummus next and see how that goes.
Here is the mixer making blondies –

I tried to post a picture of the finished blondies but was mostly unsuccessful. My HTML skills are lacking so no picture.

Anyway, coming up this weekend, I’ll be making some kind of cookie for the bonfire that will hopefully be happening on Saturday evening. Where is Connellsville? I bet I spelled that incorrectly. How can a place be only like 45 minutes away and I’ve never heard of it. It should be an interesting night. So anyway, cookies for then. Tonight I’m cooking dinner but it’s going to be boring so no post about that. Andy made pumpkin cheesecake for election night. It was good. That is all. I’m rambling because I’m sitting in a coffee shop and I have nothing better to do.

Halloween Cupcakes

Nov2

We had an office Halloween party on Friday and then a regular Halloween party Friday night. I decided to make cupcakes for both of these. My plan was to make some weird flavor involving pumpkin but I got lazy and stuck to chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting. People are picky (and I am lazy) so here is what I ended up with. Normal sized cupcakes for the coworkers and miniatures for the party. I adapted the recipe for Chocolate-Chocolate Cupcakes from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking From My Home to Yours (the only cookbook that I ever seem to use)

Chocolate-Chocolate Cupcakes

Makes 12 regular cupcakes and 24 minis

2 cups flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 sticks unsalted butter at room temp.
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, melted and COOLED

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Melt chocolate and set aside to cool. Line muffin pan with 12 muffin liners. I used mini aluminum muffin liners for the 24 miniature cupcakes. They are the ones that don’t require a muffin pan so I just placed them all on a baking sheet. Note: They seem flimsy but they held their shape successfully. The problem with not using a muffin pan is if you put too much batter into them, they’ll overflow and become cupcake mountains, which I did once. Bad times. Anyway.

Whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Working with a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Alternatively, you could use a hand mixer but use a BIG bowl. Beat the butter at medium speed until soft and creamy. Add the eggs, then the yolks, beating for 1 minute after each addition and scraping down the sides as needed. Beat in the vanilla then reduce the mixer speed to low and add half of the dry ingredients, mixing just until blended. Scrape down the bowl and add the buttermilk, mixing until incorporated, then mix in the remaining dry ingredients. Scrape down the bowl, add the melted chocolate and mix it in with a rubber spatula. Fill the regular sized liners 2/3 full and the minis, about a tablespoon in each. I used a cookie dough scooper. I don’t know what the technical name is… small ice cream scoop… I recommend this because the batter is sticky and it keeps the size uniform.

Place both in the oven and bake for about 18 minutes for the small ones and 20 minutes for the big ones. The tops should look dry and springy to the touch.

Nestle’s Chocolate Lover’s Frosting

From the back of my Nestle’s cocoa container. Note: If you can find Nestle’s cocoa rather than Hershey’s, BUY IT. Why Hershey’s cornering the market in unsweetened cocoa. Nestle’s is much better than Hershey’s. Don’t drop it on the floor like I did.

I one and halved(?) this recipe to make 3 cups of frosting.

4 1/2 sifted confectionary sugar, divided (I didn’t sift)
1 cup unsweetened cocoa
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
6-7 tbsp milk depending on desired consistency
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Beat 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, cocoa, butter, 3 tablespoons milk and vanilla extract in a large mixer bowl until creamy. (I used my KitchenAid Mixer with the paddle attachment.) Gradually beat in the remaining sugar and milk until smooth. This made almost exactly the right amount to frost my 12 cupcakes and 24 mini ones.

LOOK HOW PRETTY

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