daring bakers go cheesecake-crazy

when i travel i go crazy and buy all things heavy. no wonder an airline employee once asked me if i had a dead body in my suitcase when he lifted my baggage. but why not buy a kilo or two of sugar... or beautiful porcelaine... or dishsoap... or very heavy books?

my bags where heavy like a sumo wrestler already but there was this book at one of my favourite shops that i had my eyes on. sticky, chewy, messy, gooey by jill o'connor was a must and i made the extra trip back to the shop to buy it. it is filled with supersweet desserts and wonderfully decorated with lotsa ribbons and polkadots and all the other fun stuff.
the daring bakers proved that it was the right decision to buy this book.

because this month's mission was the cheesecake pops from this lovely little book. a wonderful idea for babyshowers, birthday parties, a chit-chat-marathon with your best friends or even an evening in front of the telly. it takes a bit of time to prepare because the cheesecake needs to chill and freeze before its coated with chocolate and needs another chill in the
freezer.


i halved the recipe because 40 cheesecake pops where too much to handle for me. worked out well - i used 3 eggs & 1 yolk instead of the 5 eggs and the 2 yolks. the batter fitted perfectly into a 30 x 18 cm baking pan.



RECIPE

Cheesecake Pops

Makes 30 – 40 Pops

5 8-oz. packages cream cheese at room temperature

2 cups sugar

¼ cup all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon salt

5 large eggs

2 egg yolks

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

¼ cup heavy cream

Boiling water as needed

Thirty to forty 8-inch lollipop sticks

1 pound chocolate, finely chopped – you can use all one kind or half and half of dark, milk, or white (Alternately, you can use 1 pound of flavored coatings, also known as summer coating, confectionary coating or wafer chocolate – candy supply stores carry colors, as well as the three kinds of chocolate.)

2 tablespoons vegetable shortening

(Note: White chocolate is harder to use this way, but not impossible)

Assorted decorations such as chopped nuts, colored jimmies, crushed peppermints, mini chocolate chips, sanding sugars, dragees) - Optional


Position oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees F / 170 C° . Set some water to boil.

In a large bowl, beat together the cream cheese, sugar, flour, and salt until smooth. If using a mixer, mix on low speed. Add the whole eggs and the egg yolks, one at a time, beating well (but still at low speed) after each addition. Beat in the vanilla and cream.

Grease a 10-inch cake pan (not a springform pan), and pour the batter into the cake pan. Place the pan in a larger roasting pan. Fill the roasting pan with the boiling water until it reaches halfway up the sides of the cake pan. Bake until the cheesecake is firm and slightly golden on top, 35 to 45 minutes.

Remove the cheesecake from the water bath and cool to room temperature. Cover the cheesecake with plastic wrap and refrigerate until very cold, at least 3 hours or up to overnight.

When the cheesecake is cold and very firm, scoop the cheesecake into 2-ounce balls and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Carefully insert a lollipop stick into each cheesecake ball. Freeze the cheesecake pops, uncovered, until very hard, at least 1 – 2 hours.

When the cheesecake pops are frozen and ready for dipping, prepare the chocolate. In the top of a double boiler, set over simmering water, or in a heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water, heat half the chocolate and half the shortening, stirring often, until chocolate is melted and chocolate and shortening are combined. Stir until completely smooth. Do not heat the chocolate too much or your chocolate will lose it’s shine after it has dried. Save the rest of the chocolate and shortening for later dipping, or use another type of chocolate for variety.

Alternately, you can microwave the same amount of chocolate coating pieces on high at 30 second intervals, stirring until smooth.

Quickly dip a frozen cheesecake pop in the melted chocolate, swirling quickly to coat it completely. Shake off any excess into the melted chocolate. If you like, you can now roll the pops quickly in optional decorations. You can also drizzle them with a contrasting color of melted chocolate (dark chocolate drizzled over milk chocolate or white chocolate over dark chocolate, etc.) Place the pop on a clean parchment paper-lined baking sheet to set. Repeat with remaining pops, melting more chocolate and shortening (or confectionary chocolate pieces) as needed.

Refrigerate the pops for up to 24 hours, until ready to serve.

have you been strudeld lately?

i have been dealing with a lot of phyllo dough lately. i was doing a programe about all kinds of strudel - from sweet to savoury and just couldnt stop!
there was the one with rucola, taleggio cheese and some fried mushrooms, the topfenstrudel (austrian quark strudel) with dried apricots that almost blew up in my oven, the apple strudel with hazelnuts, thyme and gruyere cheese... and last but not least the potato strudel with sage and ham.


a yummy little number that makes a wonderful lunch if you serve it with a fresh garden salad. easy and quite quick to make if you use ready made phyllo pastry (available in turkish speciality shops or ask your baker). if you want to make your own strudel dough, check out this recipe or simply use puff pastry.


RECIPE

120g phyllo pastry or homemade strudel dough
200g potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
70g mozzarella (or grated gruyere or fontina cheese)
1 garlic, finely diced
2 tablespoons olive oil
a hand full of sage, finely diced
salt and pepper
3 slices of ham
some more olive oil to brush

heat the oven to 200 c°

mix potatoes, mozzarella, garlic, sage and oil in a bowl. season with salt and pepper.
place a clean kitchen towell on your work surface and dust with some water, then arrange your phyllo pastry onto it (make sure you get 2 layers!) and brush with some olive oil.
spread filling & ham onto pastry and roll up your strudel (make sure the edges are neatly tucked in or you filling will end up in your oven).
brush with some olive oil and bake in the middle of the oven for about 30 minutes until golden and crisp. - serve while still hot.

basil butter

hello my lovelies, just a quick one as i am dashing from one kitchen to the other at the moment, but found some time to make this today. it's a sweet butter - a basilbutter with honey that crowns every sunday brunch or turns an everyday breakfast into a feast. tastes delicious on brioche bread with some berries and keeps in the fridge for about a week.



100g butter, soft
2 tablespoons of runny honey
30g basil, chopped
juice of half a lemon
50g mascarpone
some berries
soft bread such as challa or brioche

mix the soft butter with honey, basil, lemonjuice and mascarpone in a mixer until creamy and mixed throughout.
spread on bread and garnish with the berries.

fancy more recipes using fresh herbs? check out this weeks WHB, hosted by jugalbandi this week.

centre piece of the month april

new month, new centrepiece of the month. i am still into hyacinths - they last for ever, they have an amazing colour and i love the scent (some of my guests almost faint when they enter my apartment but they will have to deal with it ;-).

very simple centrepiece - i filled a big glassbowl with moss (make sure you dust it with some water - using a spray bottle - so its nice and soft) then placed the hyacinth bulbs into the moss and covered them with a last layer of moss so they sit in the bowl nicely.


make sure you put them on your balcony at night - this way your centrepiece lasts for weeks and weeks. you could use other flowers such as tulips, paperwhite or daffodils to make this centrepiece.


you could use any other container to make this - a soup bowl, a fruitbowl - even a wirebasket would be wonderful to hold the moss & flowers.


only water once a week with very little water - it doesnt need much, since all the power is coming from the bulb.

make sure you check out sandy's blog - she is the host of centrepiece of the month.