Gingersnap Pear Cheesecake!

I don't know why I've never really made cheesecake before. Although, I'm good at sitting down on Sunday and planning out my dinners for the week, I desserts are spur of the moment decisions, based on a craving. Cheesecakes never really made the cut since I have to delay gratification for a whole day while it sits and settles. But, I figured that eating the batter and leftover cookie crumbs would be enough to satiate me for the evening, and I set out on making this variation of cheesecake - with a gingersnap crust and pear bottom.

The full recipe is on RealSimple.com, but here is generally what you need to do!

For the crust...mix 1 1/2 cups of crushed gingernaps (I think I used more) and 6 tbsp of butter (melted) in a medium bowl. Use this mixure to line a springform pan for the crust. Bake for 20min at 350 degrees.

Peel, core and slice thinly 2 ripe pears and toss with 1/4 tsp of ground ginger - set aside.

With an electric mixer, beat 16 ounces (2 packages) of cream cheese on medium for 2 minutes. Add 1 cup of sugar and beat for another 2 minutes. Add 2 eggs, 1 at a time, until combined. Stir in 2 tsp of vanilla.

Line the pears on the bottom of the cooled crust, then pour in the cream cheese mixture. Bake for about 50 minutes at 350 degrees. When finished, set on a wire rack, but leave the oven on.

For the 'icing' mix 1 cup of sour cream, 1/2 cup sugar, and 1 tsp of vanilla. Use a spatula to spread this over the cheesecake and bake for another 8 minutes.

Once it's done, let it come to room temperature, then cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.

One thing to note - the cream cheese, eggs, and sour cream should all be used at room temperature.

Enjoy!!

How to make mini ice cream cups at a restaurant

In the same category as the microwaveable chocolate cake - probably gross, but fun to try! Special note to Cristin: you will not like this.

Step 1
Go out to eat at any restaurant with the word "waffle" or "pancake" in their name, and/or serving bacon strips in the morning. Many diners, sit-down places at truck stops, and some fast food places. Home will work, too, if you have some of the mini half-n-half cups.

Step 2

Order water. You need two big glasses on the table. Drink all the water. The server will bring water to you right away and usually you won't have to order it. Tell them you are thirsty and would like a big glass. Two big glasses at the table are necessary. You need ice water, not just water. Crushed ice is better. But cubes work too. You need two glasses of ice water for this. Don't order extra ice in your glass, the normal half ice and half water is best. Drink all the water. It's good for you! After drinking the water. you now have 2 big glasses each half filled with ice. Empty ice from one glass to another.

Read the rest here!

Insanely delicious chocolate truffles

This recipe comes courtesy my friend Abby, who makes these for Christmas every year. They're pretty damn easy, and will impress the hell out of your friends and family. Seriously, make these. Ok?

Recipe for 4 dozen truffles (or 3 dozen if you make them a bit bulkier)

1 Tb instant coffee, disolved in 1/4 c water (or, 1/3 C espresso)
8 oz semisweet chocolate
1 oz bitter chocolate
3 egg yolks
1/2 c unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1/4 c myers rum or grand marnier
Unsweetened cocoa
Powdered sugar

1 - Chop chocolate into pieces, put in in a double broiler with the coffee, and melt, while stirring.

2 - In a separate bowl, beat egg yolks. Add 1/2 c chocolate mixture to them, beat well, and add back to the chocolate in the pan. Beat well for 2 minutes, let cool for 5 minutes, and then gradually beat in butter, one or two pieces at a time. Make sure no butter is visible, and add the rum/grand marnier.

3 - Refrigerate one and a half hours (or longer if you're making multiple recipes), until firm enough to do the next step.

4 - Scoop up truffles with a teaspoon and drop them onto a cookie sheet. They will be sticky blobs with no particular shape.

6 - Refrigerate for at least half an hour, but probably not more than an hour and a half.

7 - Combine two parts cocoa and one part powered sugar in a lidded container (I like a glass jar). Probably 1/4 c cocoa and 1/8 c powered sugar will be enough. drop truffles into mix, put on lid, shake to coat, and the pluck them out and quickly roll them into a ball with the palms of your hands. Store in a sealed container in the fridge. I also sometimes keep a jar of cocoa/sugar around to freshen them up when needed.

The Perfect Cookie to Eat with Blue Cheese

Ginger Molasses Cookies (From the Blue Cheese Bonanza -- I think this is the right recipe)

2 1/4 c (11 1/4 oz) unbleached all-purpose flour
1 t baking soda
1 1/2 t ground cinnamon
1 1/2 t ground (dried) ginger
1/2 t ground cloves
1/4 t ground allspice
1/4 t ground black pepper
1/4 t salt
12 T (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cool but soft
1/3 c (2 1/2 oz) granulated sugar (plus more for coating)
1/3 c (2 1/2 oz) packed dark brown sugar
(maybe a bit less sugar?)
1 egg yolk
1 t vanilla extract
1/2 c molasses

In a small bowl, whisk the flour together with the spices, soda and salt. In a medium bowl, cream the butter with the two sugars until smooth. Mix in the yolk and vanilla until homogeneous. Stir in the molasses until uniform. Mix in the flour until just mixed, but with no floury spots; pay attention especially to the bottom of the bowl.

Preheat the oven to 375°F (190 C) and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Dump about 1/3 cup of white sugar into a shallow bowl. With your fingers, pull out walnut sized lumps of dough (or slightly smaller). Drop them into the sugar. Break off as many at a time as will comfortably fit in the sugar and then, one at a time, toss each in the sugar, roll into a ball and place on the lined baking sheets. Space the cookies about 2 inches apart from each other on the baking sheet.

Bake the cookies for about 11 minutes, until the edges are set but the inside still looks underdone. Let the cookies cool about 5 minutes on the baking sheet and then transfer them to the racks with a spatula. They will firm up while they cool. Form and bake cookies as above until the dough is used up.

The cookies can be stored in a tin.

Birthday Cake!

In response to the post from MS, here is the recipe for the birthday cake I brought to Bret, Katy, and Andrew's birthday. Actually, I took this recipe, but changed the frosting to cream cheese and added funny chocolate decorations. But I have made this cake as described here and it's quite good. (Source - LA Times)















Cake:
2 1/2 cups cake flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 teaspoon salt
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
3/4 cup safflower or canola oil
2 cups pumpkin purée

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 2 (9-inch) springform pans. Sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger and salt. In separate bowl, stir together the eggs and sour cream. Stir in the brown sugar and then the oil until just combined; be careful not to overwhisk. Gently stir the flour mixture into the batter just until incorporated and there are no lumps. Stir in the pumpkin purée. Divide the batter between the two prepared pans.

Bake the cakes for about 25 to 30 minutes, until golden brown on top and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (the cakes are moist and there may be a few crumbs on the toothpick, but there should be no batter). Remove and allow the cakes to cool, still in the pans, on a wire rack to room temperature.

Sour cream ganache and assembly
12 ounces semisweet chocolate or 6 (3-ounce) bars, coarsely chopped*
2 cups sour cream, at room temperature
1/4 teaspoon salt (or a bit less)
1 cup chopped, toasted pecans

*For the ganache, a less bitter, lower percentage chocolate will best complement the cake (preferably 60% to 65%)

Melt the chocolate in a bowl set over a pan of gently simmering water. Remove from heat. Gently fold the sour cream into the chocolate until incorporated and uniform in texture, then stir in the salt. Remove the cakes from the pans and place one on a cake stand or serving plate with the flat-bottomed side up and spoon one-fourth of the ganache over the cake. Spread the ganache evenly over the top. Place the second cake, domed side up, evenly over the first and spoon one-half of the remaining frosting over the cake, evenly covering the top and sides. Add additional frosting as needed to coat the cake evenly.

Press the pecans into the sides of the cake. The cake can be kept at room temperature for up to 2 days.

Each of 16 servings: 612 calories; 8 grams protein; 59 grams carbohydrates; 5 grams fiber; 43 grams fat; 15 grams saturated fat; 73 mg. cholesterol; 355 mg. sodium.

Italian Loooove Cake

I haven't been following this blog too much but I just tried this great cake and I got the recipe and I can't believe how easy it is to make. It was really delicious. I don't have any idea why it is called what it's called. Enjoy!

Italian Loooove Cake

1 Box Fudge Marble Cake Mix
2 lbs Ricotta cheese
3/4 cup sugar
4 Eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 Box (3 3/4 oz) Instant Chocolate Pudding
1 cup milk
1 8oz carton Cool Whip

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix cake mix as directed on box. Pour into greased and floured 9 x 13 pan.

In a separate bowl combine ricotta, eggs, sugar and vanilla. Mix well. Spread over the top of unbaked cake. Bake for 1 hour. Cool.

Mix pudding with one cup of milk. Fold into whipped topping. Spread over cake and refrigerate for at least three hours before serving.

Heehee!

My grandmother's recipe. For some reason she would never let me lick the bowl.

Granny's Christmas Cake

Ingredients:
1 cup of water
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup of sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup of brown sugar
Lemon juice
4 large eggs
Nuts
1 bottle gin -Gilbeys London Dry
2 cups of dried fruit

Sample the gin to check temperature. Take a large bowl, check that the gin is maintaining the right temperature still, to be sure it is of the highest quality, pour one level shot glass and sip it. Might as well finish the shot.Turn on the electric mixer. Beat one cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add one teaspoon of sugar. Beat again. At this point it's best to make sure the gin is still OK. The shot glass is empty. ust have evvaporated. Refill the damn thing. Just in Case. Turn off the mixerer thingy. Break 2 leggs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit.

Pick the frigging fruit up off floor. Mix on the turner. If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaterers just pry it loose with a drewscriver. Sample the gin to check for tonsisticity. Next, sift two cups of salt. Or something. How's the gin doin'?. Now shift the lemon juice and strain your nuts. Add one table. Add a spoon of sugar, or somefink. Whatever you can find. Greash the oven. Turn the cake tin 360 degrees and try not to fall over. Don't forget to beat off the turner. Finally, throw the bowl through the window.. Finish the gin and wipe counter with the cat.



CHERRY MISTMAS!

Phuong's Banana Bread

My coworker, Phuong, gave me this recipe and it is AMAZING. It isn't actually called "Phuong's Banana Bread" but that is what I call it - I guess it is actually called "Brandt House Banana Bread" from Greenfield, Massachusetts.

2 sticks butter (1 cup)
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons banking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups mashed bananas
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup sour cream

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, then vanilla. Mix dry ingredients together and blend in. Fold in mashed bananas, chocolate chips, and sour cream. Pour into two greased to "Pammed" loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees for one hour (I don't actually think it takes this long - so check after 45 min prob) Let cool at least twenty minutes before taking out of pan. Makes two loaves.

Double Chocolate Chip Cookies - Grad Student Style

*Candied Bacon not included in this recipe

So Bret promised me his first-born child if I posted these to Recipe Go 'Round, and as there is no such thing better than a tiny little helper monkey, I must post it.

History 

It was given to my mother when she was getting her masters in behavioral therapy by another grad student.  The name of the original giver is lost to time, but the recipe remains.  It was a favorite of mine as a child and still is.

Also, this is probably the easiest recipe in the world.

Ingredients

• 1 box Duncan Hines Butter Recipe Fudge Cake
  
• 1/2 Cup Flour
  
• 2/3 Cup Vegetable Oil
  
• 2 Eggs
  
• 6 oz Chocolate Chips
  
• 1 Cup Walnuts (optional)
  

Directions

• Pre-heat oven to 350˚
  
• Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl until everything is well incorporated.  The cookie dough should have a slightly glossy shine to it.
  
• Take a spoonful of dough or just tear out a chunk from the mix and roll into balls between your hand.
  
• Bake on a greased cookie sheet for 8-11 minutes.
  

Notes

I personally prefer the cookies to be slightly undercooked and allowed to cool for 15 minutes before eating them silly-like.  Also, the boxed cake mix doesn't have to be Duncan Hines nor the Fudge cake variety.  The cake mix does heavily influence the flavor of the cookie, so choose wisely.   From personal experience, strawberry cake mix does not taste that good.

Apple Cranberry Pie with cornmeal crust

Jessica and I made this last night, and it came out fantastic. Pretty easy, really... but allow a lot of time to make it. Goes best (as usual) with vanilla ice cream.

Crust
2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
5 tablespoons sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons solid vegetable shortening, room temperature
6 tablespoons (about) buttermilk

Filling

1 cup fresh cranberries
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
3 pounds Pippin apples, peeled, cored, cut into 1/2-inch thick slices
1/2 cup dried currants (note - we did not use these. They seemed redundant)
5 tablespoons all purpose flour

+ Buttermilk for brushing

For crust:
Mix first 5 ingredients. Add shortening and cut in until mixture resembles coarse meal. Blend in enough buttermilk by tablespoons to form dough that begins to clump together. Gather dough into ball; divide in half. Flatten each half into disk. Wrap each disk in plastic and chill 45 minutes. (Can be made 1 day ahead.)

For filling:
Position rack in lowest third of oven and preheat to 375°F. Coarsely chop cranberries with sugar and pumpkin pie spice in processor. Transfer mixture to large bowl. Add apples, currants and flour and toss well.

Roll out 1 dough disk between sheets of waxed paper to 13-inch round. Peel off top sheet of paper; invert dough into 9 1/2-inch-diameter deep-dish glass pie dish. Peel off paper. Fold under overhanging dough to form double-thick edge. Crimp edge. Roll out remaining dough disk on lightly floured surface to 1/8-inch-thick round. Using 3-inch-long leaf cookie cutter, cut out leaves. Using knife, mark veins in leaves. Slightly mound filling in pie dish. Arrange leaves around edge of pie and all over top, overlapping decoratively. Brush pastry all over with buttermilk.

Place pie on baking sheet. Bake 45 minutes. Cover pie with foil and continue baking until juices bubble thickly and crust browns, about 35 minutes more. Transfer pie to rack and cool 1 hour. Serve warm or at room temperature with ice cream.

Novelicious Pumpkin Butterscotch Chip Cookies

It's crazy, right? Pumpkin and butterscotch? Yes, it's a novelty cookie. But it works.

These little gems end up being more like bite sized cake-breads thanks to all the moisture (pumpkin and oil), but they have a fantastic flavor thanks to the surprising little butterscotch bits.

2 C. all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 large eggs
1 C. white sugar*
1/2 C. canola or corn oil**
1 C. canned pumpkin
1 tsp vanilla
1 C. butterscotch chips

* (could reduce a tad?)
** (try butter instead for crunchier cookies?)

Rack in middle of oven. Preheat to 325 degrees.

Sift flour, powder, soda, salt, and cinnamon. In another bowl, beat eggs and sugar until smooth. Mix oil, pumpkin, and vanilla until blended. Mix in flour mixture until incorporated. Mix in butterscotch chips.

Scoop out 1/4 C. mounds at least 2 inches apart on baking sheets. Smooth out the mounds with a spatula before baking to get a prettier cookie (they end up coming out about how they go in).

Bake the cookies, one sheet at a time, until the top are firm and toothpick just comes out clean -- about 16 minutes. Cool, and dust lightly with powerdered sugar.

Strangely, these cookies only get more and more moist the longer they sit around. Experiment with butter to keep that in check. Or just eat them up faster.

Lemon Ginger cookie sandwiches

Just made these tonight with my friend Isaac - they came out pretty well, though are insanely rich.

Cookies

2 C unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 t. salt

2 1/2 t. ground ginger

1 t. ground cinnamon

1 C (2 sticks) butter, room temp.

1 C powdered sugar

2 t. finely grated lemon zest

1 t. vanilla

1 C whole blanched almonds, toasted then finely ground (4 oz)

Lemon filling

1/2 C (1 stick) butter

1 1/2 C powdered sugar

2 t. lemon zest

1 TB lemon juice

Sift all the dry stuff. Mix butter and sugar until smooth, with an electric beater if you have one. Add the zest, vanilla, and almonds. Mix in the flour until it's just incorporated. Divide the dough in half and form into 2 6-inch disks - wrap in plastic and refrigerate 40 minutes.

Pre-heat oven to 325. Roll the dough out to 1/4 inch thickness, and cut out disks with your favorite round thing. This recipe is actually suppose to make only 9 cookies, but I made them a little smaller and wound up with more cookies. Since the recipe has THREE STICKS OF BUTTER in it, it's probably a good idea. For half of the cookies (ie, the tops of the sandwiches) it can be cute to poke out a smaller hole - donut-style - so that the filling oozes out of the sandwiches. 

Bake the cookies for 20 minutes, or until lightly brown. Note: They don't actually change color all that much.

For the filling: With an electric mixer, mix butter, sugar, zest, and lemon juice until smooth. 

Let cookies cool, then spread filling and make the cookies. Then, eat them. Store in the fridge but serve at room temperature.

Apple Crisp

This is a really good recipe for right now because there are all kinds of good baking apples available now.

1 cube butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup oatmeal
1 tsp cinnamon

6 crisp baking apples - Granny Smiths, Gravenstein or your favorite apple that you use for apple pie - needs to be tart

Peel and slice apples and place in a greased 9x12 baking dish and toss with a little bit of sugar and cinnamon.

Make topping: Add all ingredients together mix with a pastry cutter till you have small clumps

Pat the topping on top of the apples and bake at 350 for 1 hour

Serve warm or at room temperature. Adding a scoop of vanilla ice cream makes this very nice. Enjoy!

The best chocolate pie in the WORLD!

Another great one from my Grandma.

Here's Grandmama's Chocolate Pie Recipe

3/4 cup Sugar
4 Heaping Tbsp. Sifted flour
1/4 Cup Hershey Cocoa

Mix dry ingredients well in your sauce pan -- to that add:

1 1/4 cup milk -- add a little at a time, on fairly high heat, stir constantly -- When hot, cut back heat to medium
and cook 'til it becomes lumpy -- keep stirring 'til the lumps fade away and remove from heat

2 Egg Yolks (save the whites for your meringe) Beat yolks well & add small spoonful of chocolate mixture to egg.
Keep adding spoonfuls ( 4 - 5 ) to the yolk. This will help "cook" the egg without it curdling

Add egg mixture to the pot & place back on low-medium heat and add:

1/2 Stick butter
1 tsp. Vanilla

Mix well & pour into your slightly pre-cooked pie shell

FOR THE MERINGUE

2 Egg Whites
4 level Tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. Vanilla

Beat egg whites in mixer 'til forms soft peaks. Gradually add sugar 1 spoonful at a time and beat well. Add vanilla and stir into the whites. Spread on pie after it has cooled a bit

Bake @ 325 aprox 15 min.

The Best Chocolate Cake in the WORLD!

From my Grandma, to my Mom, to me, to YOU! Enjoy!

Granmama's Chocolate Cake

Preheat oven at 400 Bake time: 20 - 30 min.

In mixing bowl: Mix these together really well
2 cups Flour
2 Cups Sugar

In Sauce pan: Bring this to a boil
1 Stick butter
4 Tbsp. Cocoa
1/2 Cup oil (Not Olive Oil)
1 Cup water

Pour this over the sugar & flour mixture and add:
1 level tsp baking powder
1 level tsp baking soda
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla

Mix well
Fold in 2 beaten eggs
Bake in 9 x 14 greased & lightly floured pan
Let cake cool for at least 10 min. before icing

For the Icing: This is just the recipe off the Hershey Cocoa can which I like a lot.

1 Stick butter
2/3 cup Hershey cocoa
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla

Melt butter & stir in cocoa
Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating on medium speed to spreading consistencey
Add more milk, if needed
Stir in vanilla

Bestemoder's Klejner

Bestemoder Jørgensen's Klejner (pronounced Kliner)

3 Eggs
1 cup Sugar
1/4 cup (whipping) Cream
1/2 cup Butter
1 1/2 tsp Cardamom (open pods, the crush the seeds inside)
1 tsp Baking Powder
3 & 1/2 cups flour (more or less)
vegetable oil for frying
powdered sugar, sifted and in a big bowl

Blend softened butter and sugar, then stir in the eggs and cream. Sift flour and baking powder. Add to first mixture. This should make a soft dough, yet stiff enough to roll. Chill the dough for at least two hours.

Roll dough out to about 1/8 inch thickness (thin) on a floured surface and cut into diamond shapes (a roller for cutting pastry helps here). Make a slit in the center and pull one point (end) through the slit.

Heat one or two frying pans half-full of oil (depending on how many people participate in this project! - if only one person, one pan is enough).

Drop a bit of dough in the oil to see if oil is hot enough (dough rises to the surface if hot enough). Place 3-5 klejner in the oil, turn them when they BEGIN to turn golden and have risen to the surface, then take quickly out of pan with a knitting needle (the Danish way) or, if no needle, use a pairs of tongs or skewers (for kebabs), and put on paper towels on a plate.

If children are involved in this (such as Katy and Bret (Jørgensen) Turner), they can do the following part with no risk of getting burned and much risk of getting cavities:

Sift powdered sugar lightly on klejner, or, more fun for kids, let them roll (LIGHTLY) the klejner in the powdered sugar. Place on a plate (or in the mouth if the parents aren't watching too carefully).

These doughnut like cookies need to be kept in an air tight container or in the fridge, well sealed, since they don't keep well. They are beautiful and delicious, well worth the work, and go very well with Christmas!