Mini Cheesecakes

I have a bit of a cheesecake obsession. I'm always looking for a new one. Recently I've had a couple occasions (excuses) to make some mini cheesecakes. These are my favourite. Since they're rich you can split one, but if you have a whole one its not so bad...

The first one, with berries on top was for meeting my boyfriends Mom, around her birthday. I hoped it would help me out a little.. AND it did :)

The second one was to celebrate a nice raise at work. Who doesn't deserve cheesecake??

I have a mini cheesecake pan that makes 6 cheesecakes. I always follow the recipe on the pan pretty closely for amounts, but I'm pretty sure a 9-10" cheesecake would make the same amount. The saddest part about this post is that Williams Sonoma no longer carries this pan. I'm sure you can find something like it somewhere though. Bed bath and beyond always has fun pans!

Here's the recipe and then another one I modified a bit to make chocolate swirl cheesecakes. I always use either all light cream cheese or at least half light and half regular.


Recipes:

Crust:
5 TBSP Butter, Melted
8 Graham Crackers (140g), Crumbled
2 TBSP Sugar

Filling:
500 G Cream Cheese, cut into cubes - Room Temp
3/4 Cup Sugar
1.5 TSP Salt
2/3 Cup Cream
2 Eggs

Set oven to 325F

- Pulse crust ingredients in food processor until it starts to stick together.
- Divide evenly among Cakes
- The recipe said to use your fingers but I found that the bottom of glass worked perfectly
- Pre bake the crusts for about 10 minutes or until set.

Lower the Oven Temp to 300F

- The recipe suggests using a food processor to cream all the ingredients together, this or a mixer will work fine!
- Mix the cream cheese first until smooth, then add the other ingredients.
- Mix till well blended.
- Divide the filling between the cakes, about 2/3 cup in each

- Bake the cheesecakes until the edges are set but the middle is still slightly wobbly. 48 - 52 minutes.
- I don't have a convention oven, I found they took about 55 - 60 minutes
- Transfer to a wire rack (still in pan) and let cool for 2 hours.
- Push cheesecakes out of pan and remove from disks. Transfer to parchment lined sheet and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, or up to 2 days.

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The things I changed the second time:

- I used Oreo crumbs
- I used all light cream cheese (I usually use half light and half full fat)
- 1% Milk instead of cream
- I melted 1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips and added it to half of the cream cheese mixture
- I poured the chocolate on first, the regular cheese mixture on top
- I attempted swirling with a wooden skewer

- I also used a water bath, a brownie pan filled 3/4 with water in the over at the same time.
- I left the cheesecakes in the oven after it was off for about an hour

These were the best looking cheesecakes I ever made, they didn't crack or fall at all.

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My cheesecakes have a tendency to fall and crack without a waterbath so I covered these with berries and made a chocolate drizzle.They were well loved... And no one saw the cracks!

 

My Chocolate swirl cheesecakes didn't quite swirl, I was afraid I'd disrupt the bottoms. But they still turned out great. They had a waterbath, well a brownie pan underneath.

 



Blueberry Greek Yogurt Pancakes (With Sprinkles!)

Let me just start by saying that these are the best pancakes I've ever made. Maybe ate. I was sceptical of the greek yogurt in them. But sprinkles = fun so my skeptisim went away. I found them through twitter, I follow Kitchen Magpie (You should too). These are definitely the best thing I've seen and made from twitter.

I had all the ingredients, except cream - so I substituted milk. I also used no fat greek yogurt, as its what I had in my fridge. Made me feel like they certainly weren't the worst thing I could be eating in the morning. I added some sprinkles to the batter bowl and sprinkled some on the pancakes as they were cooking, definitely the best part. If you have pancake molds, these pancakes were perfect for them. Since the batter is super thick (like a cake), it stays in form. We found these were actually better without syrup because they had such good flavour.

I cooked mine on a well (breakfast) seasoned cast iron griddle, so they turned out a bit darker then I would have liked. But thats the risk of cast iron. Anyone that knows me, knows that I'm obsessed with Le Creuset. But they turned out great. I will definitely make these again. And they made enough for 4 (like the recipe says!) which means my boyfriend and I got them two days in a row!

Heres the link and a photo!

Blueberry Greek Yogurt Pancakes

Cinnamon Buns

Cinnamon buns surprisingly don't have that much cinnamon in them. Not the recipe I used anyways. There's very little to be changed in baking and this recipe had the reviews to back it up.

I made extra frosting - because, I know my people. Other than that, I don't have a bread machine so I did it the old fashioned way. I have a big old jar of yeast so I used that and I used butter instead of margarine. I did a bit of kneading with my hands but I used my kitchen aid mixer with the dough hook mostly.

Here is the tip from another reviewer:

"Dissolve the yeast in the warm milk in a large bowl. Mix in the sugar, margarine, salt, and eggs. Add flour and mix well. Knead the dough into a large ball, using your hands dusted lightly with flour. Put in a bowl, cover and let rise in a warm place about 1 hour, or until doubled in size. Then pick up with rolling out the dough. Hope this helped!"

When I let things rise I always turn my oven on to about 180-200 and once its heated turn it off - I then let the dough rise in the oven with the door slightly open. You won't get a better rise. Cover it with a damp cloth or towel though - it can get a bit crusty.

I baked mine at 350 for about 17 minutes - they turned out the same. We were in a bit of a time crunch and my oven takes a long time to heat. More than those extra 2 minutes.

This recipe is 100% fine on its own though - I've made it several times.

Clone of a Cinnabon

S'mores Brownies

I'm not a huge fan of chocolate. This is probably one of the only chocolate recipes I will ever post. But its definitely a good one.

The only thing I changed about this recipe was instead of buttering the baking pan I lined it with parchment paper. You probably don't need more calories than is in here already. In the pictures you can see I leave some paper hanging out. I do 2 sheets, one each direction, it makes it super easy to just pull out of the pan. And then there's pretty much no clean up at all! I also made this recipe at a later date in my two bite brownie pan and topped it with mini marshmallows.

This is a dense recipe, I recommend 16-24 bars over the original recipes suggested 12. I did put these into a calorie calculator (Feel free to look away, I'm about to ruin this recipe), making 36 two bite brownies each one is over 150 calories. They are a great addition to a dessert table though, so you maybe only have one or two!

The marshmallow is the best part, don't cover the brownie completely though or it will take soooo long to cook. I don't have a convection oven, so I assume that is why this recipe always takes me about an hour to bake. I would start checking it after the 30 minutes, it's always taken me at least 45. Even then, a cake tester will not come out clean. At least it hasn't for me. The two bite brownie pan only took 30 minutes.

These freeze well and everyone that I've ever made them for has loved them. Here's my adapted version of the recipe.


S'mores Brownies
(Adapted slightly from Williams Sonoma)

1 Cup unsalted butter
10 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. kosher salt
1 1/3 cups cake flour
3 Tbs. natural cocoa powder
6 graham crackers, roughly crushed with your hands
About 12 jumbo marshmallows or 50 mini ones for two bite

Directions:

Preheat an oven to 350°F. Line 9x13 Baking Dish with Parchment, leaving ends hanging over sides. See Picture below.

In a saucepan (min 4 qt) over low heat, melt the butter and chocolate, stirring often, for about 4 minutes.

Remove from the heat and whisk in the granulated sugar and brown sugar. 

Whisk in the eggs one at a time, beating well after each egg. 

Whisk in the vanilla and salt.

Sift the flour and cocoa over the chocolate mixture and, using a stiff rubber spatula, stir in until just blended.

Stir in the crumbled graham crackers. Pour into the prepared dish and spread evenly, or scoop with a portioned cookie scoop into Two bite pan (makes 36)

Bake for 20 minutes, and then place the marshmallows on the top of the brownie. This will give the browie a chance to cook with out the marshmallow insulation. 

Bake another 10 to 30 minutes, depending on oven. Start checking for doneness at 30 minutes total. 

Transfer the dish to a wire rack and let cool, then cut into squares. Makes 12-24 brownies depending on desired size.

Still Baking:

 

Finished Product:

Two Bite:

Key Lime Cheesecake

Cheese is my favourite food group. Well Dairy I guess, but cheese is truly all that matters to me in there. Cheese in desert? Yes please. This was my very first attempt at making Cheesecake. It turned out great. Other than the cracks, but if you can be sure of one thing with Cheesecake its that it will indeed crack.

I followed the recipe pretty closely - other than I used vanilla wafer cookies instead of the graham crackers. It took me 2 bags of key limes to get the amount of juice and zest I needed. I also added a squirt of lemon juice to balance the tartness and only used 1/2 cup of the lime juice as recommended by another reviewer. I would also recommend that you butter your pan and pre-bake your crust. Just 10 - 15 minutes at 300 degrees in the oven to set it and to help get it out.

We paired it with some ice wine. Just for fun!


Key Lime Cheesecake

Chicken Risotto

I had a date night with one of my best friends and she desperately wanted to learn to make Risotto. I'm a believer of the saying, "If you can read, you can cook" (the same is not true for baking). I'd never made risotto but I figured, Why not? It can't be that hard. And it wasn't.

I'm pretty sure I did this exact recipe except I only used 2 or 3 Chicken breasts (as I'm not the biggest fan), used onion flakes instead of an onion and used basmati rice instead of regular rice. But I don't think any of these things had a huge impact on the recipe itself. I also added spinach, because in my opinion you just don't get enough greens.

Chicken Risotto

Shepherds Pie - With Brisket

Since this is my most viewed recipe of all time, I decided to post it in full instead of just the links.

I work at a Williams Sonoma. Its great. I own every major cooking appliance, utensil, pot, pan, you name it - I've got it. It also gives me a great opportunity to work with trained chefs and to try some great foods without having to risk it myself first. One of the girls I work with made this and I was hooked. You'll never have regular Shepherds Pie again.

First you're going to want to cook your brisket. I say first because in a dutch oven or slow cooker this is going to take 3 - 6 hours. You need the jar of Brisket starter from Williams Sonoma. It makes it. But I'm sure you can do this with your own sauce just the same. I always do the oven version.

Brisket
(Adapted from Braised Beef Brisket)

Ingredients:
1 flat-end beef brisket, 3 to 3½ lb. or large flank steak
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
2 Tbs. vegetable oil
1 jar brisket starter*
12 oz. carrots, peeled and thinly sliced on the bias

Directions:

Season the brisket or flank steak (I used the steak) on both sides with salt and pepper.

Slow-cooker method: In a large fry pan over medium-high heat, warm the oil. Sear the brisket until well browned on both sides, 8 to 10 minutes total. Transfer to a slow cooker and add the brisket starter and carrots. Cover and cook on high according to the manufacturer’s instructions until tender, about 5 hours.

Oven method: Preheat an oven to 300°F. In a Dutch oven over medium-high heat, warm the oil. Sear the brisket until well browned on both sides, 8 to 10 minutes total. Reduce the heat to medium, add the brisket starter, carrots and 1 cup water and bring to a simmer. Cover the pot tightly with aluminum foil, place the lid on top and transfer to the oven. Bake until the brisket is tender, about 4 hours.

Once your Brisket is done, follow the Shepherds Pie recipe below. You won't regret it.

Brisket Shepherd's Pie
(Adapted slightly from Shepherd's Pie)

Ingredients:

2 lb. potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
3/4 cup milk
2 Tbs. unsalted butter

1 small yellow onion, finely chopped
2 carrots, finely chopped
3/4 cup frozen baby peas, thawed
3 cups shredded braised brisket (see above)
2 cups sauce from brisket or 1 cup beef broth
1 Tbs. chopped fresh thyme

Directions:

In a large saucepan over high heat, combine the potatoes, water to cover and a generous pinch of salt. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to medium and cook until the potatoes are tender when pierced with a knife, 12 to 15 minutes. Drain well.

Pass the potatoes through a ricer into a bowl, or mash in the bowl with a potato masher. Add the milk and 1 Tbs. of the butter, and beat with a wooden spoon or with a handheld mixer on medium speed until smooth and fluffy. Season with 1/2 tsp. salt and 1/4 tsp. pepper.

Meanwhile, in another large saucepan over medium heat, melt the remaining 1 Tbs. butter. Add the onion and carrots and cook, stirring often, until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in the peas, brisket, sauce and thyme and bring to a simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally, until heated through, 7 to 10 minutes.

Preheat a broiler.

Spoon the hot filling into a shallow baking dish, I used the same braiser I cooked in originally. Spread the mashed potatoes evenly over the filling. Place under the broiler and broil until the potatoes are tinged with brown, about 1 minute. Serve directly from the baking dish. Serves 6-8.

Pictures!