Mini Cookies and Cream Cheesecakes

Firstly, I'm going to have to start off another post with an apology. I know it's been a long time since I've posted and hopefully I'm going to be able to catch up on posts in the near future. To be honest, though, I haven't been cooking as much as I usually do. Well, when it comes to things I can blog about anyway. This has been for a couple of reasons, but the main two are that I'm saving up for an overseas trip at the end of the year (New York!!) plus I've been trying to eat healthier meals and less snacks. So you can see why I haven't had many things I could blog about! But, I'm not going to let this stop me from blogging. My plan is to share some more budget friendly meal options and less of the usual treats you might have become used to seeing. Well apart from today's post, as you can see!
These cheesecakes were a great last minute recipe for a BBQ I was invited to. They were super easy to make and turned out beautifully (thanks Martha!). My sister didn't need to be asked twice when I offered to leave the 6 leftover cheesecakes for her and her partner to eat. I made it a little more affordable by halving the recipe - there was only 9 of us at the BBQ, so the full recipe for 30 cheesecakes (plus the lemon meringue pie my Mum made) would have been a little over the top!
Ingredients: (for the full recipe)
42 cream-filled chocolate sandwich cookies, such as Oreos, 30 left whole and 12 coarsely chopped
900g (2 pounds) cream cheese
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup sour cream
Pinch of salt

1. Preheat oven to 135C (275F). Line muffin tins with paper liners. Place 1 whole cookie in the bottom of each lined cup.

2. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat cream cheese until smooth. Gradually add sugar, and beat until combined. Beat in vanilla.

3. Drizzle in eggs, a bit at a time, beating to combine and scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Beat in sour cream and salt. Stir in chopped cookies by hand.

4. Divide batter evenly among cookie-filled cups, filling each almost to the top. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, about 22 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely. Refrigerate (still in tins) at least 4 hours (or up to overnight). Remove from tins just before serving.

Recipe Source:
Martha Stewart's Cupcakes
Recipe for 'Cookies and Cream Cheesecakes'

Mini Cookies and Cream Cheesecakes Ingredients: (for the full recipe) 42 cream-filled chocolate sandwich cookies, such as Oreos, 30 left whole and 12 coarsely chopped 900g (2 pounds) cream cheese 1 cup sugar 1 tsp vanilla extract 4 large eggs, lightly beaten 1 cup sour cream Pinch of salt Method: 1. Preheat oven to 135C (275F). Line muffin tins with paper liners. Place 1 whole cookie in the bottom of each lined cup. 2. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat cream cheese until smooth. Gradually add sugar, and beat until combined. Beat in vanilla. 3. Drizzle in eggs, a bit at a time, beating to combine and scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Beat in sour cream and salt. Stir in chopped cookies by hand. 4. Divide batter evenly among cookie-filled cups, filling each almost to the top. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, about 22 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely. Refrigerate (still in tins) at least 4 hours (or up to overnight). Remove from tins just before serving.

(Key) Lime Pie

I happen to be fascinated with what I see as typically American food, and I love introducing my family to weird and wonderful desserts that they'd never contemplated eating. Red Velvet cupcakes are now a huge favourite for my family, and I've blown their minds on a couple of occassions with a great Pumpkin Pie recipe that I found. "Pumpkin in a dessert?!" they exclaimed when I served it up a couple of Christmas's ago. Key Lime Pie is another one of these desserts that I've always been interested in trying, but haven't had the chance. Until now. I had my sisters over for dinner after work one night and I decided to make this recipe from the Martha Stewart website. Unfortunately, Key Limes aren't widely available in Australia - the only place I could think of that may have the juice is USA foods, but I didn't have time to get to the store - but this time I decided to see how the pie would come out if I used normal limes in the mixture. Now, I haven't tried a true blue Key Lime Pie, but I absolutely loved how my Lime Pie turned out. It was very similar to Lemon tart or Lemon meringue pie, but I thought the cream on top added something different - and really tasty.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups Chocolate Ripple Biscuits
6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled
5 tbsp sugar
1 can sweetened condensed milk
4 egg yolks
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
1 tbsp grated lime zest, plus more for garnish
1 1/2 cups cream, chilled

Instructions:
1. Heat oven to 190 degrees Celsius. Combine biscuit crumbs, butter and 3 tbsp sugar in a bowl; mix well. Press into a 9 inch pie plate, and bake until lightly browned, about 12 minutes. Remove from oven and transfer to a wire rack until completely cool.

2. Lower oven to 162 degrees Celsius. In a bowl, gently whisk together condensed milk, egg yolks, lime juice, and zest. Pour into the prepared, cooled crust.

3. Bake pie in oven 15-17 minutes, until the centre is set but still quivers when the pan is nudged.

4. Shortly before serving, combine cream and remaining 2 tbsp sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer. Whisk on medium speed until soft peaks form, 2-3 minutes. Spoon over cooled pie. Serve immediately.

Recipe Source:
Martha Stewart website
adapted from the Key Lime Pie recipe

Apple and Raspberry Pie

I have a confession to make. I don't like apples. Well, I don't like apples on their own. I love them in pies and cakes and apple flavoured things, but I don't like the feeling of biting into a whole apple. I don't know why, it's just something that's happened in the past few years. On the other hand my Dad absolutely loves apples, and in particular his favourite thing to do with them is to stew them and eat them with ice cream. The only thing is that he doesn't flavour them in any way, so he's pretty much just eating mushy apple. One of our neighbours has been feeding this habit (literally) by giving him boxes of apples from his trees, so I recently decided to surprise him with a proper apple pie. The recipe I followed for the pie was one I found through the Martha Stewart website and I found the recipe for the pastry in the Bourke Street Bakery cookbook.

Ingredients:
1 1/4kg apples, peeled, cored and cut into slices
170g fresh or partially thawed frozen raspberries
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup plain flour, plus more for work surface
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
Pinch of salt
2 tbsp butter, cut into pieces
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp heavy cream

For Sweet Shortcrust Pastry (Pate Brisee):
400g unsalted butter, chilled, cut into 1.5cm cubes
1 tbsp vinegar, chilled
100g caster sugar, chilled
2/3 cup water, chilled
665g plain flour, chilled
1 tsp salt
To make the pastry:
1. Remove the butter from the fridge 20mins before you start mixing - the butter should be just soft but still very cold so it doesn't melt through the pastry while mixing.
2. Put the vinegar and sugar in a bowl and add the water, stirring well. Set aside for 10 mins, then stir again to completely dissolve the sugar.

3. If you are mixing the dough by hand, mix together the flour and salt in a large bowl and toss through the butter. Use your fingertips to rub the butter into the flour to partly combine.
4. If you're using an electric mixer, put the flour and salt in the bowl of the mixer and add the butter, pulsing in 1 second bursts about three or four times to partly combine.

5. You should now have a floury mix through which you can see squashed pieces of butter. Turn out onto a clean work surface and gather together. 

6. Sprinkle over the sugar mixture and use the palm of your hand to smear this mixture away from you across the work surface (a pastry scraper is a useful tool to use for this step). Gather together again and repeat this smearing process twice more before gathering the dough again. You may need to smear once or twice more to bring it together - you should be able to see streaks of butter marbled through the pastry; this gives a slightly flaky texture to the final product.
7. Divide the dough into two even sized portions and shape into two round, flat discs about 2cm thick. Wrap each disc in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or overnight. 

8. Remove the pastry from the fridge 20 mins before you wish to roll it. Sprinkle a little flour on the bench and rub a little flour over a rolling pin. Working from the centre of the pastry, gently roll the dough away from you, then turn the dough about 30 degrees and roll out again. Repeat this process until you have a flat round disc, about 3mm thick. Sprinkle extra flour over the bench and rolling pin as needed, but try to use it as sparingly as possible - if too much is absorbed into the pastry it will result in a dough with poor flavour and texture. Bear in mind that you are trying to flatten the pastry into a disc, not ferociously stretch it out in all directions as this will only cause the pastry to shrink excessively when baking.

9. Transfer the pastry to a tray and place in the refrigerator, covered in plastic wrap, for at least 2 hours to allow the gluten to relax.

10. Brush a round pie tin with a little butter. Place the pastry on top of the pie tin, ensuring it is in the centre and use your fingers to gently push the pastry into the tin, moving around the rim until all of the pastry has been inserted - you should have about 1 cm of dough hanging over the sides. Use your index finger and thumb to work your way around the edge, forcing the pastry into the tin so that little or no pastry is left protruding. Set the pastry (in the tin) aside to rest for at least 20 minutes in the freezer so that the gluten relaxes and holds its shape when you line it with foil.

11. Once the tart has been lined and rested, preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Line the pastry with a double layer of aluminium foil, making sure the foil is pushed well into the corners. Pour in some baking beads or uncooked rice to fill the case and bake for 20-25 minutes. This is called blind-baking ie. pre-baking the pastry before filling it to ensure the base is crisp and cooked through.  The baking time will vary considerably from oven to oven. When cooked properly, the pastry should have a golden colour all over, particularly in the centre, which tends to be the last part to colour and become crisp. The pie shell is now ready to be filled. 

To make the pie:

1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius. Stir apples, raspberries (I used frozen), sugar, flour, lemon juice, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves and salt in a large bowl. Pour into your preprepared pastry shell. Dot with butter.

 2. On a lightly floured surface, roll out remaining disc of dough to 1/8 inch thick. Cut into a round suitable to the size of your pie shell. Drape over filling. Trim overhang to 1 inch. Press edges to seal. Fold overhang under, and crimp as desired. Make five 3 inch slits in top crust. Refrigerate 20 minutes.

3. Whisk egg yolk and cream in a bowl; brush over top crust. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon mix.

4. Bake until crust is golden and juices are bubbling, 1 hour 10 mins to 1 hour 20 mins. Place foil on rack below to catch juices. Tent pie with foil if browning too quickly. Transfer to wire rack.

Recipe Source:

Recipe for Apple Raspberry Pie from the Martha Stewart website.

Recipe for Sweet Shortcrust Pastry (Pate Brisee) from

the Bourke Street Bakery cookbook

Red Velvet Cupcakes

I know I've already posted about Red Velvet Cupcakes on this blog in the past, but I wanted to share them with you again. I can't get enough of these wonderful, soft, moist cupcakes. They're usually my go to when I need something to bake that I know will turn out well, and I often get requests to make them for various occassions. Recently my sister Andrea approached me about doing some baking for my niece, Ruby's christening. She requested these Red Velvet Cupcakes and a White Chocolate Mud cake (which I'll post about soon). I found these beautiful Robert Gordon patty pans in a cooking shop in the Melbourne CBD and just had to buy some to use for the cupcakes. Perfect for a little girl I think!

My sister had about 20-25 people coming so I wanted to aim for everyone to get at least one cupcake each. I started off making just one batch first to see how many I could get, and then made a second batch, ending up with about 30 cakes in total. I was able to stick with one batch of the cream cheese frosting mixture though, as it was enough to cover all the cupcakes.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups cake flour (to make cake flour - for each cup of cake flour required replace 2 tbsp of plain flour with 2 tbsp corn flour)
2 tbsp Cocoa Powder
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups caster sugar
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
2 eggs
1/2 tsp red gel food colouring
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp white vinegar
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk together cake flour, cocoa and salt.

2. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, whisk together sugar and oil until combined. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Mix in food color and vanilla.

3. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of buttermilk, and whisking well after each. Stir together the baking soda and vinegar in a small bowl (it will foam); add mixture to the batter, and mix on medium speed 10 seconds.

4. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, about 20 minutes.

Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely before removing cupcakes. Cupcakes can be stored overnight at room temperature, or frozen up to 2 months, in airtight containers.

5. To finish, use a small offset spatula to spread cupcakes with frosting. Refrigerate up to 3 days in airtight containers; bring to room temperature before serving.

Recipe Source:
Martha Stewart website
Red Velvet Cupcakes

Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies

It may seem that I'm obsessed with chocolate chip cookies (okay I sort of am) but they're just so easy to make and great if you need something small to nibble (or scoff) on. I went away again at the weekend with some of my friends and thought these would be perfect to take with us, especially when I saw their name. Ultimate chocolate chip cookies? How could I resist!? I took half of the batch away with me over the weekend and I couldn't believe how fast these disappeared! We got down to the beach on the Friday afternoon and they were gone by the end of the next day. My friend's said that they were to die for and I actually had to agree with them. I thought my last recipe that I'd found was fantastic, but these are just that much better! Again, these were also a Martha Stewart recipe. :)

Ingredients:
3 1/2 cups flour
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
2 tsp salt
315g unsalted butter, room temp
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup caster sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
440g chocolate (both white and milk chocolate)

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. In a bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
2. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Reduce speed and beat in eggs, one at a time. Beat in vanilla. Mix in flour mixture just until incorporated; fold in chocolate.

3. Using a 1/4 cup scoop (I actually just grabbed bits of dough and made smaller balls because I like smaller cookies - these still came out quite big though) and refrigerate 1 hour. 

4. Arrange 6 unbaked cookies on each of two baking paper lined trays. Bake cookies until light golden brown, approx 15 minutes. Transfer cookies to a wire rack and let cool. 

Recipe Source: Martha Stewart website

Soft and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

I just got back from a weekend away with my sisters and their partners and my beautiful niece and nephew. We hired a house down in a small town called Barwon Heads which is on the coast here in Victoria. To make things a little bit more affordable we all decided to bring a few food products each, so I decided to cook some Chocolate chip cookies. These cookies are great if you're after something quick, simple and tasty to bake. I always put a nicer eating chocolate in, rather than cooking chocolate, because I like the taste better. I like to put both white and milk chocolate in them too and I always put a little bit more in than asked for in the recipe. There's definitely nothing wrong with more chocolate! If you like your cookies soft and chewy rather than crunchy then these are perfect for you.

Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups plain flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
250g butter, room temperature
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups white and milk chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees. In a bowl, whisk together the flour and baking soda; set aside. In a bowl of an electric mixer combine the butter with both sugars; beat on medium speed until light and fluffy. Reduce speed; add the vanilla and eggs. Beat until well mixed, about 1 minute. Add flour mixture; mix until just combined.

2. Add in chocolate chips and mix well.

3. Drop heaping tbsp size balls of dough about 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with baking paper.

4. Bake until cookies are golden around the edges, but still soft in the centre, 8-10 minutes. Remove from oven, and let cool on baking tray 1-2 mins. Transfer to a wire rack, and let cool completely.

Recipe from: Martha Stewart

One-bowl Chocolate Cake

It was my brother-in-laws birthday a couple of days after New Years Eve. The night before (at about 9pm and still a little wiped out from the night before) I sent a text off to my sister asking her whether she had a cake organised or whether she wanted me to 'whip something up'. I got a text back saying 'That'd be great, he loves chocolate!' I started scrolling through the chocolate cake recipes on the Martha Stewart website and came upon the One-Bowl Chocolate Cake which looked lovely, and I thought I should have all the ingredients to go in it. Yes, folks, should is a great word isn't it?! It turned out that we were completely out of eggs! This coming from the girl who has half a dozen chickens out the back. Plus we had none of the ingredients for the icing! Luckily enough my other sister came to the rescue - they had tonnes of eggs. So I decided to pick up the ingredients for the icing on my way in and just finish baking the cake at her place. So for me, this cake ended up being a two bowl cake rather than the promised one bowl, as I thought I should prepare the wet and dry ingredients that I had and take them separately.

These are just the ingredients I did actually have. The recipe also asked for something called safflower oil, which we didn't have so I substituted it for vegetable oil.
Ingredients:
unsalted butter, softened, for pans
3/4 cup unsweetened Dutch cocoa powder, plus more for pans
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs
3/4 cup buttermilk
3/4 cup warm water
3 tbsp vegetable oil (original recipe calls for safflower oil)
1 tsp vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Butter two round cake pans (2 inches deep); dust with cocoa. Sift cocoa, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into the bowl of a mixer. Beat on low speed until just combined. Raise speed to medium, and add eggs, buttermilk, water, oil and vanilla. Beat until smooth, about 3 minutes.

2. Divide batter between pans. Bake until set and a toothpick inserted into the centres comes out clean, about 35 minutes. Let cool for 15 minutes. Turn out from pans. Transfer, faceup, to wire racks. Let cool completely.

3. Spread 2 cups chocolate icing onto top of 1 cooled layer. Top with remaining layer; frost top and sides with remaining 2 cups icing.

Icing Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups icing sugar

1/4 cup cocoa powder

Pinch of salt

170g cream cheese, room temperature

190g unsalted butter, softened

255g bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled slightly

3/4 cup creme fraiche or sour cream

1. Sift together sugar, cocoa and salt.

2. Beat cream cheese and butter with a mixer on medium-high speed until smooth. Reduce speed to medium-low; gradually add sugar-cocoa mixture, and beat until combined. Pour in chocolate in a slow, steady stream. Add creme fraiche; beat until combined.

This is the first half of the cake covered. I found that the amount of mixture made two quite thin cakes, so you could probably put all the mixture in and just make one bigger cake if you want to. I also had a LOT of icing, really more than I needed for the one cake I felt. I had enough left over that I was able to make another of these cakes a couple of days later and there was enough to cover that one too. 

A note for all of you who want to make this cake, make sure you either put the icing in the fridge before you put it on the cake, or once you've put the icing on the cake give it some fridge time. We had to drive to my sister's house as soon as I'd finished putting the icing on, so not only was I in a bit of a hurry, the icing was far too soft, as you can see in the picture above. I literally had to sit in the car holding the top layer of the cake in place because it kept going to slide off! That was definitely a long car ride! Once we got to my sister's house though, I was able to put the cake in the fridge and it all set quite nicely. I took it back out after the icing was a bit more solid and smoothed it down a touch. Here's a picture of the finished product (please excuse the messy plate and the rushed icing job)

This was a wonderful, moist and delicious cake that was really easy to make. I definitely recommend it for anyone, and I can see myself cooking it again in the future. I particularly loved (OMG LOVED!!) the icing! That was the best part of the cake and I found myself, 'tasting' the leftovers every now and then just to 'check they were still okay. ;)