Cookies and Cream Cheesecakes March 5, 2010

It’s been a while since I’ve baked a dessert… too long!  For no real reason, other than curiosity and a love of Oreos, I decided to make cookies and cream cheesecakes today.  The recipe I tried is from the Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes book, a beautiful and inspiring book I am fond of ogling.

This recipe can be found on the Recipes page, as well as at the bottom of this post.

First off, I am using double-stuff “Disko” cookies from Fresh & Easy – a lot cheaper than the real Oreos!  Tastes the same!

The recipe calls for 12 of the 42 cookies to be coarsely chopped; rather than dirty up a cutting board and a knife, I put the cookies in a freezer-sized ziplock bag and crushed them with a rolling pin, then broke them up further with my hands (from the outside of the bag).  Much easier!

As is typical when baking cheesecakes, the oven is set at the low temperature of 275 degrees F.  I lined my muffin tins (I’m using three!) with paper liners, and put a whole cookie at the bottom of each cup.  Now I can start on the batter!

Using my standing mixer, I have put my two pounds of cream cheese in the bowl and started mixing it (by itself) on medium-high speed – enough to get it creamy/whippy.  Although the recipe says to gradually add the one cup of sugar, I dumped it all in at once, then scraped the bowl and mixed for another 20 seconds or so.  Then I added the vanilla – probably more than the one teaspoon the recipe calls for.  I am a total vanilla enthusiast.  Whenever I use it, I subscribe to the “more is more” attitude.  After adding the vanilla, I mixed for another 20 seconds (until I could no longer see the liquid).

Then in go the four lightly beaten eggs, added in small parts.  I only beat the batter between additions until I could see the egg was just incorporated.  Next, a pinch of salt and one cup of sour cream.  Lastly, the cookie pieces get stirred into the batter by hand.

Using a small measuring cup (a 1/3 cup worked well), I scooped batter and filled the muffin tins until they were almost full.  Unlike cakes/cupcakes, cheesecakes do not expand much during the baking process, so it’s alright to do this.  As it turned out, I had a lot of extra batter!  Since I had been anticipating making 30, I had prepared two full muffin tins and half of another, so I just added more paper liners to the other half and more cookies.  I still had too much batter beyond the additional six, but I just let it go.

I baked the batches one at a time in the oven, rotating the tins halfway through the 22 minute bake time.  The baking process was complete when the batter had set.  Once the tin has come out of the oven, they are to be set on a cooling rack until they have cooled completely.  Do not remove the cheesecakes from the tin itself though!  In order for these to retain their shape, they are supposed to stay in the tin until they are ready to serve.  After the batch has cooled to room temperature, they go into the fridge for at least four hours until they are ready to be eaten.

So… the wait time to try these is hard!  But they will so be worth it…

Four hours later!!

In the fridge, the cheesecakes condensed a bit and pulled away from the sides of the muffin tin.  Even though they haven’t 100% set (and probably won’t until tomorrow), I’m going for it.

They are sooooo good!!  It’s creamy and just sweet enough, and texturally nice with the cookie crumbles and the slightly softened cookie at the bottom (a la a dunked-in-milk Oreo).  I’m usually not crazy about cheesecake, but this I would make again.

Now, the last order of business… what are my husband and I going to do with 36 mini cheesecakes?  Looks like it’s time once again for non-occasion dessert giveaways!

Here is the recipe:

Cookies and Cream Cheesecakes

Thanks again for reading!

Cookies and Cream Cheesecakes March 4, 2010

Awhile back, my mom and sister bought me the book Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes, which I have been awed and inspired by.  However, this is my first time I’ve actually tried a recipe from this book (I have a list of others that I will also be trying!).

Ingredients:

42 Oreos (or equivalent) – 30 whole, 12 coarsely chopped
2 pounds cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs, room temperature, lightly beaten
1 cup sour cream
Pinch of salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 275 degrees F.  Line standard muffin tins with paper liners.  Place one whole cookie in the bottom of each lined cup.

With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat the cream cheese until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.  Gradually add the sugar and beat until combined.  Beat in the vanilla.

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

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

Yields 30 mini-cheesecakes.

Holiday Cookies! Part 3 – Peanut Butter Blossoms December 22, 2009

The last part of my 3-part series!  Thank goodness, I’ve been baking for hours now!

The peanut butter blossom is essentially a peanut butter cookie with a Hershey’s Kiss stuck on top.  This cookie will be filling the chocolate requirement for the cookie assortment I am giving away as gifts.

The recipe for this cookie can be found on the Recipes page, as well as at the bottom of this post.

Also, you can read Holiday Cookies!  Part 1 – Shortbread Cookies here, and Holiday Cookies!  Part 2 – Mexican Wedding Cakes/Russian Tea Cakes here.

Unlike my two other cookies I’ve been making (shortbread and Mexican wedding cakes), there are a lot of ingredients in these.

A bag of Hershey’s Kisses, butter (the original recipe calls for shortening, but I don’t like to use that), creamy peanut butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, an egg, milk, vanilla extract, flour, baking soda, salt, and extra granulated sugar.

Unlike the other two cookies I made today, I am going to use my standing mixer.  First I cream the butter and peanut butter together until they are well blended.  Then I add both the granulated and brown sugar and continue to beat until the mixture is light and fluffy.

I then added the egg, milk and vanilla and mixed until that was all incorporated as well.  Since I’m using the standing mixer, I am making sure to scrape the bowl and paddle after each time I add an ingredient.

In a separate bowl, I have stirred together the flour, baking soda and salt.  This will be added to the peanut butter mixture gradually; I did it one-third at a time, beating well between additions.

Now that the dough is ready, I have my baking sheet lined with parchment paper.  The dough is rolled into about 1″ balls and rolled in a bowl of granulated sugar, then placed on the baking sheet.  Unlike with the Mexican Wedding Cakes, these cookies will expand and you should place them at least 1″ apart.

Up until this point, these cookies are exactly like a peanut butter cookie.  But unlike a peanut butter cookie, the ball of dough is not meant to be pressed down with a fork before it’s baked.

While the cookies are baking, I started unwrapping the foil from the Kisses.

The cookies baked for about 10 minutes – as soon as they were taken out of the oven, a Kiss is pressed down on top of each cookie, crinkling the cookie outward.  Then the cookie is removed from the baking sheet and placed on a cooling rack.

Once completely cooled, the cookie should be chewy and moist, and the Kiss should have actually softened and is easy to bite through (due to the heat that was contained in the cookie).

So there you have it!  All of my holiday cookies.  The recipe is here:

Peanut Butter Blossoms

And the other parts can be read here:

Holiday Cookies!  Part 1 – Shortbread Cookies

Holiday Cookies!  Part 2 – Mexican Wedding Cakes/Russian Tea Cakes

Thanks for reading!

Holiday Cookies! Part 2 – Mexican Wedding Cakes/Russian Tea Cakes December 22, 2009

Part 2 of my 3-phase holiday cookie extravaganza!  Read Holiday Cookies!  Part 1 – Shortbread Cookies here, and Holiday Cookies!  Part 3 – Peanut Butter Blossoms here.

This recipe can be found on the Recipes page, as well as at the bottom of this post.

I started making the Mexican wedding cakes/Russian tea cakes while my shortbread cookie dough was setting in the refrigerator.

My ingredients are butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, flour, nuts (I used pecans), salt, and extra powdered sugar for later.

A tip about buying pecans – try to get the bag that is labeled “chopped pecans” or “pecan pieces,” not “whole pecans.”  There’s nothing wrong with the whole pecans if that’s all you can get, but they’re a little more expensive than the others and you’ll have to do that much more chopping.

So to start, I got the oven set and mixed the butter, powdered sugar and vanilla in a large bowl with a handmixer until fully combined.  It starts out looking a lot like frosting!  Same ingredients as frosting, actually.

I then measured out the pecans and put them on a chopping board.  I finely chopped the nuts with a chef’s knife, but this also could have been done in a food processor.  It’s really not a lot of work by hand though, and it’s always a bit of a pain to drag out and wash the different food processor components.

Into the mixture goes the now-chopped nuts, the flour and the salt, all to be stirred in by hand.  The dough is loose and pebbly, which is normal.

I have my prepared baking sheet lined with parchment paper ready – start rolling the dough into about 1″ spheres between your hands (keep the “bite-sized” aspect in mind), then place on the baking sheet.  The nice thing about these cookies is that they don’t expand much during the baking process (note no leavening agent – baking powder or baking soda), so you fit a lot of cookies on the baking sheet at once.

The cookies then bake for about 10 minutes.  They are definitely set and are turning slightly golden (not too much).  While the first batch was in the oven, I prepared another sheet of cookies to go in next.  So the first batch of cookies is removed from the baking sheet and placed on a cooling rack, and I get a bowl of powdered sugar ready to have the baked cookies rolled in.

After the cookies have cooled about 5 to 10 minutes, enough so they are no longer hot but are still warm, I begin to roll each cookie in the bowl of sugar.  Get all surfaces of the cookie covered.

Later, after the cookies have cooled completely, they are re-rolled in the powdered sugar.  The first coat of sugar will have melted a little and absorbed into the cookie making it a bit sticky, which is good for getting the second coat of sugar to adhere.

The Mexican wedding cake/Russian tea cake is light, crisp, and so good you’ll want to eat them handful after handful.

Recipe is here:

Mexican Wedding Cakes/Russian Tea Cakes

and the other parts are here:

Holiday Cookies!  Part 1 – Shortbread Cookies

Holiday Cookies!  Part 3 – Peanut Butter Blossoms

Holiday Cookies! Part 1 – Shortbread Cookies December 22, 2009

This year for the holidays, I decided to bake three types of cookies to give away – shortbread cookies, Mexican wedding cakes/Russian tea cakes, and peanut butter blossoms.  Baking cookies is always fun at the holidays – they make inexpensive gifts, keep and transport better than most other baked goods and are great for sharing.

When making multiple types of cookies, you have to decide what the most logical order to making them is.  I chose this order for today:  shortbread first, Mexican wedding cakes second, and peanut butter blossoms third.  I did this because the shortbread dough needs to refrigerate for two hours, the wedding cakes don’t require a lot of clean up, and the peanut butter blossoms take the longest altogether.

As usual, the recipes for these cookies can be found on the Recipes page and at the bottom of each post page.

You can find Holiday Cookies!  Part 2 – Mexican Wedding Cakes/Russian Tea Cakes here, and Holiday Cookies!  Part 3 – Peanut Butter Blossoms here.

So first, the shortbread.  The shortbread uses just four ingredients – butter, sugar, an egg yolk, and flour.  At first I was only going to make one batch of shortbread cookies, but I quickly realized that wouldn’t be enough for my needs – so I doubled the recipe.

First I creamed the butter and sugar together.  I just used my handmixer for these cookies – it wasn’t worth dirtying up the standing mixer.

After the sugar and butter were nicely blended together, I added the egg yolks and mixed some more – enough so the egg yolk was incorporated throughout the mixture.  Then I added all of the flour to the mix and stirred it in by hand – don’t bother trying to use the handmixer for this part.  It won’t work well and will add a lot of stress to its motor.

The dough should be kind of loose at this point – that is fine.  With my hands, I pressed the dough together into a ball.  I then got a piece of plastic wrap and put the dough on it.  I then rolled the dough into a long, thin, baguette-looking log.  Then into the fridge for a couple hours until it set.

If you were more pressed for time, putting the dough into the freezer for 20 to 30 minutes (but not much longer than that) would work as well.  Just make sure you do put it away, fridge or freezer, because working with the soft dough will be a headache you will want to avoid.

While I was waiting for my dough to set in the fridge, I made my other cookies (which you can read about in the other posts).

So after getting the dough set, the log turned out to be less round and more like a rounded rectangle, which is fine.  I used a chef’s knife and started cutting the dough into 1/4″ slices.  That is a good thickness, because any thinner would cause the cookies to be either burnt or crunchy, and any thicker and they would be dark on the edges and soft in the middle, which is not ideal for a shortbread cookie.

I then placed the cookies on the baking sheet lined with parchment paper and baked them for about 17 minutes.  When I removed them from the oven, I moved them from the baking sheet to the cooking rack.  They are a little soft when you first take them out of the oven, but after cooling completely, the cookie is light and crisp.

The shortbread cookie is kind of a blank canvas – to the dough, you can add chopped up toffee or nuts, or once it’s baked you can dip half the cookie in chocolate and let it dry.  But it’s simple and uncomplicated as is too!

The recipe is here:

Shortbread Cookies

and the other parts continue here:

Holiday Cookies!  Part 2 – Mexican Wedding Cakes/Russian Tea Cakes

Holiday Cookies!  Part 3 – Peanut Butter Blossoms

Mexican Wedding Cakes/Russian Tea Cakes December 21, 2009

Mexican Wedding Cakes?  Russian Tea Cakes?  I don’t know what is the “correct” name for these, but they are the same – spherical cookies with nuts in the dough and rolled in powdered sugar after they come out of the oven.  They are bite-sized, light and crisp.  They are perfect to make at holiday time, and great to bake and share with others.

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup finely chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans work well)
1/4 tsp. salt
Extra powdered sugar

Directions:

Heat the oven to 400 degrees.  Mix butter, 1/2 cup powdered sugar and the vanilla in a large bowl.  Stir in flour, nuts and salt until the dough holds together.

Shape the dough into 1″ balls.  Place about 1″ apart on an ungreased baking sheet (line with parchment paper if you have it).

Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until set but not brown.  Remove from baking sheet, cool slightly on a cooling rack.

Roll warm (not hot!) cookies in powdered sugar. Now cool completely.  Roll in powdered sugar once more.

Makes 4 dozen cookies.

Shortbread Cookies December 21, 2009

Shortbread cookies are simple and delicious – this recipe has only four ingredients.  I don’t think there is a person alive who doesn’t like these.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 egg yolk
1 1/8 cups flour (note: 1/8 cup = 2 tablespoons)

Directions:

Cream the butter and sugar.  Beat in the egg yolk.  Stir in the flour.  Shape the dough into a 1 1/2″ roll on plastic wrap or wax paper.  Wrap well and refrigerate at least 2 hours.  Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Slice dough into 1/4″ thick slices.  Place 1″ apart on an ungreased baking sheet (line with parchment paper if you have it) and bake 15 to 20 minutes, or until the edges are lightly browned.  Remove from baking sheet and cool completely on a rack.

Makes about 2 dozen.

Peanut Butter Blossoms December 21, 2009

Peanut Butter Blossoms are basically a peanut butter cookie with a Hershey’s Kiss stuck on top.  The Kiss adds that little bit of chocolate that we all secretly felt was missing from a peanut butter cookie in the first place.

Note:  This is a Hershey’s recipe that I made a change to – instead of using shortening as their recipe calls for, I use butter.  I don’t care for shortening and won’t use it if I have the option.  In this recipe, I don’t see any detriment to using butter.

Ingredients:

1 (9 oz.) bag Hershey’s Kisses
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 egg
2 tbsp. milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
Extra granulated sugar

Directions:

Heat the oven to 375 degrees.  In a large mixing bowl beat butter and peanut butter until well blended.

Add 1/3 cup granulated sugar and brown sugar; beat until light and fluffy.  Add egg, milk and vanilla; beat well.

In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking soda and salt; gradually add to peanut butter mixture.  Shape the dough into 1″ balls.  Roll in granulated sugar; place on an ungreased baking sheet (line with parchment paper if you have it).

Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until lightly browned.  Immediately place Kisses on top of each cookie, pressing down so the cookie cracks around the edges.  Remove from baking sheet and place on cooling rack.

Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge December 18, 2009

Ahh, fudge.  Everyone likes fudge.  Especially around the holidays.  I always forget how easy it is to make fudge, which is probably a good thing.  I really only should make it once a year, max.  So lets make this one count!

The recipe in text form can be found on the Recipes page, as well as at the bottom of this post.

This fudge recipe is courtesy of Crisco (apparently; my sister emailed me the recipe from the Crisco website).  I always find it funny when a food brand puts out a recipe that really only marginally uses the product they represent, i.e. a salt company putting out a vanilla frosting recipe, where you only use 1/4 teaspoon salt.  This was very much like that, as you are recommended to use Crisco brand non-stick cooking spray to coat the tin foil.

So first I gathered my ingredients; there are very few!  Just milk chocolate chips (semi-sweet could be used as well), a jar of peanut butter (I chose creamy, though crunchy is an alternative), a can of sweetened condensed milk, and almond extract.

I then got my mold ready.  I used an 8″ square glass pan (I have also used a round cake pan before, which works fine if you don’t mind some of the fudge pieces having rounded edges).  I then used a sheet of tin foil and pressed it into the pan, and indeed sprayed a light coat of cooking spray (not Crisco though – sorry).

The recipe I followed said to microwave the peanut butter and the chocolate chips, but as I did not have a microwave-safe bowl that could hold all of my ingredients, I decided to use my double boiler.  If you use a double boiler for this as well, make sure you have your heat on pretty high.  Also, try to get the chocolate chips in contact with the metal of the pan as much as possible (don’t just have it in a towering pile).  It took a while for everything to melt, but it eventually got there.  Try to stir constantly and slowly.

A note about double boilers:  if you don’t have an actual double boiler, a glass or metal bowl put over a pan of simmering water works very well too.  Or, I saw at Ikea a little while back, they sell double boiler inserts for very cheap – $5 or less – and it is basically a metal bowl with a handle.

So once my chocolate and peanut butter was all melted and happily incorporated, I took the pan off the stove and brought it to my counter.  I put in a drizzle of almond extract (the recipe calls for 1/4 teaspoon, but I just eyeballed it), and emptied the can of sweetened condensed milk.  I really don’t know much about using sweetened condensed milk (other than some people put it on their pancakes instead of syrup – weird!), but I know for this it gives fudge its, well, fudge-iness, I guess.  I stirred (more folded, actually) everything in until it was uniform consistency.

The fudge was then ready for the pan.  At this point it was already beginning to change from being liquidy to paste-like.  I just made sure it was evenly distributed into the pan, pressing the corners in well.  Then into the fridge for an hour.

After that hour, I took the fudge out and got ready to cut it.  The recipe said to cut it into 48 pieces (but really, you can cut any way you want, depending on your needs), so I planned on cutting 6 slices one way, 8 slices the other (6 x 8 = 48).  Before cutting into it, I scored the top of the fudge with my knife so I would have some guidance.  Then I slowly cut the fudge with a sharp chef’s knife – I would recommend this and to rinse your knife often with hot water, then wipe the knife dry before continuing.

When I started to try to separate the pieces, I could tell they were still too soft and hadn’t fully set, so I popped them back in the pan and into the fridge for another hour or so.  I think because a large portion of this fudge specifically is peanut butter, which is by nature oily and soft, it took longer for the fudge to set.  After that additionally chilling in the fridge, it was good to go.

I put my fudge pieces in a tin, with wax paper separating the layers.  The fudge turned out very good – a smooth and creamy texture, not crumbly or dry.  I personally like to have nuts in fudge, so next time I might opt for the crunchy peanut butter instead of creamy, but this was excellent nonetheless.  I plan on giving most of it away as soon as possible – I love to make it, not have it in the house for snacking!

The fudge recipe is here:

Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge

Thanks for reading – happy fudging!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge December 18, 2009

Mmm, nothing about this sounds bad.  My sister emailed this recipe to me and the same day I was out buying ingredients.  This version of fudge uses sweetened condensed milk, unlike the other way to make fudge – with marshmallows.  I haven’t done the marshmallow version lately, but my recollection of it is that it turned out dry and crumbly.  Don’t get me wrong – I’ve tried other people’s fudge that used marshmallow and it was awesome – the issue was my execution.  Maybe I’ll try that version in the future, but for now…

Ingredients:

1 (18 oz.) jar peanut butter, crunchy or creamy
1 (12 oz.) bag chocolate chips, milk or semi-sweet
1/4 tsp. almond extract
1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk

Directions:

Line an 8″ square pan with aluminum foil, extending the foil over the edges of the pan.  Spray lightly with cooking spray.

Place peanut butter and chocolate chips in a medium-sized microwave-safe bowl.  Microwave on high 1 to 2 minutes, stirring occasionally until melted.

Stir in almond extract and sweetened condensed milk until blended.  Pour into prepared pan; chill 1 hour or until firm.  Remove fudge from pan by lifting foil; remove foil.  Cut into 48 pieces.

Variation:

I personally don’t have a microwave-safe bowl that would accommodate all those ingredients, but I do have a double boiler.  It takes a little longer (around 10 minutes or so), but it works well.  So if you’re using a double boiler, have the stove heat on medium-high, and try to have the chocolate chips touching the surfaces of the pan as much as possible.  Once the chocolate is melted and incorporated well with the peanut butter, take off the heat and then add the milk and extract.