It's cheesecake time

It has been quite sometime after I baked the last cheesecake, and that was when I went back to Malaysia. When I went back home for data collection cum raya celebration, I brought 4 slabs of butter, 4 slabs of philly and 1 box of frozen blueberries, among other things. I have freezed the butter couple of days before departure, and wrapped them individually with old newspaper and packed them together with our clothes. Almost 16 hours of travelling, both land and air, door to door, until destination. When we safely arrived my parents' home, the butter were still hard. Alhamdullillah...was so afraid that the butter melt or worst turned bad. A good quality butter is expensive in Malaysia. I remembered a good friend of mine once told me it is so dear to buy one philly. Price wise, it's better to buy a cheesecake rather than making one back home.

But here, it is so difficult to buy a Halal cheesecake. I have tried one piece of Halal cheesecake at a friend's house, and I tell you, Kak Ida's cheesecake recipe can easily beat the one I tasted. Honestly, even my friend agreed.

So far I have tried only a few cheesecake recipes. To add to my collection, I tried this recipe yesterday.

New York Cheesecake (source http://www.joyofbaking.com/Cheesecake.html)

Crust:

2 cups (200 grams) of graham wafer crumbs or finely crushed vanilla wafers or gingersnaps (process whole cookies in a food processor until they are crumbs)

1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated white sugar

1/2 cup (114 grams) unsalted butter, melted

(For crust, I used Kak Ida's recipe)

Filling:

32 ounces (1 kg) (4 - 8 ounces packages) cream cheese, room temperature (use full fat, not reduced or fat free cream cheese)

1 cup (200 grams) granulated white sugar

3 tablespoons (35 grams) all purpose flour
5 large eggs, room temperature
1/3 cup (80 ml) heavy whipping cream
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Topping:
1 cup (240 ml) sour cream (not low fat or fat free)
2 tablespoons (30 grams) granulated white sugar
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Method:

New York Cheesecake: Grease, or spray with Pam, a 9 inch (23 cm) springform pan. Place the springform pan on a larger baking pan to catch any leakage while the cheesecake is baking. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) with rack in center of oven.

(I lined the tin with baking paper. This will help removing the cake after baking easily)

For Crust: In a medium sized bowl combine the graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and melted butter. Press the crumbs evenly over the bottom and about 1 inch (2.5 cm) up the sides of the springform pan. Cover and refrigerate while you make the filling.
(refer to Kak Ida's for crust preparation)

For Filling: In bowl of your electric mixer place the cream cheese, sugar, and flour. Beat on medium speed until smooth (about 2 minutes), scraping down the bowl as needed. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well (about 30 seconds) after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the whipping cream, lemon zest, vanilla extract and beat until incorporated. Remove the crust from the refrigerator and pour in the filling. Place the cheesecake pan on a larger baking pan and place in the oven.

Bake for 15 minutes and then lower the oven temperature to 250 degrees F (120 degrees C) and continue to bake for about another 1 1/2 hours or until firm and only the center of the cheesecake looks a little wet and wobbly. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl combine the sour cream, sugar, and vanilla extract. Spread the topping over the warm cheesecake and return to oven to bake for 15 more minutes. Remove from oven and carefully run a knife or spatula around the inside edge of pan to loosen the cheesecake (helps prevent the surface from cracking as it cools).

Let cool before covering with plastic wrap and refrigerating. This cheesecake tastes best after being refrigerated for at least a day.

This cheesecake is very heavy, rich and creamy. Yummy indeed, but I don't like the smell of egg in my cheesecake. Probably the amount of eggs can be reduced. Other than that, you surely can't stop eating this, well if you have no problem with your diet...hahahahahha... I surely gained a kilo today, both due to this cheesecake and soto that I prepared for colleagues who came for tea today. Arrghhh nothing beats eating cheesecake and soto ayam with friends yaa...

Feast your eyes...hehheheh...just kidding.

OK...I have to complete a task tonight before call it a day. It's gonna be an early start tomorrow...no..not working... but taking the kids somewhere for a break. After all it's still holiday tomorrow.

yours truly,

I baked "Marble Cheese Cake MamaFami"

My baking project last weekend was......





For recipe and instruction, please visit MamaFami's blog.

My outcome was not like Mama's ...but the taste overcome the look...ahahahha... a little too sweet for me, you can reduce the sugar from the cheese ingredient a bit if you like.

yours truly,

Beri biru Cheesecake...hehehhe

We received an invitation from our old neighbour, to a housewarming cum makan-makan at their new home last Saturday. I baked a blueberry cheesecake for the occasion. I saw a picture of the cheesecake at one of my friend's FB. And she is so kind for leaving a link to the recipe that she used.

Here is the recipe (Blueberry Cheesecake Recipe ):

Ingredients for cheese filling:

1 ½ lbs cream cheese (that is 750gm of philly cream cheese or 3 bar of 250gm of philly)

1 1/3 cups sugar

5 large eggs

16 ounces sour cream (or 500gm)

¼ cup flour

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 teaspoons lemon juice

1 can blueberry pie filling (I did my own blueberry glaze)

For base: I used Kak Ida's cheesecake sempoi recipe.

Method:

1. Beat the cream cheese until it’s light and fluffy.

2. Add sugar (a little at a time) and beat until creamy.

3. Add one egg at a time (beating after each one).

4. Add flour, vanilla extract and lemon juice. Mix well.

5. Add sour cream and beat until smooth.

6. Pour cream cheese mixture over the crust/base.

7. Place into the oven on the middle rack and back at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes (I set the oven at 180deg C).

8. When time is up prop open the oven door and let cheesecake sit in the oven for 1 hour.

9. Remove and allow cheesecake to cool and refrigerate overnight.

10. Top with blueberry pie filling (or blueberry glaze, see recipe below).

Ingredients for blueberry glaze:

About 4 cups of fresh/frozen blueberry (I bought I pack of fresh blueberries)

1/2 cup of sugar

1 cup of water

2 tbs of cornstarch (add 2tbs of water to it)

1 tbs of lemon juice

Method:

1. Combine blueberries with sugar and water.

2. Bring to boil.

3. Squash a bit some of the berries.

4. Mix in the cornstarch paste (slowly). You have to stir the mixture or else it will get curdle easily.

5. Simmer for about 15 minutes.

6. Add lemon juice. Mix well and then remove from heat. Let it cool.

7. Spoon the glaze on top the cheesecake. Then refrigerate.

Note:

I found the cheese filling is too much, almost filling to the brim of the spring form. You can see from the picture above, the cake was a bit horrible...hehehe...Maybe reducing the cream cheese and egg will give better result. So to make the cake more presentable (to cover the ugliness huhu), I prepared buttercream frosting and using the piping bag, tried my best to hide the mess.

Owhh.... I finally get the buttercream frosting texture like I wanted. I prepared syrup instead of using icing mixture (thanks Iza for the tip).

And after spending 1 hour, trying to be creative, this is the result :p

Yummy. Have a go.

A must try : Marble Chocolate Cheese Cake (Kak Hanieliza recipe)

I believe "cooking is the best therapy". Often during weekend, feeling lonely at home, I will get emotional easily. So I decided, why not try a new recipe to pass the time. I have a long list of wanna-try recipes from the web. I normally visit Kak Liza's fotopages (but it is no longer available for public, and kak Liza has created a blog to publish her recipes), Kak Ida's fotopages and MamaFami's fotopages. I have tried some of their recipes (there is an entry on how I baked a cheesecake in this blog), simple recipes but the outcome is sooo satisfying.

Last week I baked Marble Chocolate Cheese Cake (from Kak Liza's fotopages). I just found the same recipe on MamaFami's fotopages. And believe me, it is a must try recipe.


Here are the ingredients (am so lazy, so I just copy and paste the recipe from MamaFami's) :





Ingredients A :

180 g butter
20 g cocoa powder (I used 2 heaps of tablespoon)
170 g castor sugar
3 eggs
120 g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

Ingredients B :

250 g cream cheese
60 g castor sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 egg

Method :

1. Sift self-raising flour, baking powder and cocoa. Set aside.
2. Cream butter and sugar.
3. Add in eggs (ingredient A), one at a time.
4. Add in the sifted ingredients and mix well.
5. In another bowl, beat all ingredients in B till light.
6. Prepare a 7" tray, line with grease-proof paper (I used a medium size round springform pan). Pour in one part of ingredient A's mixture into the tin. Spread evenly. Then pour the whole ingredient B's mixture on top and spread evenly. Finally pour the balance of ingredient A's mixture on top and spread nicely to cover the whole area.
7. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 160 C for 1 hour.



Yummy :p

How I baked a cheese cake

Another DIY entry....hehehhehe...

Ok... refering to my previous entry on 'cooking achivement', one of the 'in demand' food (by my family laa) that I made.... is CHEESE CAKE.... I got this recipe from Kak Ida Merpati's fotopages... thank you la Kak Ida sebab create resipe yang senang bangat (untuk orang yang malas cam saya laaa...hehehe). Please check out Kak Ida's fotopages, she has loads of easy to cook recipes published there. And for the cheese cake recipe... please look under 'Cheese Cake' link yaa..

So how I baked my cheese cake?

The ingredients
I use 3/4 of this
2 bar of this (that is 250g x 2)

and 4-5 tbs of butter, 3/4 cup of caster sugar and 1 egg. I omit vanilla essence because I couldnt find non-alcohol contain one.

Method:
Base making
Blend this or do it my way..that is...
I smash the biscuit with pestle...hahahah (tip dari Kak Ida actually)
Add in the butter. I will start with adding 3 tbs first, add in more if the breadcrumbs still crumble hahahha... what you are looking for is a bit sticky texture so that you can press the mixture until it form a base...like this...

I use 9in pie plate. Then put this in the freezer or fridge for at least 30 minutes.

The cheese mixture
Beat all this until..
and....
then....
spread the cheese mixture on top of the base.. till it looks like this
....
put inside a pre-heated oven, at 140 fan forced, for 35-40 minutes

The outcome.....

let it cool down then... masuk dlm fridge kejap kasi keras

...and I am having a piece right now...while editing this entry... sepatutnya letak dlm fridge dulu kan... tapi bila dah napsu mengatasi akal...hahahaha....

bon appetit...