The Daring Cheesecake

This months Daring Baker's challenge is hosted by Jenny from JennyBakes. She chose Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake for this month's challenge. I have been baking cheesecakes for many years now, from time to time I get to make something that I really like but then I could never been able to recreate it. So I'm always on a look out for a good recipe.
Like in any other cheesecake recipe, this recipe is very versatile. Once you master the basic recipe you can customize it anyway you want. That for me is the hardest part in making this. Deciding what to do with it to make it different. Of course always turn to my favorite Oreos! I absolutely love Oreos as you can see, I have Oreos with the cheesecake batter and on top of it too! The odd thing I find is that how come it uses only 3 sticks of cream cheese? Usually I often see recipes with minimun of 2 - 8 ounce cream cheese. so just ofr the heck of it. I threw it all in. Yum yum!
It came out very creamy all though I made a mistake of omiting the sugar. Since I didn't remove the white part in my Oreos when I crushed them, I thought they would be sweet enough but nope BIG mistake. It came out okey but just too cream cheese tasting. Another mistake is that I didn't mix the crushed Oreos properly so now they are all floating on top of the baked cheesecake.
Next time I'll try to make it with more Oreos!!! I find the crust too thin and the cheesecake part have so few Oreos in it. All in all, this is a nice challenge which I truly enjoy making.

Check out JennyBakes for the complete recipe.

Till next month challenge...

Sunny Lemony Squares

As I got older I noticed that my taste changes. Some foods that I don't like before when I was a kid like peanut butter and lemons. Now seems so good to me like a comfort food! Yeah...Weird I know...
Few weeks ago, I bought a bunch of lemons. I have been contemplating what to make. I have a delicious Lemon Meringue Torte that I know my family loves because it is indeed delicious if I do say so myself. However, with Manila's hot summer there is no way that I can stand the heat that long because that dessert is very labor intensive. The next thing that I thought of making is Lemon Squares / Lemon Bars, it seems easy enough, right? Well... in a sense its indeed easy. I just had a hard time choosing from which books will I get the recipe. After days of deliberation I finally decided to use one from Tartine.
I'm actually amaze how easy this recipe is and the shortbread crust is excellent. The original recipe called for some pine nuts, but I did not have that handy so I used some walnuts instead. It added a nice crunch in the crust. The lemon layer is on the thin side which is great because I don't want it too tangy. For me it just add the right amount of zing when you bite into it.
As you can see I kinda got a bit carried away with the dusting of confectioner's sugar, but I find it too pretty and I love dusting it makes it more special and elegant.

Hello, Cupcake!

I was almost a click away from buying this book in Amazon, thankfully I was able to stop my finger from clicking. I was actually surprise to see that this book has already reached our shores, I've read so much good reviews about it that I quicky purchased it. I haven't have the time to browse through it though, I was quite busy baking up a storm when I got home last Sunday.

It might take me quite sometime before I'll be able to read this though because the novels that I've been waiting for from my favorite writers namely Lisa Kleypas, Jude Deveraux and Julie Garwood are already out and I have to start reading those first!

Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies

I recently bought a bigger ice cream scooper, I was quite excited to give it a try. I think I finally made chocolate chip cookies that I can be very proud of. These cookies are the biggest cookies that I have ever made around 3 1/2 to 4 inches in diameter and loaded with chocolate chunks and walnuts. This is very loosely based on Jacques Torres' recipe that was featured in Martha two years ago. This is basically this cookie made bigger, chunkier and better.

My Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies are a bit darker than my usual cookies because some of the chocolate bits got melted while waiting for their turn in the oven. Yes folks, it's that hot here, this is the hottest summer we ever have. I was planning to buy Nestle chocolate chunk, quite recently I noticed it available in my supermarket. But then for the price it doesn't seem worth it to spend so much on chocolates for this recipe because I used more than 1/2 kilo (approx. 600grams)of chocolates. I used our regular local dark chocolate and it went well. Just remember to cut the chocolates in HUGE irregular chunks as well as the walnuts.
As shown in the photo every mouthful, you'd get a piece of that chocolate and walnuts. I somehow have adapted walnuts as my favorite nuts. They are excellent paired with chocolates makes it more delicious and much more special. It also brings back childhood memories of eating store bought Chips Ahoy or Soft Batch.

p.s. I love my new ice cream scooper and it's cheap too!

Homemade Frr...Frozen Yogurt

I'm a huge huge fan of Frozen Yogurts (Froyos), here in Manila it's becoming quite popular. Froyo shops are popping up everywhere. The most popular ones are White Hat, California Berry and just recently Red Mango.
Last December I got a chance to try White Hat while I was doing my cristmas shopping and I like it. It's light and airy and very creamy just like eating premium ice cream. And quite recently about few months ago, there's this new Frozen yogurt stall that opened up near our office in Makati which is the California Berry, my officemates and I are all so excited since we all love eating yogurt so we walk 4-5 blocks just to get there and it was such a disappointment. I found too tangy! It's like in your face yogurt. Don't get me wrong I love yogurt, but their version is not something I'm gonna craave for in the near future.
I would never dream of making my own Froyos ever I've seen so many recipes that seem so tedious to do with such a long list of ingredients like cornstarch, milk and it seems not worth all the effort. Then I stumbled upon Heidi's blog saying this version is better than Pinkberry's a very popular frozen yogurt store in California and I've read so many people, celebrities raving about it so I wanted to give it a try. But as life gets in the way, work piles up and I've actually forgotten to try this version for TWO WHOLE YEARS!

This year is different though, with the economic crisis, very very HOT summer, I've decided to unearth this recipe and make my own Froyos in the comforts of my kitchen. After my recent success with the Malted Milk Ice Cream, I just knew that I have to dry David's version of Frozen Yogurt, not only because he's David and wrote a very popular book The Perfect Scoop which by the way I'm searching everywhere for to no avail (hint hint, my birthday is coming up, hahaha...). It's because this recipe have only THREE ingredients and such a breeze to make, just drain, wait, mix, wait, curn, freeze, scoop & eat! How easy is that.
I think the only hard thing about this recipe is the gathering of ingredients, because sometimes our local brand plain yogurt is not available in the suppermarket aisle. This week I got luck and have my 3 huge tubs of yogurt, I quickly went home and started making this. At first I thought the amount of yogurt is way too much, it might not fit inside me ice cream maker. I didn't realized that there was so much water in yogurt that after an overnight of draining almost half of my yogurt mixture was drained away. I was left with this thick cream like consistency of a yogurt. I quickly mixed in the sugar and covered it with cling folm and let it rest in the fridge while I went to work. Sunday afternoon, churning time!!! 20 minutes later... Tadah! I have soft served Frozen Yogurt. I let it firm up a bit in the freezer and had it for dessert. It's soft and very easy to scoop out, smells vanilla-y too! I topped it with the left over blueberry filling that I used to topped my cheesecake experiment. The creaminess of the Froyos goes well with the goey blueberry filling, it's not tangy and it's not sweet, just the right amount. Are you a Froyo lover like me? If so you REALLY REALLY have to give this a try and enjoy!

Homemade Vanilla Frozen Yogurt
Adapted from David Lebovitz, The Perfect Scoop

• 3 cups (720g) strained yogurt (see below) or Greek-style yogurt
• 3/4 cup (150g) sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)

1. Mix together the yogurt, sugar, and vanilla (if using). Stir until the sugar is completely dissolved. Refrigerate 1 hour.
2. Freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

To make 1 cup (240g) of strained yogurt, line a mesh strainer with a few layers of cheese cloth. then scrape 16 ounces or 2 cups (480g) of plain whole-milk yogurt into the cheesecloth. Gather the ends and fold them over the yogurt, then refrigerate for at least 6 hours. So, for the above recipe start with and strain 6 cups of yogurt.

Makes about 1 quart.

Malted Milk Ice Cream

I remember when I was in grade school, I remember that always save my allowance to buy Maltesers. These are malted milk honeycomb coated with milk chocolate. In UK, Ireland, Canada & Australia these are very popular too! In America, these yummy treats are more popularly known as Whoppers. Whatever name they come, these malted honeycomb chocolate balls will be one of my guilty pleasures.

I've been reading so much good reviews about David Lebovitz ice cream book called The Perfect Scoop can't wait to get my hands on a copy of this book. Unfortunately, its out of stock locally, I'm trying to control my urge to buy this online. Just imagine my delight when I stumbled upon google book, it's such a God sent that I can preview some of the recipe within the book, imagine that, it's so cool! What could be more satisfying than marrying my love for Maltesers and ice cream. Yummy! very much appropriate for our very hot and humid summer.

Malt powder unfortunately is not readily available locally I guess there aren't as popular to other people, luckily when I was in Taiwan with my dad and brother for a CCTV convention, I saw an Ovaltine malt powder in one of there supermarket. I got so excited that I quickly got 2 bottles. I've been trying to prolong the use of these babies for as long as possible. Didn't realize it though that it could harden in the bottle, oh shucks! being a typical Chinese the attitude of being thrifty has always been instilled in us by our parents. What else do I have to do but pour in hot hot cream and let the whole block of hardened malt powder melts and make this very fragrant liquid gold. Didn't have half and half locally so I used our local Nestle all purpose cream instead. The ice cream turn out good and yummy, although next time I will have to lessen the sugar within the custard base, keeping into mind that the Maltesers are already sweet as it is.

As you can see in the photo above within minutes of being out of the freezer the ice cream starts to melt....and fast! What I specially like in this recipe is that in every bite you'd get a piece of that crunchy texture from the honeycomb and milk, so it's very generous in ingredients that little bit if it goes a long long way.

Malted Milk Ice Cream

Adapted from David Lebovitz, The Perfect Scoop

• 1 cup half and half
• 3/4 cup sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 2/3 cup malt powder
• 6 large egg yolks
• 2 cups malted milk balls, coarsely chopped

1. Warm half and half, sugar and salt in a medium saucepan. In a large bowl, whisk together the heavy cream, vanilla and malt powder and set a mesh strainer on top.

2. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.

3. Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the custard through the strainer and whisk it into the malted milk mixture. Stir until cool over an ice bath.

4. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. As you remove the ice cream from the machine, fold in the chopped malted milk balls.