#15 : Baked Chocolate Cheesecakes

I bought this Take 5 magazine like a year ago. Or two? Well I am not sure. At that time I had no time to do baking but everytime I saw a cookbook or magazine I bought them. And today I baked chocolate cheesecakes from the magazine. I couldn't taste it as I was still on my detox program. *sigh*. Instead of using the light sour cream, I used normal sour cream because that's what I had. I guess it tasted more sour than what it was supposed to be... and more fattening.. O_o I have to wait for my sister to come home so she can tell me how it tastes.
I've found that it needed more baking time in the oven. It took approximately 40 minutes in the oven.



Ingredients:

Base :
- 1 cup plain flour
- 1/4 cup caster sugar (32g)
- 90g butter, melted
- 1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Fillings :
- 125g cream cheese, softened at room temperature
- 2/3 cup light sour cream
- 1/4 cup caster sugar (32g)
- 1 egg

Chocolate icing :
- 90g dark chocolate, chopped
- 30g butter
- hazelnuts

Method :

Base :
1. Preheat oven to 180C
2. Grease 2x12 hole mini muffin pans.
3. Combine flour, 1/4 cup of sugar, butter and vanilla.
4. Press heaped teaspoons of mixture into each muffin hole.
5. Bake in oven for 10 minutes until golden.

Fillings :
1. Beat cream cheese, sour cream, juice and 1/4 cup of sugar with an electric mixer until smooth. Beat in egg. Spoon mixture over hot bases in muffin pans.
2. Bake at 160C for 10-12 minutes until filling is puffed and set.
3. Remove from oven and stand cakes in pan for 3 minutes.
4. Using tip of a knife, loosen cheesecakes, remove from pan and cool.

Chocolate icing :
1. Melt chocolate and butter together, allow to cool slightly.
2. Spoon a dollop of warm chocolate over cheesecakes.
3. Top with hazelnuts if desired.

#14 : Meringue

I got some leftover egg whites in the fridge and I was looking for ideas to make something out of it. I was thinking to make royal icing but I would need to make a cake or cupcake first. So I kept on looking. Til I found this Meringue recipe from Taste.com.au. They looked so cute! The recipe says 4 egg whites and I forgot how many egg whites I had in the container. I thought it was 7 egg whites so I multiplied the quantity by 1.75. Again, since I was still on this detox program I couldn't taste it. I was afraid it was too sweet. But my sister told me that meringue is supposed to be sweet. And the baking time on the recipe says it was 2.5 hours! And I only managed to bake them approximately 1 hour. They were hardened but some of them were broken into pieces when I tried to take them out from the baking tray. The ones that I baked on the baking paper were mostly broken into pieces because they sticked to the paper. Since then I didn't use any and just greased the baking pan with olive oil spray. They turned out better.

Tips:
- If you have small oven like I do and you have to bake several times, remember to beat the meringue until it is thick again before you pipe them through the nozzle. It is to keep the shape of the meringue.
- Because I had to bake several times, I couldn't leave the meringue in the oven. Instead I transferred them on to a wire rack.
- Meringue can last for 3 weeks if stored in airtight container.





Ingredients
- 4 egg whites at room temperature
- 1 cup caster sugar
- 2 teaspoon cornflour, sifted
- 1 teaspoon white vinegar
- pink food coloring
- green food coloring
- colored sprinkles for decorations

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 100 degrees C. Line baking trays with non-stick baking paper.
2. Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.
3. Gradually add the sugar and whisk until the sugar dissolves. Continue beating for two minutes or until the mixture is thick, glossy, al the sugar dissolves and a long trailing peak forms when the beater is lifted from the mixture. Add the cornflour and vinegar, whisk until just combined.
4. Divide meringue between two bowl. Color one with pink, and one with green.
5. Pipe them with a 1.5cm diameter nozzle - or shape them into whatever you want it to be. Give approximately 3 cm space between them.
6. Bake in preheated oven for 2.5 hours. Turn oven off and leave in oven for 3 hours.

#13 : Profiteroles (Kue Soes)

I got the idea to make one of these profiteroles when a friend of mine, who is into baking too, told me that they're easy to make. So I found a recipe from Dekap. First I thought making profiteroles would be kind of complicated but it wasn't :D. Since I was still on my detox program, I couldn't taste them. I had some friends tasting it and they're great, except that the fillings were a bit too thick and hard - I'll reduce the amount of the cornflour.

Ingredients

Pastry :
130g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
100g margarine
4 eggs
225ml water

Fillings:
500ml milk
40g cornflour
35g custard powder
100g sugar
3 egg yolks
vanilla essence
rum essence

Method:
Pastry
1. Combine water, salt and margarine on a pot - bring to boil.
2. Combine plain flour until cooked and thickened.
3. Let cool the dough.
4. Preheat oven 180 degrees C.
5. Put eggs one by one into the dough until well combined.
6. Using the piping bag, shape the dough into the baking tray.
7. Bake for 25 minutes.

Fillings:
1. Mix all ingredients except rum essence.
2. Cook them on a stove until it gets thickened and cool them.
3. Put some rum essence and mix them until it well combined.

#12 : Chocolate Macadamia Biscuits

I found this recipe on Taste.com.au. They taste good, except that they were too buttery. Next time I bake this cookie, I am going to reduce the butter. They're good and I am definitely going to make these cookies again.

Ingredients:
250g butter, softened at room temperature
1 cup brown sugar (200g)
1/2 cup white sugar (110g)
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups plain flour (275g)
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup macadamia nuts (112g)
180g white chocolate, roughly chopped

Method :
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
2. Beat butter, sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy. Add eggs 1 at a time, beat well after each addition.
3. Sift flour and baking powder over butter mixture. Add nuts and chocolates. Stir with spoon.
4. Drop heaped tablespoonful of mixture onto baking trays. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes. Stand on trays for 5 mins. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

#11 : Chocolate Pudding

I had this milk which was going to expire soon, so I decided to make a pudding out of it. I made the chocolate pudding. It was really easy to make, except that I didn't whisk the egg well because I had to open the door for my friends. The pudding is a bit scrambled but it taste good.

Ingredients:
1/4 cup of sugar
1/4 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tbsp cornstarch
pinch of salt
2 cups of whole milk
1 large egg
4 ounces of choc chips

Directions:
1. Whisk sugar, cocoa, cornstarch, salt. Gradually whisk in the milk. Bring to boil, whisking constantly and boil. Whisking until pudding is thick about 3 to 5 minutes.
2. Beat the egg in a bowl. Very gradually add the hot chocolate mixture to the egg, whisking constantly. Whisk in the chocolate chips until melted and mixture is smooth.
3. Pour the pudding into cups
4. Wait until the pudding is set and put them in to the fridge.

#10 : Bread & Butter Pudding

Too sweet. I should've reduced the sugar by half. I feel sick of eating this bread & butter pudding :| Well instead of white bread, I had this whole loaf of wholemeal bread so I used them. I got the recipe from Taste.com.au. It's got really good reviews so I wanted to try it. But maybe I did something wrong. Maybe it was the baking dish. Or it was the bread or the cream. I'm not sure. The bread butter pudding just couldn't set well! When we (I & Erika) tried to slice it, it was just still watery. I put them in the oven again for another 20 minutes but it came out the same. Oh well. I was not happy with this bread & butter pudding anyway but Erika said it tasted great. But for me, it was toooo sweet and gave me some headache @_@

Ingredients (serves 6)

• 50g unsalted butter
• 12 slices white bread
• 50g sultanas
• 4 eggs plus 4 egg yolks
• 175g caster sugar
• 300ml thin cream
• 300ml thickened cream
• 1 vanilla pod, split, seeds scraped
• 3 tbs thin-cut marmalade

Method

1. Lightly butter a 2-litre baking dish. Butter the bread, remove the crusts, then cut each slice into 2 triangles. Arrange triangles in layers in the dish, then sprinkle the sultanas in between layers. Don't put any sultanas on the top layer as they will burn.
2. Whisk together the eggs, egg yolks and caster sugar. Place both creams in a saucepan with the vanilla pod and seeds and bring to scalding point. Pour cream over the egg mixture and whisk lightly to combine. Strain mixture over bread slices, making sure not to dislodge them. Set pudding aside for at least 30 minutes - this ensures that the pudding will be light and not stodgy.
3. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
4. Place the baking dish in a large roasting pan and pour enough boiling water into the pan to come halfway up the sides of the baking dish.
5. Cover the dish loosely with foil, place in the oven and bake for 15 minutes. Remove the foil and bake the pudding uncovered for a further 15 minutes or until golden
6. Heat the marmalade in the microwave for about 40 seconds or in a small saucepan over low heat for 1-2 minutes until spreadable. Remove pudding from oven and use a pastry brush to spread marmalade over top. Return to oven for 2-3 minutes, then serve immediately.

#9 : Yorkshire Pudding

I had a liter of milk going to expire very soon so I looked for some recipe to use them up. I found this Yorkshire Pudding which is so easy to make. Well it is actually a traditional pudding from England, usually served with roast beef and gravy. But I read in some blogs that some people sometimes make it sweet by adding some sugar and omitting the salt. I decided to make one of these. One mistake that I made is that I used some muffin liners. It made the pudding sticked to the liners and when I tried to pull it the pudding got torn apart. By the time the pudding puffed, it smelled so good. It was quite a happy feeling to watch the batter getting puffed and golden in the oven :D :D .My sister had three of them and me too. I ate them with some yoghurt and raspberry jam. They had to be served immediately otherwise it won't taste good and they cannot be reheated.

Ingredients:
3 eggs
225 milk
125 g plain flour
30g butter

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees C.
2. Beat eggs with milk, stir in flour. Set aside.
3. Divide butter evenly to the 12 muffin cups. Place the pan into the oven to melt the butter for about 2 or 5 minutes. Remove pan from the oven then distribute the batter evenly to each cup.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 5 minutes. Reduce heat to 175 degrees C and bake for 25 minutes more or until puffed and golden.

#8 : Roll Out Cookies - Green Day :P

I bought a set of cookie cutters in IKEA last week and I wanted to use them sooo bad. Then I went to this cake supply stores and I saw these two cute Cookie Man cutters. I bought them too : a man and a woman (Cookie Woman??!). I also bought the decorating pen too! It's so exciting! :D So I decided to look for a simple recipe. Most recipes for roll-out cookies are quite troublesome as the batch needs to be chilled in the fridge before stamping out with cookie cutters. I read in Happy Home Baking that it was quite tacky to rollout the dough as well as to cut it. So I came across this good recipe from Rezipezaar which is soooo easy - no chilling time required and it has great reviews too! Well the recipe is all in U.S (cups!). I hate it cause that means I have to convert it to metric. It's not as easy as I thought it would be because different flour has different weights in grams. So I did a little bit of research. But it worth the efforts! The cookies smell and taste buttery which is good. My sister said the cookies need more sugar but I don't think so.

I felt the happiest when I decorated these cookies :D


Now I can literally lick Billie Joe AHAHAHA :D even though it's just a cookie :|


and him! I forgot to make a cookie of myself ...



Using the IKEA cookie cutters


It's Meme (my sis) - not Me


Friends


Lacking of creativity

Roll Out Cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup (227g) butter
1 cup (200g) sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 3/4 cups (344g) flour

Method:
1. Preheat oven at 200 degrees C.
2. Cream butter and sugar.
3. Beat in egg & vanilla into the batter.
4. Mix flour and baking powder in a separate bowl.
5. Add the mix flour into the batter of butter, one cup at a time. Mix after each addition.
6. The last 3/4 cup will have to be mixed by hand since it would stiffen.
7. Do not chill dough.
8. Divide into 2 balls.
9. Roll out to 1/8 inch thickness (3 mm).
10. Use cookie cutter.
11. Bake for 6-10 mins.

#7 : Egg Toasts / Egg in A Basket

Again, Happy Home Baking made me want to make one of this. I toasted two in the oven and another one fried on pan, cause I got two versions of making it so I thought I wanted to give them a try.

Slice a thick toast (I bought one whole sandwich loaf from Brumby's - not sliced). Butter the four sides to avoid them got burnt. Make a square cut in the middle but don't cut through. I used the cheese slice as a measurement. Using the back of a spoon, press it down a little. Put the cheese slice and egg on top of it. Bake in an oven for 15 minutes (depending on your oven though and how cooked your egg you want it to be), 180 degrees C. Use baking paper or grease your pan first, otherwise the bottom can get sticked to the pan.
Once it is done, put some parsley flake and paper on the toast.

First toast : I messed the egg. I wanted to make the good round shape eyed and I was nervous so I opened the egg in a bowl then transferred it to the toast but this is what I got.


Egg and cheesy






Second try : GOOD! Just exactly what I wanted it to be
I love the how the egg yolk turned out to be :D


What's inside the toast

I found out that there is a similar egg/toast recipe. It's called "Egg in A Basket". So I googled it up. It's pretty much the same, except that the egg in a basket doesn't use any cheese and it is fried on pan. I tried both of them and my sister loved them both so much. She prefers the Egg in A Basket though because it is buttery while the ones with cheese is too cheesy. (Of course because the egg in a basket is much more fatty - I used butter to fry it!). Here's how I pretty much went through the "Egg in A Basket" :

Egg in A Basket : the bread is cut through to make a hole for the egg, well you can make any shape : heart or star or whatever you want.

#6 : The Strawberry Jelly Cheesecake

This cheesecake got me insomniac last night. Well I've been having troubles trying to sleep these past few days and this cake made it worse! Ugh. The recipe I used was pretty much the same with the one I used for #2 : Oreo Cheesecake .
I made this cake while watching the MTV VMA 09. Green Day won! YEAY! I was happy. Especially when the cheese cream started to set and when I successfully cut the strawberry into heart-shaped pieces. I was really happy.

But then.......
Time to make the jelly layer. First mistake: I got it wrong by putting two cups of boiling water. Damn you instructions on the back of the jelly box! It should be one cup of boiling water and another cup for cold water. I was nervous. My sis told me to relax. I put the jelly water into the fridge hoping to cool it down. But I was eager to pour the jelly on to the cheese layer. So I did it. I was like "OMG!" when I saw the cheese layer started to float into the jelly layer. I was totally freaking out. But my sis said it was okay. So a little bit of the cheese was floating in the jelly. So what? I put it into the fridge.

Three minutes later, I checked on it. I had another "OMG" moment again. I was using this new square springform pan, and the jelly water started to leak! Shit! But again, my sis told me it was okay. How was it going to be okay when it leaked? @_@ But I let it be that way. I was afraid if I did something to it, it would make it worse.

4am and I was still awake, checking on the fridge every half an hour hoping for the jelly to set. And finally it set! I wonder why it took that long time to set. I read in some blogs that usually it took 15 minutes! Or 2 hours top! @_@ Finally I could sleep.....

8am I was awake. I couldn't wait to try it! To my surprise, the jelly was not as hard as I thought it would be! So it was really hard to cut it neatly. It was a mess :( :( But it tasted quite okay. But not good though. My sister said it looked good but she hates strawberries. Arrghhh!

Anyway here's the recipe (taken from Happy Home Baking again):

Strawberry Jelly Cheesecake

Ingredients:
base:
300g digestive biscuits
140g melted butter

filling:
250g cream cheese, soften at room temperature
50g icing sugar
1 tablespoon gelatin powder
40ml boiling water
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 box Jelly crystal (strawberry flavour)
1 cup boiling water
1 cup cold water
Some strawberries, cut into heart shapes

Method:
1. Mix biscuit crumbs & melted butter together and press firmly with the help of a spoon onto the base of a 18cm cake tin. (I used the square springform pan). Chill for 30 minutes.
2. Place gelatin powder and boiling water in a bowl. Heat a pot filled with some water until just simmering and place the bowl inside the pot. Dissolve gelatin and boiling water in the bowl. Keep warm.
3. With an electric mixer, beat cream cheese , icing sugar and vanilla essence until smooth & creamy. Blend in gelatin solution and mix well.
4. Pour the cheese mixture into the cake tin. Layer the strawberries on the cheese mixture. Chill for at least 3 to 4 hours.
5. Dissolve the jelly crystal in the cup of boiling water, followed by the cold water. Pour the jelly on the cheese mixture. Let it set before removing from the cake tin.

USEFUL TIPS : - when pouring the jelly into the cheese layer, aim to the strawberry to reduce the breaking parts of the cheese.

#5 : Chocolate Swirl Cheesecake

Thanks again for Happy Home Baking for the recipe. It turned out great. I was really nervous to make this cake, especially with the folding technique. I did make some sponge cake long time ago and it just didn't raise so the cake ended up really dry and hard. Well I think this one is a success because it had baking powder and self-raising flour to help with the raise. While the one that I did merely used eggs and flour, so the folding had to be done really really carefully and I messed it up :(

Anyway I was happy with how this cake turned out. Soft and a bit spongy in the inside.

Chocolate Swirl Cheesecake

Ingredients:

Cream Cheese Mixture:
- 250g cream cheese (soften at room temperature)
- 60g caster sugar
- 1 egg

Chocolate Mixture:
- 180g butter (at room temperature)
- 150g caster sugar
- 3 eggs
- 3 tablespoon cocoa powder
- 120g self-raising flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder

Method :

1. Preheat oven at 150 degrees Celcius
2. Grease and line 20cm round cake pan
3. Cream cheese mixture : Beat cream cheese with sugar untul light and fluffy. Add in the egg gradually and beat until well incorporated. Set mixture aside.
4. Chocolate mixture : Beat butter and sugar until light & fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time until well incorporated into mixture. Sieve all the dried ingredients together. Fold into egg mixture.
5. Pour half of the chocolate mixture into the cake pan.
6. Pour all the cream cheese mixture and then remaining chocolate mixture. Gently spread the chocolate mixture to cover all the cream cheese mixture.
7. Bake for 45-50 mins or until skewer comes out clean. (I didn't know why but it turned out watery at 45 mins so I added another 20 minutes). Cool completely and chill in the fridge before serving.
   

#4 : The Crepes

The recipe is really easy. What I worried about was the "frying" part since I don't have the pan just like those proper crepes frying pan. I mean the round pan which is flat all the way to the edge. And also the thing to spread the batter in circle direction. I only have spatula and wooden spoon :(

Anyway, the crepes turned out good even though they were more like pancakes (I think). And they smelled like egg. Maybe we need to put more vanilla essence or reduce the amount of egg. When we first "fried" the batter, we thought it became more like tortilla, or wrap. Not crepes. Too thick. Then we reduced the amount of batter. Pakne was doing it so well. Much better than I did. I tried to make it as thin as it could be but it was a total disaster. I gave up and Pakne was in charge of all the "frying" part while I was happily spreading nuttela, ice cream, raspberry jam, banana slices, whatever sweet onto the thick crepes. When we tried our first crepe, it taste like "WOW! We're not bad in making crepes", except that it was too THICK. Then we just ate from one plate together : crepes, nuttela, ice cream, jams, cheese slices. Altogether in one plate. It was GOOD although it looked gross. Really messy. But we didn't care.

Half an hour later I thought I was stuffed. Then Pakne got the idea to make one savory crepe. So I put all what I got on the table : ham, spread cheese, cherry tomatoes, spinach, cucumber. We made one savory crepes and it was good! Except that the crepe was too THICK. I know I said it too many times but it was too THICK! Five minutes after I stuffed my mouth with the savory crepe, I was sure I was STUFFED.

Recipe is from YouTube

Basic recipe :
- 4 eggs
- 1/2 cup (125 ml) of milk
- 1/2 cup (125ml) of water
- 1 cup (225g) of flour
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- 2 tablespoon (28g) of melted butter
- 1 tablespoon of sugar (eliminate this if you are making savory crepes)
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Method:
Mix them all using a whisk until it is liquified. Spray pan with cooking spray (I used olive oil spray). Pour the batter on to the pan, allow it to cook for about 2 minutes. Check for the bottom with spatula and when it is golden brown, turn it over. Done.

#3 : Banana & Chocolate Muffins

You can never go wrong with banana and chocolate. They make a really good combination indeed. Last night I made these muffins and they turned out really good. Well I am not worshiping myself here but the recipe is really really good! Thanks again to Happy Home Baking for inspiring me. This recipe is definitely gonna be a keeper!

I am not really a fan of muffin because I find it sometimes too dry that can make me feel like choking up without water, so I decided to make them in mini sizes. But only to regret it later. Mini muffins do not make a good picture, especially with those colorful muffin liners. My sister told me that I should have made them in regular sizes since she kept eating the mini ones and felt she ate a lot and fat. Well that's one of the reasons why I made them in small sizes, to make her feel like she ate a lot so she is more aware of the calories intake.
I couldn't find any cute muffin liners anywhere in Melbourne, so I bought some yesterday from eBay, which could take another 2 or 3 weeks since they are shipped from Hongkong.

Banana & Chocolate Muffins:

Ingredients:
(makes 24 mini muffins)
- 275g plain flour
- 3 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 large bananas (around 450g)
- 100g brown sugar
- 1 large egg, lightly beaten
- 50ml milk
- 75g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
- 50g chocolate chips (but I put much more than that since I love chocolate)

Method:
1. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celcius. Line muffin pans with muffin paper.
2. Sieve flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a mixing bowl. Put together the chocolate chips. Set aside.
3. Peel and mash the bananas with fork in a bowl. Add in brown sugar, egg, milk and melted butter. Mix until well incorporated.
4. Pour the liquid mixture into the dry ingredients with a spatula, gently fold all the ingredients to form a wet batter. Stir gently using a few strokes and mix and the flour are mixed into the batter. DO NOT over mix. The batter should be lumpy.
5. Spoon batter into muffin paper. Bake for 20 minutes until muffin turn golden brown.
6. Let cool on a wire rack.

These muffins are better to be served warm. I am going to microwave them before serving.

#2 : Oreo Cheesecake

It is the first cake I have ever made and it is the easiest cake. EVER! No baking required. But I am going to put it in the Baking category anyway. Basically I just put all the ingredients together and put it in the fridge. This cheesecake requires the springform pan because it cannot be turned over. Springform pan is a round pan which has a buckle and when you loosen it up, the base comes off separately.

Thanks to Happy Home Baking who provided the recipe :

Ingredients
base :
110g digestive biscuits (*)
40g melted butter

filling :

300ml whipping cream

1 tablespoon gelatin powder

3 tablespoon boiling water

10ml lemon juice

250g cream cheese, soften at room temperature

50g icing sugar

45ml fresh milk

1 table spoon vanilla or rum essence (I used rum)

8 pieces of cream-removed oreo cookies (coarsely chopped)

4 pieces of cream-removed oreo cookies (finely chopped)

note :1 piece refers to half of the oreo cookies

(*) an example of digestive biscuits is regal biscuits - indo

Method:
1. mix biscuit crumbs & melted butter together and press firmly onto the base of cake tin. chill for 30 minutes.
2. beat whipping cream with electric beaters until 70% stiff or until mousse-like. it took 2-3 minutes on low speed.
3. double-boil gelatine, lemon juice & boiling water until totally dissolved. keep warm. (to double-boil, heat a pot filled with water and place another bowl inside the pot & gelatine, lemon juice & boiling water into the bowl).
4. beat cream cheese, icing sugar, milk and vanilla essence until smooth & creamy. blend in gelatine solution.
5. blend in whipping cream.
6. pour 1/2 the cheese mixture onto the base. chill for another 15 minutes.
7. stir in finely chopped cookies into the other 1/2 of the mixture. mix well.
8. sprinkle coarsely chopped cookies on top of the first half of cheese mixture.
9. pour in the other half of the cheese mixture.
10. chill for 3 to 4 hours before serving. decorate as desired.

I am oreo overdosed now....