Tall and Creamy

I have a tried and true New York style cheesecake recipe that I always turn to.  However, when I saw this particular Dorie Greenspan recipe, I had to give it a try...she replaces some of the sour cream in a traditional recipe with heavy cream.  So intriguing.  Would it be lighter or heavier?  As it turns out, it made a cheesecake lighter in texture than the New York cheesecake and probably 10 times the fat.  It was just slightly lighter in texture though--4 packs of cream cheese still makes a pretty solid cheesecake.

The taste?  Well I thought it tasted like cheesecake, but I'm not really a sweets person. My mom however, is a cheesecake connoisseur and she loved it.  That's saying a lot about Dorie's recipe. And because it was for my mom, and she likes fruit in her cheesecake, I grabbed a bit of leftover summer and topped the baked crust before adding the cheesecake filling.

This recipe calls for filling the pan all the way to the rim...a little scary, but surprisingly enough, it did not spill over and  the cause kitchen baking catastrophe I envisioned in my mind. Never doubt Dorie.

And if you drop a bit of butter and graham cracker crumbs into mini muffin cups and top with the filling, you can make some mini cheesecake cups to take to the office. 

Tall and Creamy Cheesecake
From Dorie Greenspan's Baking From My Home to Yours

Ingredients
For the crust (omit the crust for Passover or see above):
1 3/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
3 tablespoons sugar
Pinch of salt
1/2 stick (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted

For the cheesecake:
2 pounds (four 8-ounce boxes) cream cheese, at room temperature
1 1/3 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/3 cups sour cream or heavy cream, or a combination of the two ( I tried it with 1 cup cream, 1/3 cup sour cream)

To make the crust:
1. Butter a 9-inch springform pan—choose one that has sides that are 2 3/4 inches high (if the sides are lower, you will have cheesecake batter leftover)—and wrap the bottom of the pan in a double layer of aluminum foil; put the pan on a baking sheet.
2. Stir the crumbs, sugar and salt together in a medium bowl. Pour over the melted butter and stir until all of the dry ingredients are uniformly moist. (I do this with my fingers.) Turn the ingredients into the buttered springform pan and use your fingers to pat an even layer of crumbs along the bottom of the pan and about halfway up the sides. Don't worry if the sides are not perfectly even or if the crumbs reach above or below the midway mark on the sides—this doesn't have to be a precision job. Put the pan in the freezer while you preheat the oven.
3. Center a rack in the oven, preheat the oven to 350°F and place the springform on a baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes. Set the crust aside to cool on a rack while you make the cheesecake.
4. Reduce the oven temperature to 325°F.

To make the cheesecake:
1. Put a kettle of water on to boil.
2. Working in a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the cream cheese at medium speed until it is soft and lives up to the creamy part of its name, about 4 minutes. With the mixer running, add the sugar and salt and continue to beat another 4 minutes or so, until the cream cheese is light. Beat in the vanilla. Add the eggs one by one, beating for a full minute after each addition—you want a well-aerated batter. Reduce the mixer speed to low and stir in the sour cream and/or heavy cream.
3. Put the foil-wrapped springform pan in the roaster pan.
4. Give the batter a few stirs with a rubber spatula, just to make sure that nothing has been left unmixed at the bottom of the bowl, and scrape the batter into the springform pan. The batter will reach the brim of the pan. (If you have a pan with lower sides and have leftover batter, you can bake the batter in a buttered ramekin or small soufflé mold.) Put the roasting pan in the oven and pour enough boiling water into the roaster to come halfway up the sides of the springform pan.
5. Bake the cheesecake for 1 hour and 30 minutes, at which point the top will be browned (and perhaps cracked) and may have risen just a little above the rim of the pan. Turn off the oven's heat and prop the oven door open with a wooden spoon. Allow the cheesecake to luxuriate in its water bath for another hour.
6. After 1 hour, carefully pull the setup out of the oven, lift the springform pan out of the roaster—be careful, there may be some hot water in the aluminum foil—remove the foil. Let the cheesecake come to room temperature on a cooling rack.
7. When the cake is cool, cover the top lightly and chill the cake for at least 4 hours, although overnight would be better.
Serving: Remove the sides of the springform pan—I use a hairdryer to do this (use the dryer to warm the sides of the pan and ever so slightly melt the edges of the cake)—and set the cake, still on the pan's base, on a serving platter. The easiest way to cut cheesecake is to use a long, thin knife that has been run under hot water and lightly wiped. Keep warming the knife as you cut slices of the cake.

Peppermint Marshmallows

Because I can.  There's no other explanation for why a person would make marshmallows at home except that they can.  And perhaps because you can control the flavoring and they are so much oozier in hot chocolate than the store bought kind. 

Are they easy?  Perhaps for those that are good at making candy.  Candymaking happens to be my kitchen achilles heel--I can never figure the stuff out.  This recipe didn't go so well the first time around...

This is what burnt and overcooked sugar looks like.  Worse than ruining the first batch of marshmallows is trying to figure out what to do with 360 degree sugar you know will turn to a solid mass when cooled.  Pour it in the garbage and you've melted through the bag.  Pour it in the sink and you'll have plumbing issues.  I decided the best solution was to pour it into ice water to create fabulous sugar sculpture perfect for the trash can.
One more time with the sugar...

Apparently before it burns, you should drizzle this and then some dissolved gelatin into whipped egg whites.  Whip it all together for a bit more...

I added one teaspoon of peppermint extract to mine.  This is the perfect amount to flavor hot chocolate when the marshmallows melt, but entirely way too much to make these marshmallows edible plain. Once cooled they can be cut into squares or shapes...

And then it's on to the hot chocolate.  Homemade hot chocolate is so easy, I've never understood the packaged kind.  It's just as easy to heat up milk as it is to boil water.  And when you make it yourself, it doesn't have crazy ingredients like corn syrup solids or any of those preservatives.  It's just milk,  cocoa, vanilla and a bit of sweetener.

The dutch processed cocoa makes a big difference--something about having alkali to neutralize its acids.  Sounds like science to me, so I just say it makes a much better tasting cocoa. 

Hot Chocolate
2 cups milk
5 tsps cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsps of sweetener.  (The marshmallows will send you and the cocoa into sugar shock)
Combine all ingredients in saucepan and whisk over medium until hot. Pour into mugs and top with marshmallows and serve. 

Peppermint Marshmallows
Dorie Greenspan Baking from My House to Yours

Ingredients
About 1 cup potato starch (found in the kosher foods section of supermarkets) or cornstarch
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
2 1/4-ounce packets unflavored gelatin
3 large egg whites, at room temperature
3/4 cup cold water
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract 1 tsp peppermint extract
1 1/4 cups plus 1 tablespoon sugar*

Preparation

GETTING READY: Line a rimmed baking sheet — choose one with a rim that is 1 inch high — with parchment paper and dust the paper generously with potato starch or cornstarch. Have a candy thermometer at hand.

Put 1/3 cup of the water, 1 1/4 cups of the sugar and the corn syrup in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Once the sugar is dissolved, continue to cook the syrup — without stirring — until it reaches 265 degrees F on the candy thermometer, about 10 minutes.

While the syrup is cooking, work on the gelatin and egg whites. In a microwave-safe bowl, sprinkle the gelatin over the remaining cold water (a scant 7 tablespoons) and let it sit for about 5 minutes, until it is spongy, then heat the gelatin in a microwave oven for 20 to 30 seconds to liquefy it. (Alternatively, you can dissolve the gelatin in a saucepan over low heat.)

Working in the clean, dry bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment or in another large bowl with a hand mixer, beat the egg whites on medium-high speed until firm but still glossy — don’t overbeat them and have them go dull.

As soon as the syrup reaches 265 degrees F, remove the pan from the heat and, with the mixer on medium speed, add the syrup, pouring it between the spinning beater(s) and the sides of the bowl. Add the gelatin and continue to beat for another 3 minutes, so that the syrup and the gelatin are fully incorporated. Beat in the vanilla.

Using a large rubber spatula, scrape the meringue mixture onto the baking sheet, laying it down close to a short end of the sheet. Then spread it into the corners and continue to spread it out, taking care to keep the height of the batter at 1 inch; you won’t fill the pan. Lift the excess parchment paper up to meet the edge of the batter, then rest something against the paper so that it stays in place (I use custard cups).

Dust the top of the marshmallows with potato starch or cornstarch and let the marshmallows set in a cool, dry place. They’ll need about 3 hours, but they can rest for 12 hours or more.

Once they are cool and set, cut the marshmallows with a pair of scissors or a long thin knife. Whatever you use, you’ll have to rinse and dry it frequently. Have a big bowl with the remaining potato starch or cornstarch at hand and cut the marshmallows as you’d like — into squares, rectangles or even strips.

Gratuitous Christmas tree shot because someone mentioned they should all be coming down soon.  I say nay.

Cookbook #60 Martha Stewart Living Christmas

Martha, Martha, Martha.  Conspicuous consumption.  Over the top, completely unachievable perfectionism.  A compulsion to correct every guest on her show.  And still, I can't turn the channel or pass on the latest issue of Martha Stewart Living.  She's just so clever when it comes to the domestic arts.

Her Martha Stewart Living Christmas compilation cookbook?  Well, it's all good, minus the part where all the photos sit in the front of the cookbook and the recipes section has no photos at all.  I hate those layouts. That gripe aside, this cookbook sits on my shelf without about eleventy gajillion sticky flags, just waiting for the day when I have nothing to do but cook, bake and cook some more.   Mini panettones with ultra cute little ribbons?  It's in there. Uber schmance brie on croute?  Yep. Butternut squash cannellini with sage walnut cream sauce?  Oh my.  So which recipe did I choose?  Salad. 

Some would argue that preparing salad is not cooking.  I would agree.  But the ingredients in this escarole with persimmons and pomegranate salad with lemon-shallot vinaigrette were that fascinating. 

Persimmons are one of my top 70 favorite fruits. They are sweet and tangy and have the perfect crunch...if you buy the Fuyu kind that is.  Mistakenly pick up a Hachiya persimmon and you are in for rude awakening.  Luckily they look as different as night and later that night.  Fuyus are rounder and look an awful lot like an orange tomato.  My version of this salad would have to start with the word spinach rather than escarole, because apparently I feel all greens can be replaced with spinach.  And fennel?  That's a personal choice.  If you hate black licorice, you may want to shy away from raw fennel in a sald.  Pomengranates however, are universally likeable aren't they?  They should be sprinkled on everything because they are just that happy.

Spinach Salad with Persimmons, Fennel and Pomegranate

Adapted from Martha Stewart Living Christmas Cookbook

5 cups baby spinach

5 Fuyu persimmons, peeled and cut into wedges

Seeds of 1 pomegranate

1 fennel bulb, sliced thin

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

1/4 cup minced shallots

2 tbsp grainy mustard

2 tbsp fresh maroram finely chopped

Salt and pepper

Prepare salad with first 4 ingredients. Toss with vinaigrette

To Make Vinaigrette:

Combine lemon juice, shallots, mustard and marjoram.  Season with salt and pepper.  Whisk in oil in slow, steady stream until emulsified.

Cookie of Christmas Past, Present & Future

Trying new Christmas cookie recipes is definitely part of the fun of Christmas baking. Sometimes you find a fabulous new recipe like the Chocolate Peppermint Cookies from last week, and others result in trays and trays of gingerbread men you will never, ever eat.

While new recipes do hold a certain allure, it's the recipes that take you back to childhood that keep coming back--like my grandmother's butter cookies. I can say that this is the only Christmas cookie that has made an appearance in my kitchen every year for the past 15 years at least. In a Christmas cookie world that includes fancy cookies and cookie bars with 25 different types of chocolate, "butter cookies" sounds a bit boring. The name just doesn't do them justice. I think the combination of powdered sugar and almond and orange extract just combine to create Christmas magic. Or perhaps that it's just that it reminds me of Christmas Eve at Grandma's.

Funny thing is, my aunt J once mentioned that my uncle likes these so much, that she bakes them all year round. Huh? Christmas cookies in May? And then I thought about how much I've deprived myself of eating these year round...but they've yet to make an appearance outside of the Christmas season.

What I especially love about Granda's handwritten recipes are that they include words like "icebox" and "oleo." This particular recipe calls for 1 cup of fat, in some butter, oleo and shortening combination. I'm pretty sure I've experimented with this in the past because I have my own handwritten version that states 1/2 cup butter and 1/2 cup shortening but this year I second guessed myself. These are called "Butter Cookies," after all, surely butter is always better....

Yeah not so much. In this recipe, the all butter version was flat and spread out and a bit greasy, as characteristic of butter only recipes. The 1/2 butter and 1/2 margarine version behaved the same and only the addition of the shortening created the crisp, light and flaky cookie I wanted. And while colored sugars make a pretty cookie, this cookie really calls for sprinkles. It's part of the overall flavor and texture combination. Not sure why, but sugar versions are not the same. Sugar= bad, sprinkles = good.

Grandma's Butter Cookies

1 1/2 c. powdered sugar

1/2 c. butter, softened

1/2 c. Crisco shortening

3 egg yolks

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cream of tartar

pinch of salt

1/2 tsp almond extract

1/2 tsp orange extract

2 1/2 c. flour

Preheat oven to 350

Beat together sugar, butter, Crisco, egg yolks and extracts.

Add dry ingredients and mix well.

Roll cookies into balls and dip in sprinkles.

Bake 10-12 mins.

It's the Hap Happiest Season of All...

Someone at work asked if I'd put up my Christmas tree yet.  Please.  I start anticipating the approach of Christmas right after Halloween is over.  It's a mental countdown of when I can get away with putting up a Christmas tree and spreading holiday lights around the house.  I'll admit that there's a slight suspension of control when it comes to Christmas decorations. The Christmas carols may even have come out weeks ago.  And in true Christmas tradition, most shopping was completed prior to Thanksgiving.  December is all about the lights, carols, baking Christmas cookies for the office, and of course, the Christmas Story.  Not the one where you shoot your eye out--the one that began in a manger.

What other time of the year can you get away with the excessive sparkle except at Christmas?  And remember when you were little and Christmas took FOREVER to come?  Now I wish it would never get here...I'm already sad when I think that it needs to come down in a few weeks....

Even the four legged inhabitants of this home are enchanted by Christmas. 

Cookbook # 58, Williams Sonoma London

I love this particular world cookbook collection from Williams Sonoma....it's more armchair travel then cookbook really.  With advice on where to shop and what foods to shop for in each city, it's hard not to browse through one when standing in Williams Sonoma. That being said, I usually grab "Paris"  (oh the cheeses) or "New York" (how I miss thee) or Florence (food so worthy of an entire series of cookbooks).  London, well, not so much.   It's not that I don't adore London.  Truth be told, the UK is my all time favorite travel destination. No other country makes me want to chuck it all for any opportunity to live within its borders. I would wait tables to live there or herd sheep in the Scottish highlands--with my kilted lover reading The Lady of the Lake with his thick Scottish brogue of course.  Ahhh the brogue.... and what could be grander than being able to travel to Cotswolds for the weekend? There is anglophilia flowing through this girl's blood.

But the food?  I am ashamed to admit that my trips there have not been culinary adventures.  There was a love affair with shortbread and tea and scones, but I couldn't even tell you what real food I've eaten over there aside from Chinese and Indian.  Shame on me. 

Can we talk about the curries though?  Unbelieveable.  Truly.  And when I picked up this cookbook, I was drawn specifically to the curry recipe.  Don't try to tell me I could find those recipes in an Indian cookbook--I'd finally justified the London cookbook and it's filled with photos of London.  It was the armchair travel that I really wanted.

That being said, the recipes in here actually do sound quite fabulous...Lemon Lavender cake for tea, Asian Grilled Salmon Salad and Pear Souffle.  And the crowning glory?  Sticky Toffee Pudding.  I've never had toffee pudding, and when I read the recipes, I"m not even sure how much I really want to eat a pudding.  But I sure do fancy the idea of making a traditional English pudding.  This Sticky Toffee Pudding pulls out all the raisins and dried fruit that had me passing on the other recipes.  Perhaps this will be the year I make my first English Pudding.  While singing traditional English Christmas carols, because they are the best as well.  Who doesn't want to go wasailing?

Oh right, the cookbook.  So of course, until I can get over my pudding phobia and just do it, I have to settle for somthing a little safer....Chicken Tikka Masala.  And who knew that while Indian in influence, it's a British invention?

Chicken Tikka Massala is now a true British national dish, not only because it is the most popular, but because it is a perfect illustration of the way Britain absorbs and adapts external influences. Chicken Tikka is an Indian dish. The Massala sauce was added to satisfy the desire of British people to have their meat served in gravy. ”

                - Extract from a speech by British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook.

Since I don't cook a lot of Indian, I don't know how traditional or authentic the recipe was, but it did involve a lot of steps like marinating chicken overnight in spices and yogurt, and grinding your own spices. 

It was worth every step.  I don't usually like leftovers, but this was even fabulous when taken to work two days later.  Way to go London. I will always love you more than Paris--even if some of your other foods have the words "blood"  or "kidney" in them and you outright refuse my yankee request for ketchup with my "chips."  That's what unconditional love is all about.

Chicken Tikka Masala
Adapted from Williams-Sonoma London

1/4 cup Greek yogurt
4 skinless boneless chicken breast, chopped into 1 inch cubes
juice of 1 lime
2 t. minced ginger
1 tsp each ground cumin and garam masala

In nonreactive bowl, stir together the above ingredients, cover and refrigerate at least one hour or overnight.
Preheat broiler.  Remove chicken from marinade and place on plate.  Season with salt and drizzle with oil.  Toss to coat.  Arrange chicken in a single layer on a foil-lined broiler pan and set under the broiler, turning once, until browned.(about 3 minutes per side)

Masala Sauce

1 small yellow onion diced
1 clove garlic, finely diced
1 tsp minced ginger
5  green cardamom pods
1/2 t. chili powder
1/2 t. turmeric
1 tsp each of ground cumin and coriander
1 15 oz can of diced tomatoes
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 tsp heavy cream
1/2 tsp garam masala
Juice of half lemon

In a saucepan over medium heat, warm 3 tsp oil.  Add onion, ginger and garlic and cook 4-5 minutes until onion is softened, stirring frequently.  Add cardamom and ground spices except garam masala and cook 2 minutes stirring constantly.  Add tomatoes and cook additional 5-8 minutes.  Add cream and yogurt, 1/4 cup water and bring to boil.  Reduce heat to low and simmer untl the mixture forms a cream sauce, about 8-10 minutes. Stir in cooked chicken and garam masal and cook additional 8-10 minutes.  Stir in lemon juice.  Serve with naan or rice.

Cookbook #42 Martha Stewart Cookies

An entire cookbook dedicated to cookies...this is the perfect Christmas cookbook. In truth, I'm guessing that every recipe in this cookbook is on Martha Stewart's website, but here the editors of Martha Stewart Living have divided it up according to cookie type; light and delicate, soft and chewy, crumbly and sandy, chunky and nutty, cakey and tender, crisp and crunchy & rich and dense. I'd say that's the perfect way to classify cookie recipes.

Up next in the Christmas baking was Pistachio Tuiles. The ingredient list is minimal and the recipe is simple. It's a bit time consuming because you can only bake 6 on a sheet but otherwise it was easy peasy.

Martha's instructed method for making tuiles is to drape them over a wooden spoon.

My preferred method was to roll them around the spoon. Fun to make, and they were indeed not only light and delicate, but perfectly crunchy and delightfully nutty and yummy little suckers.

Pistachio Tuiles

from Martha Stewart Cookies

2/3 cup sugar
3 large egg whites
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup ( 1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 cup shelled unsalted pistachios, finely chopped in a food processor

Preheat oven to 350.

Whisk sugar, egg whites, and salt in a medium bowl until sugar has dissolved. Whisk in butter, then flour. Stir in pistachios.
Line a baking sheet with a nonstick baking mat. Place a long-handled wooden spoon on a clean work surface; prop up each end on a metal spoon to raise it slightly (you will use handle of wooden spoon to form tuiles).
Drop teaspoons of batter onto baking mat, spacing about 2 inches apart; flatten into 1 1/2-inch rounds. Bake until pale golden, 8 to 10 minutes. Let cool on baking sheet 30 seconds.
Working quickly with one cookie at a time, use an offset spatula to lift cookies from sheet and drape them over spoon handle. (If cookies become too crisp to work with, return to oven until pliable, about 1 minute.)

Let cookies cool slightly, 20 to 30 seconds, then remove from handle; press sides together to close. Let cool completely. Repeat with remaining batter.

Tuiles can be stored in an airtight container up to 1 week.

Familia

Blogging has been pushed to the back of my priority list recently and really, with a bazillion amazing bloggers out there, who's going to miss a few less food and craft photos?  But alas, I received an e-mail this morning from family in Thailand...."we follow your blog."  And I've neglected posting the family photos which I'm sure is the entire reason they would follow the blog.  Here they are--with a little plug on how much I adore my new 85mm prime lens.  Shallow depth of field, perfectly proportioned facial features and what about that bokeh?  Canon, you are my friend.

Hope your Thanksgivings were as wonderful!

 

 

Canon is sister's friend too.

Don't tell my family I posted this photo...but I so prefer candids over posed. Look at the personalities in this one....