Lemon Drop Cheesecake

After a long, busy, sort of stressful week the best thing to do on Friday night is grab a beer, crank up the music, and BAKE!

So lemon drop cheesecake just sort of happened. I used a pre-made graham cracker crust because I was being lazy. I know that I make an awesome home-made crust, (graham crackers, sugar, melted butter, go) but sometimes I just don't feel like it.

So cheesecake filling:

1 package softened cream cheese
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 egg
Secret ingredient of awesomeness
Juice from one lemon.
A pinch of flour.

I mixed together the first 4 ingredients before deciding what sort of cheesecake I was making. Then I spotted lemons in my fridge and ran with it. I cut the end off of the lemon, and thoroughly squeezed the juice into my filling. One caveat... it may be wise to do this over a strainer of some sort. I ended up picking a few seeds out of the mix. Save the rest of the lemon for garnish! After adding the lemon my filling was too runny. I added just a tiny bit of flour to thicken it up. I think some corn starch also would have worked well. I poured that all into my crust, and stuck it in the oven on 350.

While my cheesecake was baking, I made some candied lemon peels:

1 lemon skin
Water
Sugar

I put the water on to boil, then set about cutting strips of lemon peel (scraping off any left over fruit and as much of the white bits as possible). I sat them in a strainer in the boiling water. After the boiled for 5 minutes to get nice and tender, I pulled them out, and pulled the pot off of the burner. I poured out some of the water (I had added more than was necessary to cover the lemon peels while still in the strainer) and then put the pot back on to boil. I added sugar until it was super saturated. Once that was at a good boil, I added the peels back and turned it down to simmer for a bit until removing it from heat and letting it cool down. I strained the lemon peels back out and set them aside.

When my cheesecake came out, I garnished it with the yummy candied lemon peels and stuck it in the fridge for household consumption!

Brownies and Bourbon!

So my mom gave me a brownie cookbook for the holidays last year, and I hardly bothered to crack it (sorry Mom!). I was trying to come up with something to bake this evening, and I decided to take a look. Low and behold I found a brownie recipe that called for BOURBON!

The brownie batter:

1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter
4 squares unsweetened chocolate
4 squares semisweet chocolate
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla

So I mixed that all together, and threw in some secret ingredient while I was at it. Popped it in the oven at 350 for about 40 minutes, and took it out to cool

The fun part comes next. I'm not patient by any standard, so though I should have waited long for the brownies to cool, I hopped right on to making the topping.

Praline Icing Recipe:

5 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons bourbon
2 cups confectioners sugar.

So I melted together the butter and the brown sugar until it was all melty and bubbly. Then I was supposed to add the three tablespoons of bourbon. But I added six. Cause that's how I roll. And I used my favorite... American Honey. Mmmmmm, yummy. Some of it may have spilled straight into my mouth. What a tragedy!

Now for the confectioners sugar. I realized partly through the recipe I realized my powdered sugar was at work for our epic Mario Kart gingerbread house (trust me there is a post to come on that one!). So I had to substitute. I took two cups of sifted granulated sugar and two teaspoons of cornstarch. I threw that in the blender and blended it all together. Hooray for ghetto powdered sugar!

Anyway, so stirred that all into the praline mixture until it was nice and smooth and poured it all over the brownies. Ok, so I tasted a bit as well, and dear gods is it delicious. The extra bourbon was totally the right choice!

Hooray for bourbon and brownies! Fanfuckingtastic!

Pumpkin Cheesecake (and a little something extra)!

This is the start of a BAKING MARATHON for my fire crew's party tomorrow night. I have my folks to feed, and that damn cute boy from the last post, so it's going to be a party in my kitchen tonight.

So it starts with pumpkin cheesecake. I am being lazy and I misplaced my pie pan somewhere in moving, so I started with a pre-made graham cracker crust.

For the filling:

1 package cream cheese
1 15 oz can of pumpkin
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
Cinnamon and nutmeg to taste
Secret ingredient!

It's best to let the cream cheese soften for a bit... or you can rush like me. Either way you mix it all together and put it in the crust. I ended up with more filling than I had room for though. So I put the cheesecake in the 345 degree oven and started on my next project.

Left over cheesecake filling means cheesecake bars!

So I whipped up something for the bottom:

1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
Splash in some vanilla
Secret Ingredient
1 stick melted butter.

So you mix that all together and press it into a greased 9" x 9" pan. Then I poured the cheesecake filling on top. I sprinkled that with some brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and threw it into the oven with the cheesecake.

2 types of delicious from 1 tasty filling!

Pumpkin Cheesecake:

Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars:

Edit after cutting the bars:

Way to much sugar in the bottom part of the bars. They are damn tasty, but a very strange texture. The very bottom almost sort of carmelized and they are super chewy and kind of fudgy. I don't understand really, but they taste good so I'll feed them to my coworkers anyway ^_^

Back to Basics...

Tomorrow will be an awesome Dr. Who (season 6) marathon. So, of course, I have to bake something. Who could pass up a gathering of fine, geeky folks to feed? So I asked the very cute boy who is hosting the gathering what sort of baked goods he liked, and the reply was yellow cake. Simple enough.

And did I mention that it's Friday night? Cause it is. And though I am enjoying my Friday night by staying in and being all domestic (baking, cleaning, adventure!), it is still Friday night. So I'm finishing off a good portion of a bottle of rum while I'm at it!

So yellow cake:

2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
3 tsp baking powder
A dash of salt
1 stick of butter (my last stick! oh no!)
1 cup milk (Silk PureCoconut milk for me!)
2 eggs
A splash of vanilla.

Mixed all together by my lovely (I'm still infatuated with the new shiny toy) Kitchenaid stand mixer. Add a dash of secret ingredient, and in the pan. Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes and cake! Hooray!

Sadly, as I had to use up my last stick of butter for the cake... it is getting frosting from a can. And my bottle of rum is empty! Why is the rum always gone?

C is for cookie...

Chocolate peanut butter cookie that is!

So I had a mess of extra frosting from my amazing Reeses Cake that I needed to figure out something to do with. And I have practice with my fire spinning crew tonight (who were extraordinarily nice to me yesterday when I was having boy issues), and I thought, "I'll bake cookies!"

So

1 1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
Some vanilla
1 stick of butter
1 egg.

Then I melted the frosting that was hanging out in my fridge, and mixed that in. My next thought was... "Ooooooh chocolate chips!!!" Which I immediately dumped into the mixer forgetting that the batter was warm from the frosting. So they got kind of melty. Oh well.

I scooped batter onto cookie sheets, stuck them in the oven, and ended up with just about 2 dozen cookies. Hooray. They came out all chocolate and peanut butter swirled, and they taste delicious. Hopefully my crew likes them (it's the first time I'm baking for them)!

Reese's Cake

So I've moved to a new house, with a new kitchen, and a stove that works way better than the one at my last place. And I received a housewarming gift that will benefit the stomachs, if not the waistlines, of all who come in contact with my baking: my very own Kitchenaid stand mixer!

In the moving madness I failed to write about a delicious Devil's Food cake, with a chocolate/almond frosting. However, I'm on another baking adventure tonight, and ready to blog about it. It's a peanut butter chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting!

So I started with the basic cake:

2 1/4 cups flour
2 cups sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick butter
3/4 cup milk (I'm actually using Silk PureCoconut milk these days. I love it!)
Splash in some vanilla
3 egg

Then I mixed in the secret ingredient. In a separate cup, I melted down 2 squares of unsweetened chocolate, a generous scoop of peanut butter, and the remnants of an opened bag of Reese's baking chips. When that was a gooey, delicious mess, I mixed it into the cake mix, poured it into my pan, and stuck it in the oven.

While the cake was baking, I made one of the best frostings that I have ever made from scratch. This stuff is seriously amazing. I melted one stick of butter, and about 1 cup of peanut butter (in the same container I used to melt the peanut butter chocolate mixture earlier, giving it just a hint of chocolate) and poured that into my bowl. I poured in some powdered sugar (2ish cups) I added a smidge more of the secret ingredient and a splash of the PureCoconut. I let my mixer have at it, and gave it a test once it looked good. It wasn't quite there, so I added a but more powdered sugar, and let the mixer have at it again. It was good to go after that. In fact, damn amazing. Oh man, we're lucky I haven't eaten it all.

But since it is late, and this tyrtle has to get up early for work, there is no time to frost the cake. It'll have to cool over night, and I'll frost it when I take it to dinner tomorrow. Hooray cake! Hooray mixer! Baking is the best, I swear.

It's Raining Figs!

Apparently one of my coworkers is drowning in figs. Her fig tree is having a particularly abundant year. So she is showering our office in figs. If you cook, bake, or express the slightest interest, you will end up with a bag of figs. So while everyone is busy flipping their lids about the hurricane, I'm baking!

Today's adventure is a fig cake. I've never made one before, so basically I'm just making a cake, with some figs in it.

So the basic cake recipe I worked off of:

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder

And as I am writing this, I have to kick myself, because I am realizing that I forgot to add the milk. There was supposed to be milk in this recipe. Crap. Oh well.

So then:

1/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup chopped fresh figs
Some allspice, cinnamon, and nutmeg
And, of course, some secret ingredient!

Fancy, right? Anyway, I threw it all in a bundt pan, and threw the bundt pan in the oven until it was done.

AHHHHHH! I'm watching Iron Chef America as I write this, and it is a battle of FIGS!!!!

Sorry for the ADD moment there.

Ok so for the glaze, I just combined some orange blossom honey and powdered sugar over heat, and poured it over the cake after it cooled off a bit.

The cake is delicious, though rather crumbly. I think it would have come out better if I had remembered the milk. Oh well.

Spice Cake

I'm heading to a pillow-fort building/Nerf gun war/fire-spinning party tonight, and I felt like I should bake a cake! So I started with this recipe for a spice cake:

2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 cup butter, soft
1 1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

I gave the batter a taste and it wasn't quite what I wanted, so I add a bunch more cinnamon and nutmeg. And I decided to throw in some vanilla pudding mix for a fudgier cake.

Then I remembered that I had some cardamon from my crazy herbalist friend Berry, that would be delicious. So I ran around looking for it all over the house (until I found it in wit my baking stuff). Then I went on a similar, but less successful hunt for my mortar and pestle (which must still be in Connecticut). So I ground it up with a bowl and the handle of a spoon. Not quite what I was going form, but it did the trick, and added it in. Also I totally didn't measure... just poured out some seeds and ground them.

Batter into budnt pan into oven. Baked til done, and then thrown into the freezer for quicker cooling (must get to parties on time)! After about five minutes in the freezer, I pulled it out, and flipped it out of the baking pan into the container it was leaving in, and threw it back in the freezer.

While it was cooling, I decided to make some sort of honey glaze for the cake. So I put some thistle honey in a pan with powdered sugar and melted it together. I added some nutmeg, cardamon, about a teaspoon of vanilla, and a splash of milk to the mix. The taste was fabulous... one of the best things I've come up with in a while.

I pulled out the cake, glazed it, and now I'm ready to party :)

Peanut Butter Dark Chocolate Brownies

It's been a while since I've baked much, but I felt like baking today. Besides, I haven't fed my new coworkers any of my crack yet ^_-

You want to mix together a cup of sugar, an egg, a splash of vanilla, a cup of flour, 1/4 tsp salt, and 1/2 tsp baking powder. In a microwave safe container, melt down a nice chunk of butter (1/4 a stickish) and 3-5 squares of baking chocolate (depending how chocolatey you like). And cause these are dark chocolate, go ahead and throw in an extra square. You know you want to. Mix that in with the rest of your batter. This time around I also threw in a dash of cinnamon and a slightly larger dash of nutmeg. Just trust me on that. And some secret ingredient... because secrets make everything taste better.

I might as well be endorsed by Reese's, because I love baking with Reese's Peanut Butter Chips. They are super tasty and make pretty much any recipe better. So to mix in that peanut butter flavor, I melted down a full bag, and added them to the mix. Usually I'd do half peanut butter chips, and half actual peanut butter, but I don't have any at the moment. I swear this works just as well; using the real peanut butter is just a cheaper option. If you're going to go straight peanut butter and ignore the deliciousness of the peanut butter chips... add some extra sugar.

Anyway batter -> pan -> oven -> delicious.

After work edit:

My coworkers devoured these before lunch. And baking is totally the way to make friends at work. They all had to come tell me how much they loved them!

Apple Pie Muffins

So it all started with two boxes of Jiffy Apple Cinnamon muffin mix (on sale for $.60!). Added the necessary ingredients, and then a dumped in a ton of cinnamon and nutmeg. I took an apple and cut it into very small pieces. Then I added some secret ingredient. It looked pretty runny so I also mixed in a few tablespoons of some whole wheat flour. Mix, mix, mix and toss it in the over.

12-15 minutes later, out pop some delicioso apple pie muffins! Be at Beltane to sample!

Cherry-tastic Torte

Since my raspberry torte was so tasty, and frozen cherries were on sale at the grocery store today, I decided I would make a cherry torte. After putting away all my groceries, I hopped on the internet to find a recipe. Google was full of options and this is the one I went with.

With a few edits, of course. I added a dash of nutmeg for flavor, and the secret ingredient. I actually used less sugar (gasp!) than recommended on top.

And voila! Cherry-tastic Torte!

In which I prove that I am a crazy cat lady...

That's right, I baked cat treats today. I got a package of bake your own cat treats mix for the holidays. Since two years ago today I adopted my cat, I decided to bake them. All I was required to do was add water. I also threw in some cat food for good measure. They baked up pretty quick and easy.

The cats seem totally uninterested, lol.

Aaaaand for the humans in the house, I baked some cheesecake. Mashed up some store brand oreos and mixed them with a stick of melted butter. Pressed that into a pie pan and set it aside.

My house mates had a giant tub of cream cheese in the fridge so I scooped some of that into a bowl, added an egg, and the rest of a bag of powdered sugar. Mixed that together and decided it needed some more cream cheese, so I added some more. Then I melted down some peanut butter chips, and chocolate chips, and added those. Still not finding it to be quite right, I added some more peanut butter chips, the secret ingredient, and some hot cocoa mix (we have a ton and I am trying to put some of it to good use).

Anyway, I threw that in the oven and then there was cheesecake.

Raspberry Torte

So I'm adventuring out from my usual brownies/cookies/cakes and making a torte this evening. I was looking for a recipe to use up the last of the raspberry scone raspberries that were still sitting in the freezer. I came across this raspberry walnut torte recipe.

I subbed in a smaller amount of pecans for the 3/4 cups walnuts cause that's what I had. I also added some secret ingredient to both the crust and the later mixture. It looks pretty tasty in the oven right now. I expect full on deliciousness from this experiment!

Later:
The first piece I tasted, I really enjoyed the flavor, but was less sure about the texture. I was compelled to try again, and found it slightly more appealing. By the third piece, I was pretty sure I liked it. Yep! Definitely tasty and delicious!

Better-Than-Sex-Heath-Bar-Brownies

It has been said many times that my brownies are better than sex. Brownies are the cornerstone of my baking. Heath Bar Brownies are among my favorites.

You want to mix together a cup of sugar, an egg, a splash of vanilla, a cup of flour, 1/4 tsp salt, and 1/2 tsp baking powder. In a microwave safe container, melt down a nice chunk of butter (1/4 a stickish) and 3-5 squares of baking chocolate (depending how chocolatey you like. I went with 4). Mix that in with the rest of your batter. At this point I add some secret ingredient. This is a good time to add some love, or Jesus (mmm fresh ground Jesus), or whatever makes you feel better.

Then grab a bag of Heath Bar bits. The Hershey's folks recommend topping your brownies with them, but I prefer dumping about half the bag right into the mix. Trust me, it's delicious. Then you can pour the mix into a baking pan (I prefer a 9X9 silicone pan myself) and toss it in the over. I'd say 350, but my oven is made of evil, and I have to keep it around 300 to keep things from burning.

So keep an eye on them. When they start to look almost done, pull the pan out of the oven. If you've managed not to consume the rest of the delicious Heath bits, sprinkle some on top of the brownies, and toss them back in for a few more minutes. Just like that, you too can have Better-Than-Sex-Heath-Bar-Brownies

Screw the Directions!

Alright, so this week has been all about bastardizing cookie mixes. I got some Betty Crocker cookie mixes on the cheap at the grocery store, and I've been making cookies to quell the desire for stabsies. And both of these batches were excellent examples of one of my favorite baking rules: If the batter is so good you can't stop eating it, the end result will be even better.

First I started with a double chocolate cookie mix. It was basically chocolate cookies with chocolate chunks. So then I melted about half a cup of chunky peanut butter down, and stirred it into the mix. Then I added some Reese's Peanut Butter chips I had leftover from the peanut butter cheesecake. Added the secret ingredient, and baked away. The result was tasty. So tasty in fact, that somehow between when I went to bed and when I awoke 2 dozen of them disappeared into thin air.

Tonight I took the oatmeal cookie mix and ran with it. I'm not a fan of raisins in my cookies, so eff the raisins! Raspberries are where it is at. I had extra frozen raspberries from the raspberry scones, so I decided to put them to good use. I mixed them into my cookie dough, and also added some cinnamon and nutmeg for good measure. A little secret ingredient, and they were popped onto the tray. I topped each one with an extra raspberry and baked away. I wonder if there will be any left when I get up this time...

Apple Cinnamon Coffee Cake

So I woke up early before work 2 Fridays ago, and it was going to be someone's last day at the store, so I figured it was time to bake. Apple cinnamon coffee cake just sort of happened.

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup dark brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
2 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk
2 cups applesauce
Lots of cinnamon
A dash of nutmeg

So I threw that all in a bundt pan with some secret ingredient goodness, and set about making my morning coffee. When it came out, I tossed it in the freezer to cool off some so I could add some glaze.

I threw together some milk, powdered sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and granola. After a few minutes I glazed the cake with it, and headed off to work. The coworkers loved it, and it was even still warm in the middle!

Chocolate Chip Muffins

So work is terribly stressful, which leads to baking!

Tonight I made chocolate chip muffins for the morning:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup milk
1/2 cup butter -- melted and cooled
2 eggs - beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 package (12 oz) chocolate chips

Okay, so maybe I added some extra chocolate chips, and some secret ingredient, but who's counting? Anyway, that yielded some tasty muffins (I may have had chocolate chip muffins and beer for dinner, oops?)

Just an aside, I love how having things in the oven gives me time to clean in the kitchen! I almost always do my baking dishes (plus whatever else is in the sink) while my treats are baking, and today I cleaned the stove top too!

Chocolate Cupcakes, Giant Cupcake, and Muffin Aside...

Saturdays are great days for baking. Yay baking. It's a problem, I know. And I've roped the roomie into my addiction. I'm a horrible person. So after our Saturday morning BSG fix, we found ourselves in the kitchen.

Alright, so I'd already been in the kitchen this morning. I whipped up a quick batch of lemon poppy seed muffins from a cheap mix that was on sale at the grocery store. With a bit of secret ingredient mixed in, I tossed them in the oven while I made coffee. After all, we'd need fuel for the cupcake madness to come. The mix yielded a nice half dozen, and for being so cheap and easy, they were pretty damn tasty.

But really, what matters here is cupcakes. Because who doesn't love cupcakes, right? Anyway, being the lovely sharer of addictions that I am, I had gotten her a Big Top Cupcake pan for the holidays to go with the lovely new stand mixer I knew she was getting. So she was baking with that for the first time. She filled it with funfetti cake mix, and into the oven it went. She made a tasty peanut butter filling for it too... it had peanut butter chips, peanut butter, butter, sugar, and milk. Yummy.

I made some chocolate cupcakes:
2 cups of all-purpose flour
2 cups of brown sugar
2 cups of melted semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 tsp. baking soda
2 large eggs
1 tsp. salt
1 cup of vegetable oil
A generous splash of vanilla extract
1 cup of water
And some secret ingredient

We were having oven issues today. Not everything baked evenly. Though I made about 2 dozen cupcakes, only about a dozen were presentable. So I frosted those with leftover frosting from the Murdercake. Added some sprinkles to make them super cute, and we have hooray cupcakes!

Murdercake

So my dear friend's birthday is coming up, and when I asked him what sort of cake he wanted his reply was "murdercake." I pushed for clarification, and didn't get any. I have very special friends. So left to my own devices, this is what he's getting:

I picked up a heart-shaped silicone cake pan for $1 at Target last year, and I've only had a few occasions to use it since. So I made a heart-shaped red velvet cake. I took the cheap and easy route on this one, since it was the middle of the week, and I'm lazy. I started with a boxed yellow cake mix. Followed the directions on the box, and added some secret ingredient and about a quarter cup of sugar. Then I mixed in some chocolate pudding mix and a fair amount of red food coloring. I made two layers of that.

In between and on top, I made some vanilla frosting from scratch. It's a variation on a super easy recipe that my very good friend from high school taught me. It's basically just 1 part shortening, 4 parts powdered sugar and vanilla to taste. That's the frosting on top and between my layers of cake. I also made some red frosting and mixed in the frozen raspberries leftover from my raspberry scones to make the gore!

Alright so this is the first layer:

And this is the cake in progress:

The you just add the murder, and voila... MURDERCAKE!

Peanut Butter Cheesecake

That's right. A straight up heart attack of deliciousness in a pan.

The crust started with a pack of Oreos (well actually store-brand chocolate sandwich cream cookies, but whatever). Crushed those up, minus the handful that made it to my mouth, and added a stick of melted butter. I mixed that all together and pressed it into the pie pan. Yes I realize that I should have a fancy-schmancy spring form pan and make it in a water bath, but I'm baking on a budget here. I work with what I have.

Anyway, the best part is the filling. About a cup of brown sugar, one egg, and one package of cream cheese mixed together. A smidge of the secret ingredient mixed in. Then I took about a cup of Reeses peanut butter chips (which I had never baked with before, but they were on clearance so I couldn't resist) and melted them with a small amount of butter. I stirred that into my cheesecake mixture. It thickened it up a bit more than I expected, but it was still a good texture... and totally delicious. So I spread it into my pan and tossed it in the oven. Mmmmm.

Raspberry Scones

So this morning I decided to attempt scones for the first time.

For the first batch I followed this recipe for whole wheat raspberry scones.  For once, I actually followed the recipe. The only minor adaptation was a pinch of my secret ingredient... which goes in EVERYTHING I bake. And instead of scones, I pretty much ended up with round, flat, scone-like cookies. So fail.

Batch 2 consisted of the leftover dough from batch one. I added a cup of white flour and 1.5 tablespoons on baking powder. The results were slightly more risen than the first round, but still very cookie-like.

For the third batch, I added another tablespoon of baking powder, and maybe a teaspoon on baking soda. They came out basically the same as the second batch, except they were dark purple!

Alright, so batch 4: More white flour, baking powder, baking soda, and more RASPBERRIES! The consistency of the dough seemed a bit more appropriate, and as I watched them bake I began to get hopeful that maybe batch 4 was going to be the batch. As they come out of the oven, I was getting excited. I could barely wait a minute before I pulled one of the tray, broke off a corner, and ran to my room mate. "I think I've achieved scones." A bite later, "You have totally achieve scones." Batch 4 for the win!