After I got back from San Francisco, I asked the friend who watch my cat what she'd like me to bake for her. I expected a request for brownies or grapefruit yogurt cake, but instead, she wanted pumpkin pie. I was stumped, having never made pumpkin pie and not even remembering if I liked pumpkin pie. I checked Smitten Kitchen and sure enough found pumpkin brownies and ... bourbon pumpkin cheesecake. Of course, these ideas distracted me. I pushed aside the idea of bourbon pumpkin cheesecake, not wanting to buy a bottle of bourbon just to make a dessert (there were also the naysayers who didn't seem to sure it would even taste okay). Then I was offered the remnants of a bottle of Jack Daniels ... that works and there go my excuses. The end result was delicious ... lighter than your typical cheesecake.
The original recipe includes a graham cracker and pecan crust that looks amazing. I skipped on it because it seemed like just a little too much for everything I was cooking that day and I only have one springform pan and it was spoken for. With the pre-made crust, this came together remarkably easily. Because I was using a pre-made crust though, the filling didn't all fit, so I put the excess in two smaller ramekins ... one for me the next day and one for the cat-care giver who prompted this recipe! I'm glad I did because only a small sliver of pie was left over!
Bourbon Pumpkin Cheesecake (from Smitten Kitchen, adapted from Gourmet)
Ingredients
1 9" graham cracker pie crust (or make your own using the link above)
For filling (see notes above about filling amount)
1 1/2 cups canned solid-pack pumpkin
3 large eggs
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons bourbon liqueur or bourbon (doubled from the original, the flavour was still subtle)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, at room temperature (roughly 3 250g packages less 1/4 cup)
For topping
2 cups sour cream
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 tablespoon bourbon liqueur or bourbon
Garnish: pecan halves
1. Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Whisk together pumpkin, eggs, brown sugar, cream, vanilla, and liqueur in a bowl until combined.
3. Stir together granulated sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and salt in large bowl.
4. Add cream cheese and beat with an electric mixer at high speed until creamy and smooth, about 3 minutes.
5. Reduce speed to medium, then add pumpkin mixture and beat until smooth.
6. Pour filling into crust, smoothing top. Bake until center is just set, 50 to 60 minutes. Transfer to rack and cool 5 minutes (leave oven on).
7. Whisk together sour cream, sugar, and liqueur in a bowl, then spread on top of cheesecake and bake 5 additional minutes.
8. Cool cheesecake completely in pan on rack, about 3 hours.
9. Chill, covered, until cold, at least 4 hours.
Showing posts with label cheesecake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cheesecake. Show all posts
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Cappucinno Fudge Cheesecake
This recipe has been on my mind for nearly a year. The problem was, it's a ridiculously complex dessert ... and quite the investment in cream cheese, chocolate, and other ingredients. I also wanted to save it for an occasion when I would have plenty of as Smitten Kitchen warns that it's decadent and serves more like 30. Apparently she's never met my friend's because my group of 22 only left one small piece after finishing off a bourbon pumpkin cheesecake, some mint brownies, making a dent in homemade applesauce, and eating a fair amount of other food. All of this food was for a 3-part celebration (or excuse to eat): my belated two year anniversary of being in Canada, the belated one year anniversary of this little food blog, and an early American Thanksgiving as I'll be with family for Thanksgiving this year. A good food blogger would've gotten pictures of the food and on that point, I failed miserably ... except for a before and after of this cheesecake. Here you see my less than stellar icing skills:
And in this after shot, you can see the layers of the cake. The bottom is a cookie crust, followed by a kahlua-spiked chocolate ganache, then espresso flavoured cheesecake, then a vanilla flavoured sweetened sour cream layer, and finally the beautiful icing!
Be warned, this recipe is a lot of work and time intensive (a lot of cooling, although I think I should've served it slightly cooler as the ganache layer was slightly hard). To prevent being pressed for time, I did the cookie and ganache layers the night before (hooray for cooking at midnight!). My only complaint with this recipe is that the crust came out a little hard. I have three theories for what went wrong. (1) I think I may have slightly burnt the cookies before turning them into crumbs. I pulled the chocolate crumb dough out of the freezer as leftovers from a previous recipe and overcompensated for the frozen dough by upping the cooking time too much. (2) The cheesecake portion of the dish did not want to set, so I kept cooking it (slightly burning the top, which I cut off after it puffed too much and served as a lovely breakfast on the day of cooking) and likely burned the cookie crust more. (3) My springform pan let the kahlua and possibly butter leak out, removing much needed moisture. I need to work on forming a better seal with it. Luckily, the crust certainly did not sink the dish!
Two other comments: SK says for a 9" inch pan instead of 10" to use 3/4 of the cheesecake layer. I put the full amount in and it fit, so go ahead and make the full amount. Leftovers can always be placed in other dishes or trimmed! I weighted the cream cheese using my scale. Eyeballing it though, 3 8-ounce packages of cream cheese appeared to work out to roughly 3 250g packages minus about 1/4 cup or so of the last package.
One year ago: Tomato Sausage Risotto (If you haven't tried this recipe yet, make it this week!)
Cappuccino Fudge Cheesecake (from Smitten Kitchen, adapted from Bon Appetit)
Ingredients
Crust
1 9-ounce box chocolate wafer cookies or 9 ounces of homemade chocolate wafers
6 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
7 tablespoons hot melted unsalted butter
Ganache
1 1/2 cups heavy or whipping cream
20 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
1/4 cup Kahlúa or other coffee-flavored liqueur
Filling
3 8-ounce packages cream cheese (for metric, see note above), room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 1/2 tablespoons dark rum
1 1/2 tablespoons instant espresso powder or coffee crystals
1 1/2 tablespoons ground whole espresso coffee beans (medium-coarse grind ... I used the ground espresso I have on hand for my morning drink which is a finer grind)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoons mild-flavored (light) molasses (I think I used dark)
3 large eggs
Topping
1 1/2 cups sour cream
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Make crust:
1. Finely grind cookies, chopped chocolate, brown sugar, and nutmeg in processor. 2. Add butter and process until crumbs begin to stick together, scraping down bowl occasionally, about 1 minute (my processor wasn't big enough, so I stirred together by hand).
3. Transfer crumbs to 9-inch-diameter springform pan with 3-inch-high sides.
4. Wrap plastic wrap around fingers and press crumb mixture firmly up sides to within 1/2 inch of top edge, then over bottom of pan.
Make ganache:
5. Bring cream to simmer in large saucepan (I heated in the microwave with the chocolate to save time).
6. Remove from heat; add chocolate and Kahlúa.
7. Whisk until chocolate is melted and ganache is smooth.
8. Pour 2 cups ganache over bottom of crust.
9. Freeze until ganache layer is firm, about 30 minutes.
10. Reserve remaining ganache; cover and let stand at room temperature to use later for decorating.
Make filling:
11. Position rack in middle of oven and preheat to 350°F.
12. Using electric mixer, beat cream cheese and sugar in large bowl until blended.
13. Beat in flour. Stir rum, espresso powder, ground coffee, vanilla, and molasses in small bowl until instant coffee dissolves; beat into cream cheese mixture.
14. Beat in eggs one at a time, scraping down sides of bowl between each addition.
15. Pour filling over cold ganache in crust — it will go nearly all of the way to the top, don’t panic.
16. Place cheesecake on rimmed baking sheet. Bake until top is brown, puffed and cracked at edges, and the center two inches moves only slightly when pan is gently shaken, about one hour.
17. Transfer cheesecake to rack. Cool 15 minutes while preparing topping (top of cheesecake will fall slightly, making room for topping). Maintain oven temperature.
Make topping:
18. Whisk sour cream, sugar, and vanilla in medium bowl to blend.
19. Pour topping over hot cheesecake, spreading to cover filling completely.
20. Bake until topping is set, about 10 to 15 minutes. Transfer cheesecake to rack.
21. Refrigerate hot cheesecake on rack until cool, about three hours.
22. Run small sharp knife between crust and pan sides to loosen cake; release pan sides. Transfer cheesecake to platter.
23. Spoon reserved ganache into pastry bag fitted with small star tip and decorate as desired.
24. Chill until lattice is firm, at least 6 hours.
Be warned, this recipe is a lot of work and time intensive (a lot of cooling, although I think I should've served it slightly cooler as the ganache layer was slightly hard). To prevent being pressed for time, I did the cookie and ganache layers the night before (hooray for cooking at midnight!). My only complaint with this recipe is that the crust came out a little hard. I have three theories for what went wrong. (1) I think I may have slightly burnt the cookies before turning them into crumbs. I pulled the chocolate crumb dough out of the freezer as leftovers from a previous recipe and overcompensated for the frozen dough by upping the cooking time too much. (2) The cheesecake portion of the dish did not want to set, so I kept cooking it (slightly burning the top, which I cut off after it puffed too much and served as a lovely breakfast on the day of cooking) and likely burned the cookie crust more. (3) My springform pan let the kahlua and possibly butter leak out, removing much needed moisture. I need to work on forming a better seal with it. Luckily, the crust certainly did not sink the dish!
Two other comments: SK says for a 9" inch pan instead of 10" to use 3/4 of the cheesecake layer. I put the full amount in and it fit, so go ahead and make the full amount. Leftovers can always be placed in other dishes or trimmed! I weighted the cream cheese using my scale. Eyeballing it though, 3 8-ounce packages of cream cheese appeared to work out to roughly 3 250g packages minus about 1/4 cup or so of the last package.
One year ago: Tomato Sausage Risotto (If you haven't tried this recipe yet, make it this week!)
Cappuccino Fudge Cheesecake (from Smitten Kitchen, adapted from Bon Appetit)
Ingredients
Crust
1 9-ounce box chocolate wafer cookies or 9 ounces of homemade chocolate wafers
6 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
7 tablespoons hot melted unsalted butter
Ganache
1 1/2 cups heavy or whipping cream
20 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
1/4 cup Kahlúa or other coffee-flavored liqueur
Filling
3 8-ounce packages cream cheese (for metric, see note above), room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 1/2 tablespoons dark rum
1 1/2 tablespoons instant espresso powder or coffee crystals
1 1/2 tablespoons ground whole espresso coffee beans (medium-coarse grind ... I used the ground espresso I have on hand for my morning drink which is a finer grind)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoons mild-flavored (light) molasses (I think I used dark)
3 large eggs
Topping
1 1/2 cups sour cream
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Make crust:
1. Finely grind cookies, chopped chocolate, brown sugar, and nutmeg in processor. 2. Add butter and process until crumbs begin to stick together, scraping down bowl occasionally, about 1 minute (my processor wasn't big enough, so I stirred together by hand).
3. Transfer crumbs to 9-inch-diameter springform pan with 3-inch-high sides.
4. Wrap plastic wrap around fingers and press crumb mixture firmly up sides to within 1/2 inch of top edge, then over bottom of pan.
Make ganache:
5. Bring cream to simmer in large saucepan (I heated in the microwave with the chocolate to save time).
6. Remove from heat; add chocolate and Kahlúa.
7. Whisk until chocolate is melted and ganache is smooth.
8. Pour 2 cups ganache over bottom of crust.
9. Freeze until ganache layer is firm, about 30 minutes.
10. Reserve remaining ganache; cover and let stand at room temperature to use later for decorating.
Make filling:
11. Position rack in middle of oven and preheat to 350°F.
12. Using electric mixer, beat cream cheese and sugar in large bowl until blended.
13. Beat in flour. Stir rum, espresso powder, ground coffee, vanilla, and molasses in small bowl until instant coffee dissolves; beat into cream cheese mixture.
14. Beat in eggs one at a time, scraping down sides of bowl between each addition.
15. Pour filling over cold ganache in crust — it will go nearly all of the way to the top, don’t panic.
16. Place cheesecake on rimmed baking sheet. Bake until top is brown, puffed and cracked at edges, and the center two inches moves only slightly when pan is gently shaken, about one hour.
17. Transfer cheesecake to rack. Cool 15 minutes while preparing topping (top of cheesecake will fall slightly, making room for topping). Maintain oven temperature.
Make topping:
18. Whisk sour cream, sugar, and vanilla in medium bowl to blend.
19. Pour topping over hot cheesecake, spreading to cover filling completely.
20. Bake until topping is set, about 10 to 15 minutes. Transfer cheesecake to rack.
21. Refrigerate hot cheesecake on rack until cool, about three hours.
22. Run small sharp knife between crust and pan sides to loosen cake; release pan sides. Transfer cheesecake to platter.
23. Spoon reserved ganache into pastry bag fitted with small star tip and decorate as desired.
24. Chill until lattice is firm, at least 6 hours.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
The Recipe that Started the Revived Cooking Obsession: Raspberry Cheesecake Brownies
I'm sad to say, this recipe has been upstaged. Try this one with raspberries instead of chocolate chips.
I got this recipe from a friend from work who was leaving to do a master's program. The first time she offered me one of these brownies, I was a little hesitant ... cheesecake has never been one of my favourites, but one bite of these delicious brownies and I was cooked. When she shared the site it came from, I was even more excited ... Kayotic Kitchen ... beautiful photos, amazing looking food, easy to follow directions ... I was hooked.
Because I don't like having to buy 2 boxes of chocolate and 2 boxes of cream cheese, this recipe is scaled down from the original, but I think it remains just as delicious. Measurements have also occasionally been converted from ounces to grams, because Canada seems to prefer grams!
Raspberry Cheesecake Brownies from Kayotic Kitchen (from Delicious Magazine)
Ingredients
1 cup sieved flour
1 2/3 cups sugar
3/4 cups butter
6 oz dark chocolate
5 oz raspberries (fresh or frozen, I've only used frozen)
250 g cream cheese
2/3 tsp vanilla extract
5 eggs
1. Bring the eggs, butter, and creams cheese to room temperature.
2. Break/cut the cream cheese, butter, and chocolate into pieces.
3. Cover a 9x9 baking pan in parchment/baking paper and preheat oven to 350F.
4. Whisk the butter with slightly less than 1 cup sugar.*
5. Add 3 eggs, one at a time, until each egg is completely blended in.
6. Melt the chocolate. Let it cool slightly.
7. Mix the chocolate in with the butter/sugar/egg mixture.
8. Add slightly less than 1 cup flour to the mixture.*
9. In a different bowl, mix the cream cheese with 1 - 2 eggs,** 2/3 cup sugar, and 2/3 tsp vanilla.
10. Spread 2/3 of the chocolate mixture in the baking dish.
11. Pour cream cheese mixture on top and spread. Drop remaining chocolate onto the cream cheese and marble it on top. It doesn't have to be pretty!
12. Drop the raspberries on top.
13. Bake for 40 - 45 minutes or until the center sets. My oven always seems to take longer.
14. Cool and enjoy!
* We scaled down slightly, so these need to be scaled down. We're only using 6/7 of the original amount of chocolate.
**It will be a little runny if you use 2 eggs, but will bake up fine ... or you can use less than one full egg to have a firmer cream cheese layer (with the way we're scaling, it would be about 1 1/3 egg). If you add the 2 eggs, it will be harder to marble on the extra layer of chocolate at the end, but it's does make it a fluffier layer.
I got this recipe from a friend from work who was leaving to do a master's program. The first time she offered me one of these brownies, I was a little hesitant ... cheesecake has never been one of my favourites, but one bite of these delicious brownies and I was cooked. When she shared the site it came from, I was even more excited ... Kayotic Kitchen ... beautiful photos, amazing looking food, easy to follow directions ... I was hooked.
Because I don't like having to buy 2 boxes of chocolate and 2 boxes of cream cheese, this recipe is scaled down from the original, but I think it remains just as delicious. Measurements have also occasionally been converted from ounces to grams, because Canada seems to prefer grams!
Raspberry Cheesecake Brownies from Kayotic Kitchen (from Delicious Magazine)
Ingredients
1 cup sieved flour
1 2/3 cups sugar
3/4 cups butter
6 oz dark chocolate
5 oz raspberries (fresh or frozen, I've only used frozen)
250 g cream cheese
2/3 tsp vanilla extract
5 eggs
1. Bring the eggs, butter, and creams cheese to room temperature.
2. Break/cut the cream cheese, butter, and chocolate into pieces.
3. Cover a 9x9 baking pan in parchment/baking paper and preheat oven to 350F.
4. Whisk the butter with slightly less than 1 cup sugar.*
5. Add 3 eggs, one at a time, until each egg is completely blended in.
6. Melt the chocolate. Let it cool slightly.
7. Mix the chocolate in with the butter/sugar/egg mixture.
8. Add slightly less than 1 cup flour to the mixture.*
9. In a different bowl, mix the cream cheese with 1 - 2 eggs,** 2/3 cup sugar, and 2/3 tsp vanilla.
10. Spread 2/3 of the chocolate mixture in the baking dish.
11. Pour cream cheese mixture on top and spread. Drop remaining chocolate onto the cream cheese and marble it on top. It doesn't have to be pretty!
12. Drop the raspberries on top.
13. Bake for 40 - 45 minutes or until the center sets. My oven always seems to take longer.
14. Cool and enjoy!
* We scaled down slightly, so these need to be scaled down. We're only using 6/7 of the original amount of chocolate.
**It will be a little runny if you use 2 eggs, but will bake up fine ... or you can use less than one full egg to have a firmer cream cheese layer (with the way we're scaling, it would be about 1 1/3 egg). If you add the 2 eggs, it will be harder to marble on the extra layer of chocolate at the end, but it's does make it a fluffier layer.
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