Good for You Cookies

When you think whole wheat or something healthy, you’re mind wouldn’t automatically think oh cookies! However, many years ago I stumbled upon Heidi Swanson’s blog 101cookbooks and I was instantly smitten. Imagine my joy when she released a book called Super Natural Cooking; it’s a compilation of what’s in the blog and then some. Don’t let the label “healthy” or “veggies” or god forbid “whole grains” turn you off. Once you get over the labels, you would actually see that healthy doesn’t always mean tasteless or it has alien sounding ingredients. What I like about having this book even though I already read her blog is that there is this whole chapter where she explains each ingredient what is it for and how to use it. Being a very visual person I appreciated the fact that there are a lot of pictures, I mean I have to be honest I think without those gorgeous yummy pictures, you wouldn’t see me near that book without a 100 meter stick. This book has a lot of “healthy” meals compared to the ratio of “healthy” desserts however don’t be discourage because the lists of savory items to eat are indeed promising too. This book is full of those must try in the future thing.

So far, I have tried two things: the mesquite chocolate chip cookies and the thin mints. Thought mesquite flour is nonexistent here in Manila, I have actually search everywhere for it. Little blind me didn’t notice the author’s note in the bottom until just recently. I can use whole wheat pastry flour instead! I was so happy when I read that and finally gave it a try last weekend. Surprisingly the recipe itself is just like any other chocolate chip recipe that I got; none of that mumbo jumbo stuffs other whole wheat chocolate chip recipe that I have tried before. This one is such a breeze to make I would probably make this over and over again. Eating it isn’t a hardship either, first bite you know something is different it’s nutty but without tasting like eating a whole wheat bread which is what I got in other recipe, this is a addition to add to my repertoire. For the thin mints, it was like making a frosting with such a good use for those leftover egg whites sitting in the freezer. The dough was soft and very pliable good for those make ahead desserts that are easily whipped up on a moment of noticed. The dipping on chocolate is a bit messy though but that is just probably me, I’m often messy when it comes to dipping chocolates. Personally this book is a nice addition to my ever growing cookbook collection.

Cookies and Cream Cheesecake

Next to chocolate, cheesecake is one of my favorite dessert. However, I must admit cheesecake and I never seen eye to eye, most of the time I get that soggy crust even though I wrapped the bottom of my springform pan with aluminium foil. I even double wrapped it but still leaky bottom. Fed up with the soggy bottomed cheesecake, I switched to using a standard cake tin instead of the springform pan and it works! No more soggy crust! I just have to make sure that the cheesecake is really really cold inside out, before trying to remove it from the cake tin. If not totally chilled, it might split in half when trying to unmold it and we wouldn't want that right? Though will still taste excellent I'm sure but for presentation purposes no cracks are ideal.

For those lazy bakers (like me), who craves cheesecakes during HOT summer days and standing in front of a hot oven is simply impossible a no baked cheesecake is a nice alternative. This kind of no baked cheesecake is actually quite popular here because it's less tedious to do, no ban marie no nothing, just mix everything together and chill in the fridge. After few hours you can dig tight in. But for me personally if I'm offered a baked or a no bake cheesecake, the baked cheesecake wins no question ask.

For cheesecake recipe, my favorite is Tyler Florence's, his recipe is easy and straight forward. But lazy ol' me was feeling lazy, what else is new right? I wanted an individual sized cheesecake for portion control and it looks way cutter than having a huge cheesecake. Having loads of Oreo cookie stashed leftover in my pantry, I wanted to use them all up. So really making this cheesecake is a necessity and not some frivolous whims (^_^)

On a normal day I wouldn't choose Martha Stewart cheesecake recipe, don't get me wrong I love Martha, I'm one of her followers but when it comes to her cheesecake recipes most of them are over the top, most of her recipe calls for 4 bars of cream cheese! That is a lot! But then after busy week in the office, a little sinful Cookies and Cream Cheesecake is in order. I got this from Martha's Cupcake book, the first time I saw it I quickly bookmarked it. What's so special about this version you ask? the Oreos, of course. I love love love Oreos! I can live without other store bought cookies but please let me have my Oreos. A whole Oreo gets to be the crust, no need to pat down the cookie crumb/butter mixture. This recipe has none of that. Just pop in a whole cookie in your muffin or cupcake lined pan and off to make the cheesecake. Before starting though be sure that everything is at room temperature specially the cream cheese to ensure a smooth and creamy cheesecake. Mixing on low speed to avoid having lots of air bubbles in the batter which would cause it to puff up during the baking process. The cheesecake batter ended up chunky and thick with the chopped cookies, using an ice cream scooper to evenly distribute the batter is ideal. Although I didn't do that took the lazy way out and just gingerly pour the batter on top of the Oreo crust until almost full. I didn't actually get 30 pieces, I barely reached 20 pieces because instead of using a cupcake tin, I used a muffin tin, didn't have a clear cupcake liner handy so my version of this cookies and cream are much bigger than it should and bake it for an additional 5 minutes. More cheesecake in one serving! Yummy! ^_^

COOKIES AND CREAM CHEESECAKE

from Martha Stewart Cupcakes
makes 30 cheesecakes

• 42 Oreos – 30 left whole, and 12 coarsely chopped
• 2 pounds cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 large eggs, room temperature, lightly beaten
• 1 cup sour cream
• Pinch of salt

1. Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners.
2. Place 1 whole cookie in the bottom of each lined cup.
3. With an electric mixer on medium high speed, beat cream cheese until smooth, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Gradually add sugar, and beat until combined.
4. Beat in vanilla. Drizzle in eggs, a bit at a time, beating to combine and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat in sour cream and salt.
5. Stir in chopped cookies by hand. Divide batter evenly among cookie-lined cups, filling each almost to the top. Bake, rotating pan halfway through, until filling is set, about 22 minutes.
6. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Refrigerate at least 4 hours (or up to overnight).

Boozy Banana Cake

A perk that I get living here in a very tropical country are the abundant tropical fruits, like mangoes and bananas. Bananas are available all year round so they are quite affordable and most often we got bananas at home. Some times way too much, like last week's batch of bananas got a bit too ripe before we were able to fully consume the whole bunch. Banana loaf is a nice way to use up all the over ripe bananas but then after weeks and weeks of using the same recipe, my family gets tired of it and don't actually eat it. Off to the drawing board I go aka the Internet! Ha! I surely cannot imagine what I would do without the Internet while food surfing I stumbled SugarPunk who made a Banana Rum Cake from Jill O'Conner's first book. I actually had this book and remembered bookmarking a lot of must try from this but alas my book was ruined, so when I saw a mouthwatering picture of a Banana Rum Cake from this book, I thought it's should be good. Another plus is that I have all the ingredients readily available in my cupboard. Though I don't actually drink liquor, I like cakes with liquor, it makes cakes soft and moist and liquored cakes makes me think of Christmas. Liquored cakes are very popular here during the holidays and my favorite is a Rum Cake. I hate bananas however boozy this banana rum cake gets I can still taste the bananas, it's really not my cup of tea. My brother and mom likes it though, so I still make banana cakes whenever. The shinny pecans on top of the cake looks so yummy makes this ordinary cake look so chic and sophisticated.

BAHAMA MAMA BANANA RUM CAKE

from Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey by Jill O’Connor

Dark Rum Glaze:
* 1/2 cup unsalted butter
* 1/4 cup water
* 1/2 cup firmly packed light or dark brown sugar
* 1/2 cup dark rum

Combine the butter, water, and sugars in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Immediately reduce the heat to medium-low nad simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the rum. Set aside and keep warm.

The Cake:
* 1 1/2 cups chopped pecans, toasted
* 1 1/2 cups unsalted butter
* 2 cups granulated sugar
* 1 cup firmly packed light or dark brown sugar
* 5 large eggs, at room temperature
* 1 cup mashed very ripe bananas (about 3 medium)
* 2 tsps pure vanilla extract
* 3 tablespoons dark rum
* 3 cups bleached all-purpose flour
* 1 tsp baking soda
* 1 tsp baking powder
* 1 tsp salt
* 3/4 cup sour cream

1. Preheat oven to 350F and position a rack in the middle. Spray a 10-cup tube pan with nonstick cooking spray. Sprinkle the pecans in the bottom of the pan. Set aside.

2. In a large bowl, with an electric mixer on medium speed, beat togethe rthe butter and sugars until the mixture is light and fluffy.

3. Beat in eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Beat in mashed bananas, vanilla, and rum.

4. Sift the flour, baking osda, baking powder, and slat over the batter and fold in using a rubber spatula, just until no streaks of flour remain. Fold in the sour cream.

5. Spoon the batter over the nuts in the pan and spread to the ede of the pan using the back of the rubber spatula. Bake until a wooden skewer inserted in the center of the cake comes out with no more than a few moist crumbs clinging to it, 60 – 80 minutes. (For the smaller bundts, it took around 30 minutes)

6. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool for 5 minutes. Use a wooden skewer to poke holes all over the cake and pour 1/4 cup of the warm glaze over the cake. Let the cake cool for 5 minutes more.

7. Place a serving platter over the pan and invert to release the cake onto the platter. Spoon the remaining glaze over the cake, a little at a time, and let stand until the glaze is completely absorbed into the cake.

8. If the glaze starts to pool at the base of the cake, use a small metal spatula to spread it up and around the sides of the cake. As the glaze hardens, this will encase the cake in a rummy, sugary shell.

Oreo Truffles

It's summer here in Manila and we are experiencing El Niño, 35C (95F) is our hotest recorded temperature and the summer barely started! Any logical person would probably not try to make any candy or any chocolate confection that is suceptible to heat. Its very apparent I'm not part of those few logical people. El Niño or not, I wanted to try making Oreo Truffles ever since I saw some gorgeous truffles in Food Gawker.Shaping the oreo balls has been a breeze. The messy part was coating the oreo balls with the chocolate coating. Sometimes the chocolate get so thick and as much as I tap my dipping fork on the side of the bowl, the chocolate just won't budge. Because of that my Oreo truffle balls ended up with a golf ball size truffle and a small truffle. It took me a while getting hand of dripping the truffles I almost gave up but not quite. Both taste excellent though but heck who doesn't like cream cheese and Oreos and chocoate, so what's not to like right?

Eating this is like eating something from a chic chocolate chop, the chocolate coating has a nice crisp crack when you bit into eat, revealing a creamy oreo/cream cheese mixture. Definitely not for those who are in a diet. I, myself shouldn't make this often because I lost count how many truffle balls that I have popped in my mouth during the making process of this.

OREO TRUFFLES
Adapted from Petite Chef

• 8 oz cream cheese, softened at room temp.> <>I>16 oz oreos
• 9 oz dark chocolate, for the hard shell (you can use any chocolate you want)

1. In the food processor, throw in the oreos whole including the whilte part. Pulse for a few minutes until finely crushed.
2. Add the softened cream cheese, mix until the cream cheese is evenly distributed.
3. Grab your smallest ice cream scooper to have an evenly sized oreo truffles. Or you could just eyeball it. The truffle should be smaller than a golf ball.
4. Arranged the truffle balls in a baking sheet. Cover with cling wrap and chill for 2-3 hours. Can make upto 30 truffles depending on how big or little you make your truffles.
5. Finely chopped the 9 oz of chocolate or if like me, I used my Callebaut soft baked chocolate chips then there is no need to chop them, just put them in a microwave safe bowl.
6. On medium High, at 10 to 15 sec interval, slowly melt the chocolate. DO NOT leave unattended. Chocolates scorches easily.
7. Once melted, let the chocolate cool to 90C or until not so hot that it might melt the truffle.
8. Dipped the refrigerated truffle one by one and put on a baking sheet lined parchment paper after the chocolate bath to set the chocolate.
9. It should set up in room temperature or in the fridge.

A Daring Oops...

For the month of February, the Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Aparna of Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They chose a heavenly Italian dessert called Tiramisu.

The challenge required us to make our own mascarpone cheese. For most of the DBer it was easy but for me now that I think of it, I think that's where I made the mistake. I didn't cook it long enough so it didn't set as much while it was cooling. This requires you to make a zabaglione and a pastry cream, no raw eggs here so everything is safe to eat. No need to be afraid of salmonella here. Since I love chocolates, I decided to make it into a chocolate zabaglione, to make it more sinful. Making all this preparation for the assembly to the Tiramisu is quite messy or was it just me? Haha...while the mascarpone, zabaglione and the pastry cream chilling in the fridge. I got tons of washing up to do! I hate washing dishes!

Reading the instructions for the lady fingers where easy enough but I didn't think I had enough batter to make many lady fingers to use up all the filling and I was right! So I ended up with such a thick layer of filling which must be one of the reason it didn't set properly. I thought I might have made the ladyfingers too soft so I held back on soaking them with the coffee mixture, such a big mistake. They ended up a bit try in the middle.

Will I try this again? I just might. It's handy knowing how to make mascarpone cheese, these are expensive here in Manila and quite hard to find. For the filling, it needed more chocolate boost. For the soaking liquid, next time I'll try it using my old coffee tiramisu mixture which called for espresso and Kahlua. Kahlua made it more special and added some omph. But all in all it wasn't a total waste of time since I learned a lot from this challenge.

New Gadget!

Last night, I went to the mall to accompany my friends M and R. Before we head home, we stop by the kitchen area of the mall and as I was browsing I spotted on these Progressive Measuring Spoons/Cup Set, on Amazon for a while now, I almost bought it online if it weren't for the absurd amount of money I had to pay to have it shipped here. When I saw them last night I was like OMG! and quickly grabbed them. I was so giddy and happy that the sales person was amaze to see a person so happy on spotting on some measuring cups! Ha! I actually didn't care. I found these cups amazing with lots and lots of different measurements from itsy bitsy 1/32 tsp. to as big as 2 cups! Wow amazing absoultely amazing. I can't wait to use these on my next baking session. ^_^