Archive for the ‘dessert’ Category

White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake

March 4th, 2009

I never thought I’d be saying this, I made cheesecake. For those of you who don’t know, cheesecake is not my dessert of choice. I had a bad experience once and ever since then I can’t eat it…just brings back those bad memories. But, I found that I can get by with eating cheesecake that’s flavored and helps mask that strong cheesecake taste. Anyway, I decided to make a White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake and this was by far one of the most difficult items I’ve baked. There’s so many things that can go wrong with baking cheesecake…cracks, sinking, and it’s hard to tell when its done. Luckily, mine came out perfect. I really had to baby it the entire process. Although it was quite a bit of work and pretty nerve wracking, I really enjoyed making it and as Carla from Top Chef says, “It’s all about the love”.

White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups crushed Oreo Cookies
  • 1 Tbsp. white sugar
  • 1/4 cup butter, melted
  • 6 Tbsp. seedless raspberry jam
  • 2 cups white chocolate chips
  • 1/2 cup half-and-half cream
  • 3 (8 oz.) packages cream cheese, softened
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

  1. In a bowl, mix together crushed Oreos, 1 tablespoon sugar, and melted butter. Press mixture into the bottom of a 9 inch spring form pan.
  2. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. In a microwavable bowl, melt white chocolate chips with half-and-half in the microwave, stirring occasionally until smooth. In another microwavable bowl, microwave 6 tablespoons of raspberry jam for 30 seconds.
  3. In a large bowl, mix together cream cheese and 1/2 cup sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs one at a time. Blend in vanilla and melted white chocolate. Pour half of batter over the crust. Spoon 3 tablespoons of raspberry jam over batter. Pour remaining cheesecake batter into pan, and spoon the rest of the raspberry jam (3 Tbsp.) over the top. Swirl batter with the tip of a knife to create a marbled effect.
  4. Wrap foil around the bottom of the spring form pan to help prevent leakage. Place spring form pan on a cookie sheet. Place cookie sheet with spring form pan in the oven and fill the cookie sheet with water (this technique will help prevent cracks). Bake for 60 minutes and then turn of oven and let the cheesecake sit in the oven for another hour (this will help prevent the cheesecake from sinking in the middle). Cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 8 hours before removing from pan.
  5. To remove cheesecake from pan, run a knife around the edge of the cake to loosen it from the pan. Slowly remove the spring form pan. Decorate with fresh raspberries and enjoy!


Cheesecake ready to be placed in the oven. I love the marbling effect!


All done, no cracks and no sinking! I’m so proud of myself 🙂


Decorated and ready to eat!


An inside look.

So, how did it taste? It was great and I think everyone who loves cheesecake would really enjoy it. However, I thought it could use a little more raspberry jam (personally, I’d rather have a more raspberry and less cheesecake taste), so next time I’ll probably double the amount of jam, just cause I love raspberry.

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Let Them Eat Cake

March 1st, 2009

I stumbled cross this bakery’s website and found some awesome cake designs. The bakery is called Let Them Eat Cake by Christopher Garren and I love how creative his cakes are.


Sound of Music Cake – I love how this cake looks like a pop-up book!


Wicked Cake


Mario & Princess Peach Cake – This cake is adorable esp. with Mario and Princess Peach kissing in front of the castle. Love it!


Nightmare Before Christmas Cake – This is my favorite cake! Jack and Sally make great cake toppers sitting under the moon.

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Sweets for Your Sweetheart

January 21st, 2009

Need a Valentine’s Day gift for your sweetheart? I found a few items that might just be perfect for your sweetie with the sweet tooth. Warning most of these gifts are pricey, but hey nothing says I love you more than quality baked goods haha.

Sweetie Pies – from Williams Sonoma, 12 for $49, These Valentine’s Day version of whoopee pies are filled with creamy buttercream in three delicious flavors – chocolate, raspberry and vanilla.


Message Cookies – from Williams Sonoma, $22 for 9 cookies, These cookies are very cute and definitely a step up from your normal conversation hearts.

Perfect Ending’s Heart Red Velvet Cake – $68, Lovely red velvet cake from the same bakery that Eva Longoria ordered her wedding cake from. If it’s good enough for Eva, it’s good enough for me!

Perfect Endings’ Valentine Cupcakes -9 for $69, You get 3 of each: Red velvet, rich chocolate, and chocolate caramel cupcakes. I really want to try these cupcakes since Oprah keeps raving about them and they are on her all-time favorite list.


Glitter Heart & Box – from Dean & Deluca, $125 -This very expensive and completely edible gift is amazing! The chocolate heart box is made with a white chocolate coating that is covered with layers of shimmering edible glitter. Inside you’ll find nine chocolate truffles, three of each; White Chocolate Caramel, and Dark Chocolate with Caramel and hand painted Framboise.

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Halloween Treats

November 4th, 2008

I hope all of you had a great Halloween! Mine was especially great because I got to dress up in 3 different costumes haha. Anyway, this year I decided to try making caramel apples for Halloween. I love caramel apples, but I don’t really love having to try and bite into a huge apple or slicing it and taking the risk of any chocolate, caramel, and nuts pieces breaking off. So to avoid the mess, I wanted to try something new and make miniature versions. After some research, I found that a lot of mini caramel apple recipes started with a large whole apple and scooping out apple pieces with a melon baller. Sounds simple enough, but the results just didn’t look as appetizing as a whole caramel apple.

So, I decided to go on a search for the smallest apples I could find. Luckily, Whole Foods had a huge selection of small apples and I finally found what I was looking for. I ended up buying “crab apples” which are the smallest apples I’ve ever seen. Most of the crab apples were slightly larger than ping pong balls, and they tasted a little sweet and tart.

The whole process of making the mini caramel apples took longer than expected. Mostly, due to the fact that I had about 20 apples, and each took a while to prep and dip. The hardest part was sticking the lollipop sticks in…my hands were so sore from having to shove those little sticks in and you had to be extra careful because they bend so easily. I suggest wearing oven mitts while doing this or something to protect your hands. But after all the hard work, the best part was the decorating. I went a little overboard and decided to try and come up with every caramel apple combination I could think of (caramel, chocolate, nuts, m&ms, sprinkles, etc.). Overall, the outcome was a success and I’m happy to say that my friends enjoyed these mini caramel apples more than those ginormous ones haha.

Mini Caramel Apples

Ingredients:
about 20 crab apples
20 lollipop sticks
2 bags of caramel bits
1 bag of chocolate chips
an assortment of toppings (m&ms, sprinkles, nuts, etc.)

Directions:
1. Prep apples (wash, dry, and de-stem)
2. Place lollipop sticks into the center of apple where the stem used to be.
3. Place wax paper on baking sheet and spray with cooking spray.
4. Melt caramel and dip apples into the caramel. Place on baking sheet. Let apples cool.
5. Melt chocolate and dip the caramel apples into the chocolate.
6. After dipping into chocolate, immediately place any additional toppings on the apple.
7. Place finished apples on baking sheet and let them set in the refrigerator.
8. Take apples out of fridge 15 min. before serving.


Cute tiny crab apples


Prepped and ready for dipping!


These caramel bits were very easy to use and tasted great.


The finished product!

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Sweet Shop

September 28th, 2008

Just found these cute new items at Shana Logic. And here’s the offer code for 10% off your purchase: indie.


Glass Candy Corn Earrings – $12, For all the candy corn lovers!


Chinese Take-out Necklace – $18, This necklace is so cute and just makes me laugh when I see it. It’s kind of hard to see with the white background, but the fortune cookie has a little white fortune paper coming out of it too. It’s all about the details!


Cupcake Love Necklace – $10, Cupcake + Sparkles = Awesome


Oreo Cookie Necklace – $15, Mmmm oreos.


Cupcake Hat – $35, Wow! A cupcake beanie! Love it.

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Dean & DeLuca Fall 2008

September 21st, 2008

Yay! I just got the new Dean & DeLuca Fall Catalog. They have a lot of new items, especially for Halloween. As always, Dean & DeLuca have the most mouth-watering pictures…here are some of the ones that have caught my eye:

Fall Cupcakes – 9 for $55, Three each of Pumpkin with Pumpkin Cream Cheese Icing, Cinnamon with Mayan Chocolate Buttercream Frosting and Vanilla with Vanilla Frosting.

Pumpkin Truffles – $36, These truffles are filled with white chocolate ganache with a hint of nutmeg and wrapped in dark chocolate. The flavor sounds so interesting!

Caramel Apples – $48, I love caramel apples and nothing says Halloween quite like these caramel & chocolate dipped ones.

Pumpkin Cake – $120, This cake is too cute! It has six layers of vanilla spiced cake with praline butter cream and also a layer of chocolate fudge.


Apple Crate Cake – $200, This cake is almost unrecognizable! It really looks like a crate with apples inside. No wonder it costs so much.

Green Tea Truffles – $42, The color of these green tea truffles definitely caught my eye.

Chocolate of the Month – $180-$720, I’ve heard of monthly wine clubs, monthly coffee clubs, even monthly fruit clubs, but a Chocolate of the month program is definitely something new and more my style. You now have the opportunity to try a new assortment of chocolates each month and have them delivered right to your doorstep. There’s a 3 month, 6 month, and 12 month program.

The Ultimate Chocolate Truffle: La Madeleine Au Truffle -$350, The description says its a “1 oz. fresh tuber melanosporum dipped in a dark chocolate ganache“. Ok, I know what you guys are asking…what is a tuber melanosporum? Well, that’s just the scientific name for a Black Truffle. And it’s not to be confused with chocolate truffles. Although in this case this Truffle is in a way a chocolate truffle, more like a chocolate truffle truffle. Anyway, Black Truffles are those very expensive fungi found in France by specially trained pigs or dogs. I’m not sure how you would even eat this ultimate truffle, just bite into it? And I’m also curious about the taste…I like chocolate truffles and I like Black truffles in dishes, but the two together seems like a pretty odd combination.

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Kean Coffee & SusieCakes

September 20th, 2008

I finally got to Kean Coffee today! I’ve been wanting to go to Kean Coffee for a few weeks now after reading all the positive reviews about it on Yelp. My friend told me he tried it for the first time yesterday, so I decided to take a trip there today and I also dragged my friend back there, but he didn’t mind since he claimed that the coffee was “really good”. The place was packed and super busy, but I guess that’s just a good sign that people really like the place.

I ordered a Caffe Napoli Latte (hazelnut & white chocolate flavor), which was one of their house specialties. My latte was filled to the brim in a big white coffee cup and I was pleasantly surprised by the lovely latte art in the foam. Apparently, latte art is done by all the barristas and it is their signature finishing touch. I’m a sucker for details! Anyway, my latte was just the way I liked it…sweet and not too strong.

I’m not an avid coffee drinker, so usually coffee for me is pretty much coffee flavored milk with a lot of sugar haha. I must be a pretty weak coffee drinker, because after I had my latte the caffeine was hitting me hard and I was really jittery. Overall, I really liked Kean Coffee and its nice to know there’s a coffee place that takes pride in making a great cup of joe.

To my delight, there was a bakery called SusieCakes right next to Kean Coffee! Of course, I had to stop by and check it out. SusieCakes is very reminiscent of Sprinkles, even down to the font of their store name. They had a large assortment of cakes, cupcakes, dessert bars, and other goodies. Right when I entered the store, there was a tray with samples for their 6-layer Chocolate Fudge Cake (very yummy by the way). It’s always a plus to get samples!

I settled for the Red Velvet Cupcake which was $3, which is 25 cents less than Sprinkles, but I noticed that the cupcake was a tad smaller, so I guess it evens out to be the same. The cupcake was really good, moist, and not crumbly at all. I’m sorry Sprinkles, but I think SusieCakes takes the cake for this one. There was one thing that I didn’t like and that was the consistency of the frosting. The frosting had good flavor, but it was quite goopy. Getting the cupcake out of the bag was a big mess since the frosting was just too sticky and melted, so it got all over my hands. I think that frosting needs to have a thicker consistency, so that it actually stays on the cupcake and won’t fall off as you’re trying to eat it.

Despite the frosting fiasco, SusieCakes is definitely one of my favorite cupcake shops now. But, don’t get me wrong, Sprinkles still has a place in my heart and it will still be my go to cupcake shop since SusieCakes is a little out of the way for those last minute cupcake cravings.


Caffe Napoli – I love latte art.


Coffee & Cupcakes are a great combo


From far away you’d think it would say “Sprinkles”…


Inside SusieCakes

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Birthday Indulgences

September 15th, 2008

Yesterday was my birthday and the entire week leading up to it, was just filled with stress. I was stressed out planning a joint birthday party that we didn’t really pull together until the very last minute, but in the end it all worked out and on top of that I had some weird ailment which was a combination of sinus/ear pressure and ear/headaches…on a side note I felt like my head was going to explode on Saturday when I was driving to the mountains and the elevation just heightened the pressure and pain even more. Anyway, I’m much better now (Sudafed and Advil are my best friends) and I was able to celebrate my birthday yesterday the way I like it…lots of sweets, food, and shopping! I totally overindulged yesterday, but hey what’s a birthday without forgetting about everything and just enjoying life, right? So, yesterday I started off my day with a Starbucks Java Chip Frappucino and as I was standing in line, I happened to notice this cute pink cupcake staring back at me in the pastry display, it had birthday cupcake written all over it, so I bought it haha. Sometime during the day, I also had a piece of my large Mrs. Fields Cookie that a friend gave me, by this time I was already on a sugar overload. Dinner was definitely my favorite part of the day, my boyfriend and I went to this restaurant called Savannah, its a “contemporary American restaurant featuring regional cooking with a Southern accent”. One word: delicious. We started off with the Maine Lobster and Crayfish Bisque, which was really good and it came with a side of these freshly fried garlic potato chips, definitely my favorite part of the dish. You have to dip the chip in the bisque, it’s a must. Next, for our entrees we both ordered the Prime Colorado Rack of Lamb. It came with a side of Savannah potatoes, asparagus, & a sweet garlic jam. I love lamb, and this was definitely one of the best I’ve ever tried. AMAZING! Just perfectly cooked and seasoned. On to the next best part of dinner…dessert! We ordered a hot Scharffen Berger Chocolate Souffle which was baked to order. The presentation was nice, they brought the souffle to our table, scooped out a little hole, poured hot chocolate sauce inside, then a dollop of freshly whipped cream, and then one more pour of the chocolate sauce. It was rich, but so so good! I wish I could have eaten more of it, but the lamb had filled me up. So, that was the end of my wonderful overindulgent birthday…can’t wait until next year!


Birthday Cupcake


Giant Mrs. Fields Cookie


Lobster & Crayfish Bisque


Bisque with a side of garlic chips


BEST lamb ever.


Scharffen Berger Chocolate Souffle – chocolate heaven!

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I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream!

September 6th, 2008

So, the other day I made ice cream for the very first time. My cousin has an ice cream maker and always raves about how he makes really good ice cream, so I said, “Let’s make some!”. I was really excited and we got all got the ingredients to make cookies n’ cream ice cream. My cousin told me about the very easy 3-2-1 recipe he uses…3/4 cup sugar, 2 cups heavy cream, and 1 cup of milk, plus 2 tsp. vanilla and about 6 crushed Oreos. So, step one was to combine the 3-2-1 ingredients and vanilla, but, we made one fatal flaw…we added the crushed Oreos to the liquid mixture as well. My cousin being the so-called ice cream expert that he is, totally forgot about the important fact that you shouldn’t add the cookies until the very end when the ice cream mix is already in it’s last stage of freezing in the ice cream maker. Of course, this was my first time so I had no idea and just went along with it. So, what happens when you add the Oreos in the beginning instead of at the end? Well, you end up with grey cookies n’ cream flavored ice cream, with no oreo pieces to be found anywhere. Sad day. Well we learned our lesson, and we will never ever make that mistake again! For those of you who want to make cookies n’ cream ice cream the right way, here’s the recipe:

Cookies n’ Cream Ice Cream (3-2-1 recipe)

Ingredients:
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup milk
2 tsp. vanilla
6 crushed oreos

Directions:
1. Combine the sugar, cream, milk, and vanilla in a bowl or pitcher(this makes it easier to pour).
2. Pour the liquid mixture into your ice cream maker and follow your ice cream maker directions
3. Mix in the crushed Oreos during the last stage of freezing
4. Then just follow the rest of your ice cream maker directions


Crushed Oreos


WARNING: DO NOT add the Oreos to the liquid mixture!!!


Pouring the mix into the ice cream maker.


A peek inside the mixer, the Oreos pieces were slowly disintegrating…


Our finished product: Grey ice cream…still tasted good, but its not the same without the Oreo cookie pieces.

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Amazing Cupcakes

August 18th, 2008

I’ve been getting some complaints that I need to blog more…so here you go. I found these pictures of amazingly over the top decorated cupcakes on Flickr. I never knew such cupcakes existed. In my world, cupcakes with frosting and a few sprinkles on top are good enough for me, but these guys go way beyond my imagination and unfortunately way beyond my skill level as well. If I ever received or made a cupcake this nice, I really don’t think I’d be able to get myself to eat it.


Swimming pool party cupcake by Zalita


Crashed Fairy by Sandra (socake) – Haha I really like this one…its cute, funny, and something about fairies and cupcakes just really go well together.


Cookie Monster Cupcakes by Princess of llyr – These are so cute!


Beach cupcake by abbietabbie


Jack & Jill Cupcake by abbietabbie – This cupcake is so creative! And that pail of water looks so real!


Donut cupcakes by Zalita – The mini donuts on top give it a great touch.


The End of the Garden by Zalita – This is my favorite one…I love how the cobblestone road connects the two cupcakes. Awesome! If only I could decorate this well…

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