Fig Topped Cinnamon Cheesecake

It is time for me to make a confession. I was not confident enough to say it until now but it is a real problem for the blog at the moment and therefore I have to share. So here we go:

I don’t have an oven. Since I have moved to Berlin, where I am about to start studying, my kitchen contains no oven, nor the possibility to place one inside the new flat.

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Until I move out, it will not be possible for me to bake sweets in my new home, so baked goods might be shown here less often (you might have already noticed). Nevertheless, I have prepared some things for you that should keep the blog going until my kitchen supplies have changed and I hope you like the result shown in the pictures as much as I do.

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You know I love figs. Hells, I REALLY love them. When visiting my grandma in Bulgaria this year, I kind of occupied her oven to experiment. This is a result, isn’t it? Cinnamon cheesecake with a crunchy cookie crust, topped with sweet, soft and juicy figs and in between a caramel note due to the decorative parts.

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So this is how things are going right now and I really hope to be able to show you more of this as soon as possible. But for now, we remain with this beauty here. And this is the recipe:

Fig Topped Cinnamon Cheesecake:

crust:

250 g (8 oz.) Hobbit cookies
125 g (1 stick) butter, melted

cheese layer:

600 g (20 oz.) cream cheese
200 g (7 oz.) sour cream
200 g (1 cup – 1 tbsp.) sugar
3 eggs
3 tsp ground cinnamon
1 pckt. vanilla pudding powder (or 2 tbsp. flour)

fig topping:

400 g fresh figs
50 g (1/4 cup) sugar

Preheat oven to 175°C (350°F).

Crunch the cookies in a freezer bag. Mix the crumbles with the melted butter and spread in a round cake pan with 26 cm (10´´) diameter. Press down the cookie and butter mixture with a spoon.

In a large bowl, combine the ingredients for the cheese layer and beat with a mixer until the mass is smooth. Pour the mass over the cookie crust and bake for about 45 minutes (until the center stops jiggling).
Don’t turn off the oven yet.
Let the cheesecake cool and prepare the figs in the meantime.

Place the figs in a large pan. Spread the sugar on top and bake in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes, until there is a jelly-like liquid at the bottom of your pan.

Place the figs on top of the cake and pour the jelly all over them.

You can decorate the cake with caramel ornaments, if you wish. (Heat about 75 g/ 1/3 cup of white sugar in a saucepan until it melts and spread the caramel on a sheet of parchment paper to harden.)

Tastes best with… nah, it tastes good enough the way it is. Enjoy!

Vegan Pumpkin Cake Pops

Vegan cake pops, heck I did it. you know, I have been creating this recipe in my head for more than half a year now, always looking for substitutions for cake pop ingredients and a good vegan cake. Finally got it.

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The recipe is based on a carrot cake recipe I got from a vegan friend, but I used hokkaido pumpkin instead. After baking the cake, I shredded it and mixed it with… guess what? At this point, the cake pop recipe requires cream cheese and butter, but I found a good alternative for this: melted vegan marshmallows with a little margarine.

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All in all, this recipe is pretty easy and I am sure a non-vegan version of in (use butter instead of margarine, eggs and normal marshmallows) will be just as fine. And it is perfect for the beginning of autumn, so give it a try, if you want to give your senses a kick.

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Vegan Pumpkin Cake Pops
(makes about 40 darling pops)

cake:

5oo g shredded pumpkin
1 peeled and shredded apple
150 g sugar
3 tsp egg replacer + 6 tbsp water
250 g flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
75 g grated coconut
125 g margarine

frosting:

160 g vegan marshmallows
4 tbsp margarine

glaze:

200 g vegan white chocolate

Combine the apple and pumpkin with the sugar and let sit for about 15 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 175°C (350°F).
Then add the remaining ingredients and mix well.
Bake the mass in a pan for about 50 minutes, then let it cool.

Crumble the cake in a bowl or shred it. Then melt the marshmallows and margarine in a small saucepan until the mass is homogenous (it looks like light yellow cream). Then immediately add it to the cake crumbs and stir in (use a spoon at the beginning, the stuff is pretty hot!). Form little balls and place them in the freezer for about 15 minutes.

Now melt your chocolate, place a lollipop stick into each ball and cover them.