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.
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.
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.
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!
Christmas time has begun. Yeah, I don’t talk about winter because I hate winter. There are three seasons of the year for me: Spring, Summer, Christmas. So, when I saw the first snowflakes fall from the sky and melt on the dirty streets this week, I assumed Christmas might have begun. You got any presents for your people already? Well, I do, because I love giving stuff to ohers – even more than getting it myself.
And what fits Christmas time more than a chai latte? I have no idea (I do not like spiced wine that much, so this is the drink I become addicted to during the cold months). It was a kind of vision of mine that a chai latte needed to be made and that it would be a succes.
Love the spices in this wonderful fluffy mass. I also added some small pieces of apple under the cheese layer, which added some freshness to the spices. It is definitely worth a try. (Not only because it is my very own creation.)
Chai Latte Cheesecakes
(makes about 12 cheesecakes in a muffin pan)
60 g (1/4 cup) butter
90 g (3/8 cup) sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp flour
2 eggs
250 g (9 oz) curd
100 g (3 oz) sour cream
100 ml (3/8 cup) heavy cream
50 g (2 packets) instant chai latte powder
1 small apple, cut into thin slices
12 round cookies (for the bottom of the molds)
Line a muffin pan with paper molds. Place a cookie at the bottom of each mold. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F).
For the cheese layer, mix butter, sugar, vanilla extract, flour and eggs in a bowl. Add curd and sour cream and cream until incorporated.
Beat the heavy cream in a seperate bowl, then fold it gently in the rest of the mass. Last but not least, put in the chai latte powder.
Put apple slices into the molds, so the cookie is covered by a thin layer of apple. Fill the molds up to 3/4 with the cheese mass.
Bake for about 35 minutes.
Et voilà!
I kind of have a thing for cheesecake. A few weeks from now I started craving it and this desire has not stopped until yet. This weekend, I came across a recipe called “The best cheesecake in the world”. Dear reader, be careful when reading such things – do not believe everything written on the internet. I was very sceptical at the beginning, as I have been disappointed with such “best” recipes, but the instructions did not sound too complicated, so I gave it a try.
This cake has a crust which holds the whole mass together. I am not reaally a fan of crusts in cheesecake, because they usually take quite some time to prepare and are dry when baked. But this one is no big deal concerning the preparation and is a little crunchy, which is really an interesting experience to taste.
To make the whole thing a little special, I cut one white chocolate into small pieces with a knife and put it in the batter. Also I put some blueberries in the middle of the batter. And no doubt, the cheese layer was by far the best one I have ever tried. It uses beaten heavy cream to get fluffy and the white chocolate inside makes it taste full and rich.
Although my version turned out a bit burned, as can be seen in the pictures, it did not taste burned at all. So please do not let the brown top scare you, the most important thing is that the mass is baked. And now here the instructions for the surprisingly simple “best” white chocolate blueberry cheesecake.
White Chocolate Blueberry Cheesecake
(for a round 26 cm (10´´) pan)
crust:
200 g (1 2/3 cups) flour
75 g (1/3 cup) sugar
75 g (1/3 cup) butter
1 egg
1 tsp baking powder
cheese layer:
125 g (1/2 cup + 1 tbsp) butter
180 g (3/4 cup + 1 tbsp) sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 pckt instant vanilla pudding powder
3 eggs
500 g (18 oz) curd
200 g (6,5 oz) sour cream
200 ml (3/4 cup) heavy cream
150 g (5 oz) frozen blueberries, defrosted and dripped off
100 g (3 oz) white chocolate, chopped into small pieces or shredded
To prepare the crust, soften the butter in a microwave and mix together with the other ingredients for the crust until a crumbly dough comes together.
Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F).
Oil a round pan and spread the dough on the ground and form a rim of about the width of two fingers. Place the crust in the fridge until the cheese mass is done.
For the cheese layer, mix butter, sugar, vanilla extract, pudingpowder and eggs in a bowl. Add curd and sour cream and cream until incorporated.
Beat the heavy cream in a seperate bowl, then fold it gently in the rest of the mass. Last but not least, put in the chopped white chocolate.
Pour half of the mass into the prepared pan, then spread the blueberries onto it. Now spread the rest of the mixture on top.
Bake for a good 60 minutes, until the cheese mass is done.