Smiley Sourdough Cheese Bread

☺︎☺︎☺︎ 

Ingredients;

Starter 125g

Strong flour 230g

Rice flour 20g

Milk 165g

Parmesan cheese 3 tbsp

Salt 4g

Oil

Stencil is one of the easy ways to give your bread a little more special look, and I dressed up my sourdough cheese rolls with smiley ☺︎ faces. :) 

I added parmesan cheese to the dough for a mild cheesy taste but you can add cubes of other cheese (such as cheddar or mozzarella) when you shape for more cheesiness.

Nice 'ears', ☺︎guys!

I was planning to have cheesy toast and crostini with these rolls, but we (mainly I) started tasting them, one slice led to another, and more and more... Before I knew there were few slices left... 

Oops.. never mind.

Cheesy Loaf

I love cheese.
I am quite possibly addicted to cheese.

So, this one was for the cheesy hole in my stomach.

I made a basic white loaf with my yoghurt and raisin yeast, and added cheese in the dough as I was shaping it.
It was midnight when I finally started baking the bread, and the smell of cheese coming from the oven made my sleepy stomach rumble...

First I had a slice just as is. The loaf was soft and springy and it had a 'not too strong' cheesy flavour to it. I was very happy with the bake. But then, when I toasted it, it went up to the next level! The cheese in the bread got slightly melted and it was like cheese toast.The crispy cheesy crust was amazing too!

Cheese melting in the bread..., yum yum..;D

I used mozzarella (that was the only cheese I had...) this time but next time I'll go for bit more stronger ones like cheddar or emmental.

Soufflé Cheesecake

From rich creamy ones to non baked types, I love all sorts of cheesecakes, but this weekend I had a sudden craving for this very Japanesy soft cheesecake, Soufflé Cheesecake. ;)

As the name suggests, this cheesecake is very light like a soufflé and quite literally melts in your mouth as you eat. I had a slice in the evening after eating a lot of pizzas (again!). Although I was very full I destroyed the cheesecake with no problem. It's such a light cake that I could eat two, three slices easily!

To make this soufflé type cheesecake requires bit more than just keep adding the ingredients and bake (Don't get me wrong, The WOS cheesecake is still one of the best cheesecakes too!).

There are two things to remember.

One, beat the egg whites just to the right point. We want soft peak. If the egg white is not beaten enough then the cake will not have nice light texture and will lack the height. However, if the egg white is beaten too much, it will become difficult to fold in.
Two, steam bake on a low heat. Make sure that the tray always has water in it. If the water gets low during the bake, add more boiling water.

I like to keep mine as light as possible, but you can add biscuit base to give it a bit of crunch. ;)

Ingredients

Cream cheese 250g

Milk 250g

Egg 5

Sugar 100g

Plain flour 50g

Lemon 1

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºc with a tray filled with hot water.

2. Heat up cream cheese, milk and half the sugar on a low heat until they are combined well. Set aside to cool down.

3. Separate the eggs. Add egg yolks into the cream cheese mixture and mix well.

4. Sift flour into 3. Fold.

5. In a separate bowl beat egg whites with the remaining sugar and juice of lemon to soft peak.

6. Add 1/3 of beaten egg whites into 4. Fold gently until it's mixed in well. Fold another 1/3 of egg whites and mix well. Repeat the same process with the remaining egg whites.

7. Pour the mixture into a greased and lined tin. Smooth the surface.

8. Turn the oven down to 160ºc. Put the tin on the water filled tray and bake for 60 minutes (if the top starts to get too dark, cover with foil).

9. When the cake is baked leave it to cool in the oven before taking it out of the tin. Chill in the fridge.

Avocado 'Cheese'cake

As I promised on my previous post, I'll share the recipe for the healthy 'cheese'cake that I made on Father's day.

So..., the secret ingredients were...'Avocado' and 'Yoghurt'. It might sound weird but believe me, it works.

First, you start with draining the water of the yoghurt a day before. Line a colander with kitchen towel and place it in a bowl. Pour the yoghurt on top of kitchen towel. Leave it in the fridge for overnight. Following day you'll see water in the bowl and end up with thickened yoghurt which is going to be the alternative to cream cheese.

Then, puree an avocado really smoothly, mix it with the yoghurt. I didn't want to add any sugar so I added honey instead, which is a great substitute for sugar!

Now, we're almost there! Add gelatin to set, pour the mixture into cups and chill for at least a few hours.

This fake cheesecake tasted so good that I ate three portions! It's a great healthy dessert for little people too. :D (Not for babies under 12 months though, because of honey....) I think this avocado dessert is going to appear a lot during summer. :D

These are the basic ingredients. Add whatever you like to spice it up!

Avocado 1

Yoghurt 500g

Honey 20g (It was sweet enough for me but adjust for your liking)

Gelatine leave 4

Father's Day cake & dessert

It was Father's Day yesterday. Did everyone remember to send a big love to your dad or dads? I made Rum & Fruit cake for my dad and dad-in-law, who were both away this Sunday but the cakes were safely sent to them;)

I started the preparation for the fruit cake a little in advance by soaking the mixed dried fruits in rum for a month. I also made a jar of honey and rum soaked walnuts to put in the cake. Both the fruits and nuts were added to a nice moist butter cake along with a fair amount of rum... I added quite a bit of rum in order to make the cake last longer because I was sending it to my dad in Japan which my dad received a day before Father's Day. Yay!

And there was another dad who I made a Father's day treat for..., yes... on behalf of Lana..., it's my hubby and the coolest dad for Lana, Andy! I made a special cheesecake for him (also me and Lana). But it's not a usual cheesecake. It was a sugar-free, flour-less cheesecake. See? I care about our 'daddy's health', so went for a healthy option. ;D

Not only did the cheesecake have no sugar nor flour, it actually had no cream cheese nor cream! However, it tasted like and as creamy as those high calorie ones! I was well impressed!

I'll share the secret ingredients and the recipe on my next post... (so watch this space! ;D)

With Lana's footprint. :) This is how I sent the cake to Japan.

お父さん、いつもありがとう。 

Happy Birthday to Steve!

Happy Birthday to Steve!
It was my brother-in-law's birthday yesterday so I baked this cheese and herb bread ring.

It has grated Parmesan cheese in the dough and some herbs and black pepper, and cream cheese inside. I thought the savoury taste of this ring would go well with the beers and nuts we gave him. ;)

Hope you had a great day, Steve!

Vanilla cheesecake

This weekend we were invited to Tinny's new place so I made a big vanilla cheesecake. I love both making and eating a cheesecake. ;)

Although I had a slight problem when I was making this cake (my baking tin's bottom was too loose that when I pour the cream cheese mixture, it started to ooze out...), it came out ok.

We had it while everyone (except sleepy me...) was playing poker. I was a nice midnight treat before bed. :D

Thanks to Tinny for a lovely time and letting us stay. ;)

Here is how to bake this baked cheesecake...
The World of Sweets: New York Cheesecake

Cheesy scone

I am a Cheese Monster.... from mild Cheddar to matured Camembert I love all sorts of cheese except.... Blue cheese... And there was a block of blue cheese in a pack of cheese selection that we had the other day. I didn't want to waste it so I decide to use in my baking.

This time, cheesy scones. A strong cheese like blue cheese goes really well with honey so I added a good couple of squeeze of honey,... and it worked amazingly;)

The saltiness of cheese and the sweetness of honey was simply a marriage made in heaven... So good that I kept going back for more and more!

This recipe will work with other cheese too. Try it with your favourite cheese. ;)

Ingredients:

Plain flour 100g

Strong wholemeal flour 150g

Sugar 20g

Baking powder 2 tsp

Butter 80g

Cheese (crumbled) 70g

Honey 70g

Egg 1

1. Mix Plain flour, Strong wholemeal flour, Sugar, and Baking powder together. Cut Butter into a dice shape.

2. Put the butter and cheese into the flour mixture, and mix them with your fingers until they become crumbs.

3. Beat an egg and mix into 2. Place the mixture onto a lightly floured surface and kneed until it stick together. (DO NOT kneed too much as it will make scones hard.) Wrap the mixture in a cling film and rest it for 30mins.

4. On the lightly floured surface roll 3. to 1 inch thickness.

5. Preheat the oven to 200º. Cut 4 into a round shape (or any shape you like).

6. Bake them for 15-20 minutes until the top is slightly brown.

And for my basic scone recipe, visit The World of Sweets - Scone.