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

Maple Cheesecake

Since Andy started a new contract, I've been baking cake most of the Sundays for Andy to take it to the office on following Monday, which is great for me because...I get to bake more!
So far, people at the office have been giving me very nice comments (someone even ordered my ginger cake! ;D).

This week I made one of my classics with a little twist, Maple Cheesecake. I used maple biscuits as the base, and added maple syrup in the cheesecake filling. It's a bit different from the ordinary lemony cheesecake, but it tastes richer and deeper with the maple.

The cheesecake safely made it to Andy's work and about 11am I received a text from Andy, saying 'cheesecake is gone.'... Hopefully that was a good sugar supply for a Monday morning... :)

More cheesecake? ;D
Vanilla Cheesecake
Caramel Cheesecake with hazelnuts
The WOS Cheesecake

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

Apple & Cinnamon cheese cake

There were apples and cream cheese that had been sitting and looking at me every time I open the fridge..., so I came up with this recipe to finally use them up. ("Fridge clearing cake" that's what I'm going to call it!..;D).

After having left the cake in the fridge to chill, it got very moist and the taste of apple and cinnamon seems to have really sunk in. It was like having apple pie and cheese cake at the same time in my mouth... yum yum....

Although it's a sort of cheese cake, it's not as cheesy as normal cheese cake like my New York cheese cake. In fact, it's more like in between cheese cake and pound cake.

I cut the cake into small square pieces and had them with a nice milky cup of tea... Hummm, "one more piece" led to another and another, and before I knew the cake was gone... Hummm, it was... bit too good....

Ingredients:

Plain flour 150g

Baking powder 1 tsp

Salt pinch

Cinnamon powder 1/2 tsp

Cream cheese 300g

Brown sugar 15g

Egg 2

Apple (grated) 2

Honey 2 tbsp

1. Grate apples.Preheat the oven to 180ºc. Sift flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon together.

2. In a bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar together until it's fluffy.

3. Add eggs into 2 one at a time and mix well.

4. Mix grated apple and honey into 3.

5. Fold flour mixture into 4.

6. Pour the mixture into a cake tin. Bake in the preheated oven (180ºc) for 40-45 minutes.

Strawberry cheesecake cookies

Yesterday, I made the Polish jam filled cookies, Rogaliki. That gave me an idea for this cookie... Strawberry cheesecake cookie...

I love cheesecakes.., and when I tasted the cream cheese in Rogaliki, I immediately thought "I've got to try strawberry cheesecake...!!" So I kept some dough to try it.

It's almost the same as Rogaliki but in a different shape and bit more sweeter. I've cut the dough into a pretty little circles, sandwich strawberry jam, and sprinkle icing sugar on top... done... ;D With a mouthful, you get the taste of strawberry cheesecake and the texture of light and flaky cookie at the same time... Hummm, it is two in one... :)

The famous WOS Cheesecake

Hooooo Laaaa Laaaaaaa, do you remember the New York style cheesecake I made a little while ago (see my post). These cheesecakes are so good that their taste is beyond words!!! Any words I could use to describe it would pale in comparison to what it was really like! I'm usually modest (yes..., I am...) but when it comes to these indescribably tasty cheesecakes, I just want to the whole world to taste it. I might start selling them, and I'm not even joking...

This time, I made two different ones. One with berries. The berries add a fresh juiciness to the rich cheesecake, which make you easily finish the whole cake with one go!

The other one is hazelnut liquor. A couple of drops of the liquor is enough to give a hint of nutty flavour, which make the already-rich cake even richer:) This one tastes a little more grown-up.

On top of their amazing taste, they are a perfect size for two (or one hungry monkey) since they are 10 cm in diameter.

Aaah, my cheesecake shop might come to your town in the near future...

Last night experiment, Cottage cheese cake

I'm nowhere near Heston Blumenthal, but I love experiment.

Last might I saw a pot of cottage cheese, sitting in the fridge, waiting to be used up. So, I got up and started to sift flour, not really knowing what I was doing yet.

After a bit of calculation about the ingredients, I took my best friend, Electric Mixer. Mix, mix, fold, and bosch in the oven.

The result was... It looked alright..., tasted alright too.
I was like a lighter cheese cake. Cottage cheese is much less in fat compared to cream cheese, so this outcome is not too surprising.

The verdict... the experiment was fairly successful.

The recipe might need a bit of change, but if you like...

Ingredients;

Flour 100g

Sugar 100g

Strained Cottage Cheese 300g

Egg 1

Vanilla extract 1tsp

Dry fruits 100g

1. Sift flour.

2. Mix egg and sugar together until it's fluffy.

3. Add vanilla extract and cheese in 2, and mix well.

4. Fold 1 and dry fruits into 3.

5. Bake in the pre-heated oven (180º) for 50 minutes.

Cottage Cheese

Big Desserts!

We've just got back from dinner. Our first night in NY City, so we decided to have something that looks like a real American diner.

I had salad which was huge that I had to leave to save some space for the dessert. I also had a little taste of Andy's sides, the corn cake (they call it corn cake, but it looks like a muffin...) and the apple compote. Corn cake was quite savory and the kicks of corn grits were something bit different. The apple compote was nicely done too though I was bit surprised by the fact they served it as a side menu for the main.

And yes, the dessert, New York Cheese Cake! They serve the cheese cake from a famous cake shop called Roxy. My first mouthful..., oooh this is what I call cheese cake! It's so rich that I felt like my mouth was covered with creamy cheese. There is no fancy top ups on this cake. It's just a pure, ultimate cheese cake. Seriously, taste-wise and potion-wise, it is one of the best cheese cake I've ever had, a must-try!