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Showing posts with the label Cheese

Creamy Cheddar and Ricotta Cheesecake

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The addition of milk and ricotta in this recipe makes for a light, fluffy and creamy cheesecake. Cheddar and Ricotta Cheesecake Ingredients 110g cheddar cheese slices, roughly torn 40g butter 125ml milk 70g ricotta cheese 20g plain flour 15g corn flour 2 egg yolks 3 egg whites 1/4 tsp cream of tartar 80g sugar Method Grease and line an 8 inch square baking pan with baking paper. If using springform pan, wrap the outside of the pan with 2 layers of aluminium foil as the cake will be baked in a water bath. Prepare a large roasting tin (large enough to fit the baking pan in). You can start boiling some water for the water bath. Preheat oven to 150C. Place cheddar cheese, butter and milk in a bowl and place over a pot of simmering water. Stir the ingredients until dissolved and the mixture turns smooth and creamy. Remove from heat. Then stir in the ricotta until evenly mixed. Sift the plain flour and cornflour into the mixture and fold through until smooth. Then, stir in the egg yolks. In ...

Light and fluffy Ricotta Cheesecake (with homemade ricotta)

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I made ricotta cheese. Did you not know you could do that, with only 3 ingredients in less than 10 minutes! And all with curds and whey, I felt like Little Miss Muffet now waiting for a spider to pounce at me. So why make ricotta? Apparently, homemade ricotta gives the cheesecake a fluffier texture, and it did turn out to be light, fluffy and creamy, with a subtle taste of ricotta. I used a gingernut biscuit base just to add some flavour and texture, although you can omit that to make a crustless version. This is not a very sweet cake, unlike your typical New York cheesecake. It's probably closer to a Japanese cheesecake except for the fine graininess of the ricotta. If you like, you can serve it with some berry coulis to satisfy that sweet tooth. I find that the cake tastes best after it has "matured" for up to 3 days in the fridge. The flavours seem to have developed and the texture is somehow creamier too. Ricotta in the making Homemade Ricotta Adapted from Smitten Kit...

Easy No-Beat Red Velvet Cupcakes

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With Valentine's Day just around the corner, one of the most popular cakes would be the Red Velvet - rich, red and luxurious and all that signifies romance. Bake some red velvet cupcakes for your loved ones this Valentine's Day. I've got the perfect recipe that's easy and super delicious - just whisk, mix and bake. Some of you might take a look at the recipe and think "Hmm....no butter in a cake?". This recipe uses oil instead, which makes it ultra soft and moist. The previous version of red velvet cake that I made used butter, and although it was delicious, it was relatively richer and denser, compared to this one which was light, moist, soft and fluffy. If you have to make red velvet cake, try this recipe first. It is so melt-in-your mouth heavenly good you'd fall in love with it. Easy No-Beat Red Velvet Cupcakes Adapted from Divascancook.com Ingredients 2 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon of baking soda 1 teaspoon of baking powder 1 teaspoon of salt ...

Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Frosting

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Breads are actually pretty easy to make. You mostly let the machine do the kneading, then leave the dough to rise while you go about doing your chores, updating your Facebook status and checking out what's happening on Twitter, enjoy a cuppa etc. Then, it's time to roll out the dough and shape them into whatever you like, which doesn't really matter because after you let them rise again, they somehow bounce back into shape. I hardly make breads because I'd have to make a big batch, and they are best eaten on the same day.   These cinnamon rolls however, can be kept overnight refrigerated, about two days. All it takes is a few seconds in the microwave, and you've got fresh, soft and tasty cinnamon rolls all over again. I was never a big fan of cinnamon rolls as I find them a little too sweet and sticky for my liking. These, on the other hand, are not sticky nor overly sweet. It's the combination of that cream cheese frosting and the almost-savoury cinnamon f...

Beef Lasagne

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  As Mr G was clearing the dishes after dinner, he started whinging about how he's always clearing the dishes. I told him "I've always offered you the chance to cook while I babysit and clean up, but you always say that I'm the cook". Well, I knew he would rather "clean up" than cook anyway, and dare I say that I trust my cooking more? Haha. I have to give him credit for some of his culinary skills. Let's see now... Mr G's forte lies in his famous Hainanese chicken rice . Famous because anyone who is invited to our home for the first time is usually treated to this Singaporean favourite. Oooh...he bakes a good pineapple-glazed Christmas ham, and roast beef too. We'll be looking forward to that soon! And last but not least, he does a pretty good lasagne. I say "pretty good" because the recipe is in his head, and sometimes it can be a little inconsistent. The last lasagne he made had too much béchamel and mozzarella cheese in it. He b...

Hokkaido Cheesecake (Farm Design Choco Moo Cheesecake)

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  I brought this cheesecake to my uncle's housewarming party last Saturday. My aunt took a look and said "I think I've seen this cake before, with the cow-pattern. Wasn't it on TV recently?". Yes! It was on Destination Flavour Japan on SBS. "The show with that Adam Liaw guy from Masterchef..." she says. I was thinking, gee, she must have REALLY wanted to eat that cheesecake to have remembered it so well. I guess it is a rather unique-looking cake. And it tastes absolutely heavenly. Velvety smooth and silky, not too rich, not too sweet. It's really the perfect cheesecake. It's the Choco Moo cheesecake , made popular by Farm Design Hokkaido Cheesecake. What makes this cheesecake so special is the use of Jersey milk that has high butterfat content, although you can also substitute with regular milk. The inside of the cake has little balls of chocolate ganache. The chocolate really shouldn't be oozing out like the picture above. I didn't let...

Börek or Burek (with spinach and cheese)

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  So, I'm not an expert on Burek, nor do I know enough about its cultural background and history to be able to give an accurate account of how it originated. I'm thinking  Wikipedia should be fairly reliable, and therefore I quote a few sections from it which provide some insight into this delicious filled pastry. "Börek (also burek and other variants) is a family of baked or fried filled pastries made of a thin flaky dough known as phyllo (or yufka ). It can be filled with cheese , minced meat, or vegetables. Most probably invented in what is now Modern Turkey , in the Anatolian Provinces of the Ottoman Empire in its early era, to become a popular element of Ottoman cuisine . Börek is also very popular in the cuisines of the former Ottoman Empire , especially in North Africa and throughout the Balkans . The Northern Slavic cuisines , historically developed by people living in close contact with the Turkic peoples of Asia and Europe, also feature...

Mutter Paneer (Peas and Cottage Cheese)

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Mutter paneer is a popular North Indian dish consisting of paneer ( cottage cheese ) and peas (mutter) cooked in a spiced tomato-based gravy, and it tastes fantastic especially when eaten with boiled basmati rice. I enjoy the paneer for its "bitey" texture that can be described as almost "meaty", and all of this combined together makes a delicious meal that can be quite addictive. I must admit I wasn't really a fan of paneer nor vegetarian food right up till middle of last year when I had some friends visiting from India and we frequented a few Indian restaurants. What an eye-opener it was for me. Indian vegetarian cuisine wasn't just all about peas and lentils, but very much about spices, colours, textures and exotic flavours.   I first tried mutter paneer at Curry at the Rocks, and became an instant fan. I put it on my to-cook list immediately, and was thrilled at how my recipe for this turned out. It tasted really authentic (which Mr G ...

Japanese Cheesecake (with cream)

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Less than two weeks to go before  Chinese New Year , and I can see many food-bloggers posting recipes for CNY cookies. I haven't started making any yet, though usually I just stick to making pineapple tarts. My sister just came back from Malaysia and brought over a few jars of CNY goodies which I have started snacking on, and at this rate, there might not be any left by the time CNY comes around. Anyway, I plan to make the tarts closer to CNY so that they are still fresh when I serve them to friends and family. In the meantime, instead of twiddling my itching-to-bake fingers, I decided to try out this cheesecake recipe that was posted by Nami a few months ago on Just One Cookbook . I halved the recipe, knowing that if I made the whole batch, I'd have no trouble finishing it, and then I would in trouble as that would leave me with little room for feasting during CNY (including the days leading up to it). I've made many versions of cheesecakes...

Creamy Japanese Cheesecake with Sponge base

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    This cheesecake is kind of a cross between  cotton soft Japanese cheesecake and American (NY style) cheesecake. Though it does not have the chiffon cake properties of the former, it is not as dense as its American counterpart. From the photos here, you can sort of tell that the cheese layer is slightly fluffy, and there is a layer of sponge cake on the base as well. This version of cheesecake is quite similar to the Hokkaido cheesecake sold at Breadtop,  However, I would have preferred a lighter, smoother and fluffier texture, and less "cheesey". Maybe it's just that I overfolded the egg whites and lost all that air and fluffiness. In my next attempt (not so soon), I might use use less cream cheese, add more fresh cream and toss in some cake flour, and see how that turns out.      Japanese Cheesecake Adapted from Kuali.com Ingredients Sponge base 4 egg yolks 20g sugar 4 egg whites 80g su...

Light and Creamy Japanese Cheesecake

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My family and I enjoy eating Japanese cheesecake and I have made it a number of times in the past. This time, however, I wanted to make a cheesecake that was not only light and fluffy, but creamy as well and not so cake-like in texture. The typical recipe for Japanese cheesecake uses milk and flour in addition to other ingredients like cream cheese and eggs. In making this creamy version, I've substituted the milk with sour cream and omitted the flour component. I did add a scant amount of cornflour as I figured it might help bind the ingredients (that's what I think anyway) and prevent cracks from forming on top of the cake while it's baking. Whether it helped or not, I can't say for certain, but my cake came out perfect with no cracks at all. It rose nicely in the oven, and didn't collapse in the middle while it was cooling down. In fact, the top of the cake came down slowly until it was just level. If you must know, I was keeping a watchful eye over the cake ...

Chocolate and Cream Cheese Layer Cake

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This recipe combines the best of both worlds - rich and moist chocolate cake, and sweet delicious cream cheese. It was one of the many cakes that my mum used to make for us when we were kids, and one of our favourites too. She made it without the raspberries, and I decided to add them since I had a box of them in the freezer. From the photos, the cheese layer looks much too brown on top, and that's because I didn't cover the pan with baking paper to prevent the cake from over-browning. The other reason may be that I used a dark-coloured cake pan which often results in a darker crust since it absorbs more heat. I'll have to try using a silver-coloured pan next time then, or perhaps reduce the temperature of the oven slightly. In case you're wondering, this is not a brownie, but a rich, decadent, chocolatey cake that tastes so good with the slightly tangy cream cheese layer. The cake is so moist and tender that it literally melts in your mouth,...