Individual Cheesecake with raspberry swirls

A friend of mine wanted to bake with me, and so this entry is dedicated to her. Since we both love cheesecake and raspberry-flavored anything, this dessert was a "no brainer." We had our little mishaps in the kitchen. Our first batch turned out fine, but while assembling our second batch, we realized that we had forgotten to put graham cracker crust into the muffin pans. Oh well...that's life. Even though we messed up, the little cheesecakes were still pretty good.

You can follow the step-by-step instructions from Annie's Eats (not affiliated with me!):

Here's a trick for when you want to press graham cracker crumbs into the cupcake pan...use a measuring cup! The 1/4 size cup fits perfectly.


Here is the cream cheese mixture after all the sugar, eggs, and vanilla have been mixed in.


Fill each cupcake liner about 2/3 of the way up.


Add 3 drops of raspberry sauce (I used seedless raspberry jam)


And the final product!

Chocolate Cupcakes with Raspberry Buttercream Frosting

There's no other flavor combination I like better than chocolate and raspberry. The smooth, rich taste of chocolate balances well with the slight tartness of raspberries. And there's no other season in the year when I crave this combination the most than fall. There's something so comforting about driving to the nearest Starbucks and ordering a tall hot chocolate with a shot of raspberry. Yum.

It's been a long time since I last baked a dessert with these two goodies. The last thing I baked many moons ago was the chocolate raspberry loaf. I don't know what took me so long to experiment with another kind of dessert. But here we are!

I adapted a simple chocolate cake recipe from here. It's a recipe for cake, but I turned it into cupcakes.

Directions for the chocolate cupcakes: (Makes about 24-26 cupcakes)
Ingredients

1 3/4 c	all purpose flour
2 c	sugar
3/4 c	cocoa powder
2 tsp	baking soda
1 tsp	baking powder
1 tsp	salt
2	eggs
1 c	boiling water; dissolve 2 tsp instant espresso
1 c	buttermilk
1/2 c	vegetable oil
1 tsp	real vanilla extract

Directions
1.   Combine flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a large mixing bowl or stand mixer.

2.   Combine eggs, coffee, buttermilk, oil, and vanilla. Add to dry ingredients

3.   Beat at medium speed for two minutes. Batter will be thin.

4.   Pour batter into the cupcake pan that is lined with cupcake liners.

5.   Bake at 350 degrees for about 17 minutes.

6.   Cool before frosting.

Directions for Raspberry Buttercream Frosting:

Ingredients

1. 2 sticks of butter, softened (unsalted)

2. 1/2 cup of seedless raspberry jam (not preserves)

3. Confectioners' Sugar (around 3-5 cups). Add 1 cup at a time until you reached your desired consistency.

Tall Lemon Cheesecake with Fresh Raspberry Sauce

I love cheesecake. It may be one of my favorite desserts along with creme brulee and chocolate cake. The cold, creamy texture of the cheesecake mixed with the buttery crust makes for one delicious comfort food.

The other day, I saw a pound of raspberries on sale for $1.60 at the market! $1.60!!! Somebody must've made a mistake and wrote the wrong price, but who am I to point that out? With 2 lemons and an abundance of raspberries, I could think of no other thing to bake besides cheesecake.

I wanted to make sure that this cheesecake turned out perfectly, so I did my research and found the best recipe for a tall and creamy style cheesecake. In order to make it a little lemony, I added the zest of 2 lemons, and the juice of 1. The final product had a light lemony flavor -- perfectly refreshing in this odd California heatwave. The raspberry sauce is Emeril's recipe, which you can find on the food network. You can find the cheesecake recipe here.

You start with 4 blocks of cheesecake (8oz blocks). It sounds like a lot, but you need four to make a nice, tall cheesecake.




The recipe calls for 1 1/3 cup of heavy cream or sour cream, so I did 1/2 heavy cream, 1/2 sour cream to make the 1 1/3 cup.


Don't forget to zest the lemon before you start the whole process. Isn't my lemon zester just the cutest thing ever?


Mix all the ingredients until it's smooth and creamy.


Follow the directions to make the crust. I didn't quite have the amount of crumbs required of this recipe, so my crust wasn't as thick.


Pour the creamy mixture onto the baked crust and bake for a long time in a water bath.


Here's the final product...





Bon appetit!

Chocolate Raspberry Loaf

A good friend came over today for a baking party. I love baking parties. There's nothing like baking something yummy and sharing it with a friend. Too bad I'm still on my diet and was only able to eat a bite-sized piece of this absolutely delicious chocolate raspberry loaf. Is there anything better than the combination of chocolate and raspberry? I think I may like it more than chocolate and strawberry. On a side note, whoever thought chocolate and orange would go well together must've been out of their mind.

Anyways, I found a wonderful recipe online, and we tweaked it so that it was a little diet-friendly. This loaf smelled absolutely wonderful out of the oven! The fresh raspberries really up this chocolate loaf. I think next time, I will double the recipe so that the loaf is bigger and add raspberry extract to the batter as well. It seems like the extract will enhance the aroma of raspberries even more. The result was a light, delicious, raspberry, chocolate loaf, not too sweet either which is a bonus to any Asian palate. Today's baking party = Success!



Recipe taken from this blog:

1 cup cake flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder (use a high quality one)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
1/2 cup raspberry puree, strained
Vanilla extract
1 stick and 1/4 butter, softened, at room temperature
1 cup sugar (Used splenda)
3 large eggs

1. Preheat your oven to 350F.
2. Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and baking soda.
Combine the raspberry puree with the extract and set aside.
3. Beat the softened butter with the sugar until light and fluffy.
4. Beat the 3 eggs together in a small pitcher. Drizzle them into the softened butter & sugar mixture slowly, all the while beating the ingredients together.
5. After the mixture has come together (it must be smooth), add in 1/3 of the dry ingredients. Fold this in gently.
6. Fold in half of the raspberry puree mixture.
7. Fold in the remaining half of the dry ingredients, followed by the rest of the raspberry puree.
8. Finish off with the last third of the dry ingredients.
9. Bake this in a loaf tin (or any other tin you desire...) until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
10. Consume the warm cake with joy in your hearts, and your house will smell like heaven.

Lemonade Cupcakes

Summer is here and the drink that seems the most refreshing during this season is lemonade. For a dear friend's birthday, I offered to bring the cake. Since it was going to be an outdoor picnic-style dinner, I figured that cupcakes would be easier to eat than a normal cake. And what could possibly be a better way to welcome summer and celebrate a birthday than with lemonade cupcakes?!

I was originally planning on doing a simple, lemon cream cheese frosting...


But after talking to a few people, I decided to do a strawberry frosting as well. And after talking to one more person, I decided to try a raspberry frosting too! Was I crazy? Definitely.


So here's the recipe for the lemon cupcakes AND all 3 frostings:

Lemon Cupcakes
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 pound unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
zest of 2 lemons
2 large eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 teaspoons lemon extract


Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting adapted from My Baking Addiction: (I cut everything in half because I didn't need that much frosting)
2 (8) ounce package cream cheese, softened
1 stick butter, softened
2 lbs. confectioners’ sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
juice of one lemon (I used 1 teaspoon of lemon extract)

Using a mixer, blend the butter and cream cheese together until well combined. Gradually add in the confectioners’ sugar until fully incorporated. Finally mix in vanilla and lemon juice.

Raspberry/Strawberry Cream Frosting adapted from Squidoo: (Also cut in half)
1 pint raspberries or strawberries
2 pints heavy whipping cream + 4 tablespoons
1/4 cup powdered sugar

In a blender, blend berries and 4 tbls heavy cream. Set aside. Whip the rest of the heavy cream in a stand mixer until thick. Slowly add the berry mixture and the sugar until it becomes smooth.

Final product before heading out!

White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake

There are two desserts at the top of my Favorite Desserts of all Time list:
1. Chocolate Cake (my next baking adventure)
2. Cheesecake

Now that I have improved my techniques with cheesecake, I felt it necessary to start mixing up the flavors a little. First up: White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake.

I think this is my favorite cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory, so how can I NOT try and imitate it? I used low fat cheesecake (although the recipe says not to) and Splenda so lower the calorie count and fat of this dessert. I'm all about making my desserts diabetic friendly, although nobody around me is diabetic. Eh...who doesn't like a semi-guilt-free dessert?

So here we go...


I noticed that Oreos are sweet enough that you don't need to add any sugar to the crust, only melted butter. I replaced the sugar with Splenda, and threw the frozen raspberries in the blender with some sugar and water to quicken up the prep time. Just run the pureed raspberries through a sieve before heating it up. Also, I needed to bake my cheesecake for an extra 20 minutes or so...weird that the timing was so off from the recipe.

Here's the recipe as adapted from All Recipes:

Ingredients

• 1 cup chocolate cookie crumbs (I used about 17 Oreos)
  
• 3 tablespoons white sugar (Didn't use this)
  
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 1 (10 ounce) package frozen raspberries
• 2 tablespoons white sugar or sugar substitute
  
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 cups white chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup half-and-half cream (Didn't have this on hand, so I used 1/2 cup milk with a little melted butter)
  
• 3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup white sugar or sugar substitute
  
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, mix together cookie crumbs, 3 tablespoons sugar, and melted butter. Press mixture into the bottom of a 9 inch springform pan.
2. In a saucepan, combine raspberries, 2 tablespoons sugar, cornstarch, and water. Bring to boil, and continue boiling 5 minutes, or until sauce is thick. Strain sauce through a mesh strainer to remove seeds.
3. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). In a metal bowl over a pan of simmering water, melt white chocolate chips with half-and-half, stirring occasionally until smooth.
4. In a large bowl, mix together cream cheese and 1/2 cup sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs one at a time. Blend in vanilla and melted white chocolate. Pour half of batter over crust. Spoon 3 tablespoons raspberry sauce over batter. Pour remaining cheesecake batter into pan, and again spoon 3 tablespoons raspberry sauce over the top. Swirl batter with the tip of a knife to create a marbled effect.
5. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes, or until filling is set. Cool, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 8 hours before removing from pan. Serve with remaining raspberry sauce.