Cheesecake

It's about to be Shavuos, so, it's time for cheesecake. Here's the recipe I usually use. It's a sour cream & cottage cheese one rather than the cream cheese base I usually see.

You'll need:

• 2 graham cracker pie crusts

• 16 oz sour cream (1 regular-sized container)

• 16 oz cottage cheese (1 regular-sized container)

• 3 eggs

• ~1.5 cups sugar - you can toggle this

• 1/4 cup flour (can use cornstarch for GF)

• 1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 F

Dump all the ingredients into a large bowl. Mix a bit and then immersion-blend. Pour into the graham cracker crusts* and bake for about an hour.

* At this point, feel free to swirl in different flavors. I've used nutella, mocha (coffee with chocolate), and various jams.

Pumpkin Bread

Though some trial & error, I came by this great recipe for pumpkin bread. Honestly, I don't remember where it came from at this point.  Feel free to edit out any spices that you don't like.

edIt: adding amounts in grams because baking with a kitchen scale is the best

Ingredients:

490g or 2  cups pumpkin
118g or 1/2  cup water
218g or 1  cup canola oil
150g or 3/4  cup light brown sugar
150g or 3/4 cup granulated sugar
4 eggs
435g or 3 1/2 cups flour
12g or 2 tsp salt
12g or 2 tsp baking soda
4g or 1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp nutmeg
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp ground ginger

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Mash the pumpkin first. Then, add the sugars and vanilla. Then, water and oil. Add the egg last. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and spices. Now, put the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix well to combine. 

Line a baking pan (9" by 13" works well) with parchment paper and pour in the batter. Next, put it in the oven and bake for about an hour. 

Enjoy!

Gluten-Free Banana-Applesauce Oat Bread

Here is a recipe I've adapted off of this awesome blog. Since there are already oats, I figured that I could make it gluten-free without it being too dry or hard. Also, bananas already add a lot of the texture. Overall, it was pretty easy to alter. 

1 egg 
3 mashed ripe bananas
3/4 cup packed brown sugar 
1/3 cup natural applesauce (or 1 single-serve container of applesauce)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract 
1/2 cup oat flour (Just grind up dried oats in the food processor for this one.)
1/2 cup mochiko (That's sweet rice flour. Normal rice flour would not work the same.)
1 teaspoon baking soda 
1 teaspoons cream of tartar (or 1/2 tsp baking soda and 2 tsp baking powder)
1 1/4 teaspoons salt 
1 teaspoon cinnamon 
1 cup quick cooking oats 
¾ cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Mash the bananas first. Then, add the sugar, applesauce, vanilla, and brown sugar. Add the egg last. In another bowl, combine the flours, oats, baking soda, cream of tartar, salt and cinnamon. Now, put the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix well to combine. 

Line a baking pan with parchment paper and pour in the batter. Next, put it in the oven and turn down the temperature to 325 F. Bake for about 55 min. 

Enjoy!

Magnolia's Vanilla Cupcake Recipe

I really love the Magnolia's Bakery recipe for vanilla cupcakes/cake, but the recipe on Food Network that I've been using is a pain in the butt! I mean, how many people have self-rising flour on hand? So, you'd need to look that up and then multiply all the measurements by 3/2 since there's 1.5 cups of it, and THEN, you'd need to figure out what the 9/2 of baking powder convert to if you don't have that lying around. 

After having to redo the calculations every time I want to make this recipe, I've decided to make a post where I write down the ingredients in normal-kitchen-English:

• 2 3/4 cups flour
• 3/4 tsp salt
• ~ 1 tsp cream of tartar
• ~ 1/2 tsp baking soda
• (alternatively, you put 2 1/4 tsp baking powder)
• 1 cup butter (2 sticks)
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 room-temperature eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350 F

Put the dry ingredients together in one bowl and the sugar, butter and eggs in another. First, mix the softened butter with the sugar. Then, add the eggs to that mix. Combine the dry ingredients (flour, salt, cream of tartar and baking soda) in a smaller bowl. Make sure the mixture is uniform. Now, combine the milk and vanilla. 

Alternate adding the dry ingredients and the milk/vanilla into wet ingredients and use an electric mixture to make sure you don't have any lumps in the batter. Now, you are done. Either pour into cupcake pan and bake for 20-25 min or bake in a pan for about an hour and 10 mins.

Enjoy! 

Mushroom-Rice-Miso Soup

Since this is a 'recipe' I got from a friend, and it's not something I could find online, I thought it would be a good idea to write up. 

This is a soup that uses red miso (not white or black), mushrooms, tofu, and brown rice. Depending on how much rice and tofu get added, it can be pretty hardy.

Ingredients:
6-8 cups water
2 pieces kombu
2 Tbsp olive oil
~5 big shitake mushrooms
~5 oyster mushrooms
1/2 block tofu
1 cup cooked brown rice
1/4 cup red miso
1/4 cup soy sauce

First, pour the water into a medium-sized pot and drop in the kombu. Turn the heat up to medium. Note: you do not want the kombu to boil. I hear it turns bitter if it does. 
In the meanwhile, cube the tofu, and measure out the rice. Then, chop up the mushrooms and saute them in the olive oil until they are cooked. 
Once the mushrooms are done, take out the kombu and drop in the mushrooms, tofu, and rice. Let it simmer for a few minutes and in the meanwhile, dissolve the miso in a bit of hot (not boiling) water.
Now, turn off the heat, wait for the soup to stop boiling, and mix in the miso. The final step is adding the soy sauce. My measurements are approximate and you might want to start at 2 Tbsp and keep going until it tastes right to you.

Enjoy!

Let me know of any suggestions in the comments. 

Grandma Ella’s Spice Cake

First off, I’ve never met my grandmother Ella. She died a long time before I was born. However, there’s this cake my mom makes that’s amazing and she tells me it was her mother’s recipe. I’ve made this cake twice now and it’s pretty darn good. As I’ll be making it today so that I have it for the holidays, I’ll be able to put up pictures of the process. If you want a nice tall cake, you make double the original recipe. That’s what I’ll be putting up. You can easily halve it if you want.

Another note: this cake needs to sit for a day or two to reach optimal moist-ness, so it is best to leave plenty of time for making this recipe.

Here is the recipe:

The Dough:
2 cups sour cream
1.5 cups sugar
6 egg yolks
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
4 Tbsp cocoa powder
4-5 cloves – crushed
1/2 tsp cinnamon

liqueur

The Cream:
3 cups sour cream
3 Tbs sugar (this ends up being a bit tart so feel free to add more sugar if you want a sweeter cream)
1.5 tsp vanilla

First, preheat the oven to 375F.
Mix the sour cream and sugar. Add the cocoa powder and spices. Then, add the eggs yolks.t

Mix well, though not too much (that would kill the eggs).
In a separate bowl, mix the flour with the baking soda. Sift in.

Split the batter between two 8-9inch pans (you might want to put a layer of parchment paper on the bottom)

and place in the oven. Bake for about 28-30 minutes.

Take the cakes out and let cool. Once cool enough to handle, use string or a really sharp knife to cut each cake into 2 layers.
Lay the layers out on separate plate and drizzle 1-2 Tbs liqueur of your choice (I used Godiva) over each layer.

Let stand for at least half an hour.

In the meanwhile, mix the cream in a separate bowl (or sour-cream container if you’re lazy like me and don’t want to do extra dishes).
Slowly build the layers by spreading an even coating of cream between each.

I also like to stab through it all with a fork to make sure it’ll get soaked through well. Once done, cover liberally in the remaining cream.

Let sit in the refrigerator for at least a day before serving. (You want to let the cream soak through the layers.)

Before serving, dust with a bit of cocoa powder for decoration.

Tada! Now you have cake. I still wish I knew how to make it prettier.
Let me know how it turns out for you!

P.S. Just heard from my mom that they’d also sometimes decorate it with slices of chocolate candy on top. I’m sure that would look even nicer!

 

Banana Bread Muffins

I’ve been asked on occasion for my super special awesome banana bread recipe, so here it is:

6 bananas-mashed
1 apple – shredded
orange zest of one orange
2/3 cups butter-melted -or- 1/2 cup oil to make it parve
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
3-4 cloves-finely ground
1.5 cups sugar (half of that is brown sugar and the other half is white)
2 eggs
2 tsp baking soda
3 cups of flour
cup of dried cranberries

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Mash the bananas and add the apple, orange zest, butter/oil, vanilla and spices. Add the sugar and mix well.
Next, add the eggs. Careful not to overmix!
Mix the flour and baking soda in a separate bowl and add to the rest.
Lastly, mix in the cranberries.

If you’re making normal-sized cupcakes, bake for 25-30 mins.

Enjoy!

Challah

Considering how much Challah I made at CTY this summer, I felt like I should do a Challah-post.

This recipe is basically the one from Chabad.org, but since that one is for such a giant batch, here’s my modified version.

For a medium-sized batch (4 med-large challah):

4 1/2 tsp yeast
2 cups lukewarm water
3/4 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cups oil (I use canola)
2 eggs
6 1/2 cups flour (might be closer to 6 3/4 depending on how it goes)

edit: if you would like to make a half-batch and love the kitchen scale (and a bit less sugar):

10 g yeast
245 g lukewarm water
25 g sugar
6 g salt
37 g oil (I use canola)
1 egg
456 g flour

Mix the yeast with the water and a bit of the sugar and let sit for about 10 minutes. This should become a frothy mixture. Then, add all the rest of the ingredients except for the flour. Mix well, but don’t over-mix. Next, add in the flour bit by bit until the dough holds together and is un-sticky enough to be handled. Once done, cover with plastic wrap and let rise for an hour in a warm place.

Now, preheat the oven to 325 F. Take the dough out onto a flour-dusted counter-top to braid. For 4 large challah, divide the dough in half twice. Then, take the first of the small balls and divide it in half twice for a 4-braid challah and into thirds for the simplest 3-braid challah. There are many tutorials online and I have a series of pictures below that may help. (Be sure to click through them to the end.) Either way, first roll out each of the subdivisions into long snake-like strands. Pinch them together at the top, and braid. Once complete, put the challah onto a parchment papered baking sheet.

Note: Click on the picture below to go through the steps (picture by picture)

For 4 large challah, bake for 18 min at 325 F, then for 5 more min at 350 F

Please let cool before consuming!

Enjoy!