Mini Cheesecakes with Nectarine and Grape

As I have mentioned several times previously, we have hallway dinners in the student housing I live in. Basically all or most tenants of the same hallway gets together to eat, roughly once a week. Last semester, I was in a different hallway (having moved during the summer), and this hallway has themed dinners.

For example, the stuffed bell peppers I made a couple of weeks ago were for a Mexican-themed dinner.

This week, we had an American themed dinner. I immediately volunteered to make cheesecakes, for although I've made them numerous times in the past (21 to be exact!), I haven't made a cheesecake in a while. It was high time for me to get back on my cheesecake track.

These were plain vanilla cheesecakes, with a small crust made from crushed digestive-type cookies and some melted butter. I topped them with nectarine slices that I left to soak in a bit of slightly sweetened water syrup, and I added half a grape for color contrast.

As sour cream is not cheap, I opted for some Greek-style yogurt to sub in. It may have been part of the cause for a higher density of the cheesecake, which was not the usual smooth creaminess. That may also have been partially because I'm still not used to baking in the small toaster oven we have here, and may have overbaked it all a bit...

As I had leftover cheesecake filling, I put it all in a small springform pan to make the larger one.

Roasted Veggies Pasta

Last night, I made pasta with homemade arugula pesto (from the arugula that grows in abundance in my cousin's garden). To top it, I roasted some cauliflower florets in the oven with a bit of olive oil. Then I roasted halved cherry tomatoes, and mixed it all into the past. Then topped with thin pieces of strong gruyère cheese (because I don't have any parmesan in the fridge right now T_T).

Mexican-style Stuffed Bell Peppers

For a Mexican-themed hallway dinner, I was at lost as to what to make. Of course, I considered burrito... but I had a few bell peppers that needed finishing in my fridge.

A quick Google search led me to this recipe for stuffed bell peppers. I filled mine with half white and half brown rice, black beans, corn, and tomato sauce, all mixed and topped with cheese. Instead of boiling the peppers, I pan-fried them a bit before sticking them in the oven to cook some more while the filling cooked. I also halved each bell pepper (I had 3 red, one green, and one yellow pepper) since a whole pepper per person would have been too filling for a bring-and-share dinner.

It was delicious coupled with some quark~

White Choc Chip Cookies with Lemon

These cookies were baked on August 18th, 2014. I brought them on my second to last day at the Dutch summer course I was taking. Since I left about a week early due to university schedule clashing, I thought I would treat my teacher and classmates. We were together for a short time -- merely 3 weeks -- but I felt that we bonded a lot more than I would've ever expected.

The labels are hand-made. I got the translation of "White Chocolate Chip Cookies with brown sugar and lemon" from what I learned and Google Translate (so forgive any mistakes ^^).

I admit I probably am getting into the habit of bringing baked goods whenever I'm somewhere, or need to say "bye" to someone.

I baked these cookies with some lemon in them because I usually curb the sweetness with some walnuts, but since I didn't have any, I cut down on the sugar and added the tartness and fragrance of lemon.

I just realized that I have never posted the recipe I usually use for making chocolate chip cookies, despite having made them quite a few times. Well this one's a tweak on the recipe, but I guess it'll have to serve for now. I'll post the original recipe properly the next time I make choc chip cookies.

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RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup golden sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• zest 1 lemon
• 2 tsp Orgran egg replacer
• 4 tbs water
• 3 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp hot water
• 1 cup white chocolate chips

  Procedure

1. Preheat oven 175°C.
2. Cream butter and all sugar until smooth. Add in lemon juice and zest.
3. Mix the egg replacer and the 4 tbs water (proportions ~2 eggs) and beat them into the mixture.
4. Dissolve baking soda into the hot water before adding.
5. Stir in flour and chocolate chips.
6. Put on baking sheet by large spoonfuls.
7. Bake for 10-15 mins.

Vegan Macaron (attempt 1)

Sooooo, I've had it in my head all summer to try and tackle a pastry that's known to be difficult. That was without counting for the extra difficulty of veganizing it...

The egg replacer I buy (Orgran) has a egg replacer meringue recipe on the back. So I thought I'd take that, adapt it with the macaron recipe from Cakecrumbs, and take 1/4 of the quantities for a test run.

Here are the quantities I used:

• 31 g almond powder
• 34 g icing sugar
• 13.5 tsp egg replacer
• 0.28 tsp pectin
• 134 mL ice cold water
• 1 tbs sugar

I pretty much followed the recipe for the meringue, mixing the egg replacer and pectin and water, beating, then adding the sugar and beating some more. Then I folded in the almond powder/icing sugar mix that I had sifted. I tried piping them onto a baking sheet (and they ended up running a bit, but oh wells). They rose nicely in the oven. I let them cool a bit before filling them with a rose-flavored, vegan pastry cream/custard (soymilk, sugar, cornstarch, rose water, and 2 drops of red food coloring).

My 2nd tray had sat too long in the mixing bowl and began to clump up... so they were very ugly, but still tasty (in a way, they were tastier, being crunchier).

My mom and I shared one on spot, which had more or less the texture you would expect for a macaron. But I had read somewhere that they were better after an overnight nap in the fridge, so I left the rest alone overnight. My mistake. They turned soft in the fridge and were not nearly as palatable. I stuck the rest back in the oven a bit and it helped, but next time, I'll fill them with ganache or something, and eat them right away.

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Today, I wanted to give it another try, seeing how I doubt I'll have time to try again next week (it's getting near the time to go back to my university, where I only have a toaster oven for baking). I halved the recipe I used yesterday, and messed up greatly by forgetting to halve the water (even though I did reduce it to about 100 mL)....... As can be expected, they were nowhere near the desired result.

These were flat and runny, so much I didn't bother piping them onto the tray, just plopped the watery batter onto the tray with a spoon. I figured there was no point filling them, so we're having them as crunchy and airy cookies.

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This is definitely something to try again. The recipe is definitely on the right path. I just need to keep from getting distracted, and maybe tweak a thing here and there (and improve on my piping... the first tray was not full of uniform, round macaron shells as I imagined in my head). 

Orange Blossom Cake (Vegan)

A friend came over today, so I whipped up this cake very quickly. I used my vegan cake recipe, which is the easiest I know, using 1 tbs of orange blossom flavor instead of the vanilla/lemon/rose/whichever I may have used in the past. My cousin also helped me with mixing and measuring out some of the ingredients.

For 1 whole cake, this recipe bakes in 30 minutes in a 180°C oven.

I then topped it with the leftover, slightly runny lemon curd.

Lemon cupcakes

I wanted to give something to some family friends for bringing me to a rally yesterday. I also wanted to treat my cousins who are in Belgium for a weekend. This lead to me baking up a batch of cupcakes~

I made them in 2 half batches (with my little cousin's help), due to restricted baking space in the oven. I made my basic vegan cake recipe, adding about 1.5 tsp of lemon zest to the dry ingredients, and subbing 2 tbs of lemon juice for the vinegar per half recipe.

My brother had giving me a pastry filling syringe last Christmas, and I wanted to try if it would work with this recipe. So I made some vegan lemon curd (recipe below). Verdict: it only worked for the taller cupcakes, and was not much of a filling, more like a moistening, as this recipe does not create a hole in the middle like choux dough would.

I mixed some leftover lemon juice and zest into my frosting recipe. Due to my decorative piping syringe tip going missing, I had to borrow my cousin's, which I was not accustomed to. This led to uglier than expected frosting arrays, and I ended up going with my original idea of piping chocolate hearts on top, using my decorating pen.

I made a total of 24 cupcakes, 12 of which were in paper cups, for easy delivery. Some went to family friends, some to cousins next door, and the others for my visiting relatives and my parents.

The only non-vegan aspects are the frosting and chocolate (dark).

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RECIPE

  Ingredients

     Cupcakes

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 3 tsp lemon zest
• 1 cup unsweetened plain soymilk
• 1/2 cup neutral oil
• 2 tbs lemon juice

     Lemon Curd

• 1/4 cup cold water
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 tbs cornstarch
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (~1 lemon)
• 2 tsp grated lemon zest
• pinch of salt

     Frosting

• 2 1/2 tbs flour
• 1/2 cup milk (I used soymilk)
• vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup softened butter
• 3 tbs sugar
• some lemon juice and zest

  Procedure

     Cupcakes

1. Preheat oven 180°C.
2. Line tin(s).
3. In a large bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients.
4. In a medium bowl, whisk together all the wet ingredients
5. Pour the wet into the dry and wisk until just combined. Do not over mix.
6. Pour into tin(s) and bake ~15 mins for cupckaes, or 25 mins for a cake, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

     Lemon Curd

1. In a saucepan, whisk together water, sugar, cornstarch, and salt until the cornstarch is dissolved.
2. Bring mixture to boil, then simmer until thickened stirring constantly.
3. Add in lemon juice and zest.
4. Let mix cool and thicken.

     Frosting

1. In a small saucepan, whisk flour into milk. Place on stovetop and heat until thickened. Let cool to room temperature.
2. Add in some vanilla.
3. In a mixing bowl, whip butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
4. Add in the completely cooled  milk-flour mix and beat until it reaches the consistency of whipped cream.
5. Whip in lemon juice and zest. 
6. Spread or pipe onto cupcakes of choice.

Homemade Plum Jam

Did I mention having a lot of plums from my uncle's garden? Well, when we still had to finish the container of plums that was sitting in the fridge, a relative brought yet another bucket of them. So together with my mom, we decided to make jam out of them in order to keep wastage to a minimum.

My mom was the one who started the process, so I can't tell you just how much sugar she put. Most sites seem to recommend putting 1:1 ration of fruits to sugar in weight. I think that may be excessive, and depends on how ripe the fruits are.

I had cut about half the plums in half to remove the pit, but my mom threw the rest into the pot whole, which I don't recommend (unless the pits are very very hard to remove). As we cooked, I had to find and remove every pit that came loose from the flesh, which was not a fun job, especially since they stopped floating once the jam began thickening.

Near the beginning, once the juice started boiling, I threw in a small amount of butter, which makes the jam richer, and also prevents foaming. The rest of the process is just simmering the fruits until thickened and set.

I then sterilized the jars in boiling water, lids included (they were old jam jars from some jams we had bought at the supermarket, hence the "fraise (strawberry)" label on the right jar). Putting the jam in hot, then closing it to ensure that no bacteria sneaked their way in. Once the jars cooled, I stuck on my homemade labels, which say "Plum Jam, August 3, 2014."

Vegan Flan/Crème Brulée

In my plum tart post, I mentioned a vegan custard recipe, which I used as a base for the fruits on the tart. I had put the leftover custard into small oven dishes and filmed them to prevent the formation of a weird skin.

I then put a layer of brown sugar on top and broiled them in the oven until melted and slightly toffee-like.

Unfortunately, either because I took too long between the making of the custard and the caramelizing/toffee-ing, or because of the reheating and re-cooling, the texture of the custard wasn't the smooth creaminess I found in the tart base. The flavor, however, was wonderful, especially with the melted brown sugar that became both a small film of crunchiness and a delicious caramel sauce. This will be something to try again, maybe with tweaks to the recipe.

Rest assured, the recipe was fine in the tart~

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VEGAN CUSTARD RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 500 mL milk of choice (I used unsweetened soymilk)
• 2 tbs honey/syrup/unrefined sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbs cornstarch (which I didn't have so I subbed with 6 tbs wheat flour)

  Procedure

1. Mix milk, sweetener, and vanilla in a pot and heat until almost boiling.
2. Make a slurry out of starch and a bit of water, and add to the pot, stirring.
3. Simmer until thickened.
4. Consume as fast as possible.

Plum Pockets

After having used about half of our stash of plums from my uncle's garden, I had some more to use up. I found some old pastry dough squares laying about in the freezer, so I thawed them and made some pockets.

I brushed the dough with melted butter, filled it with cut and sweetened plums, and stuck the whole thing in the oven.

Unfortunately, the plums leaked A LOT of juice, and I had soggy bottoms... But they were still yummy enough nevertheless~