Easy New York Cheesecake

Hello!

My family loves cheesecakes. Like. We WOULD DIE FOR cheesecakes! Cheesecakes make the world go round. One of the best things about cheesecakes is how versatile and how creative you can play around with the recipe. New York cheesecake is the new white canvas! I do not like the no-bake cheesecakes. Yes, you do not need to heat up your oven and you can dig in a lot faster, but I really dislike the texture and the taste of it is different from a baked cheesecake. I find that baked cheesecakes are more decadent and less well, muak-y. Sorry can’t find any English word for ‘muak’.

My sister recently shared her newly-found cheesecake holy grail. It is so easy and it uses only a couple of ingredients that it’ll take you only a couple of minutes to whip this bad boy up. *whip!whip!

Easy New York Cheesecake

3 sticks of cream cheese (750g), room temperature

3 eggs

2 tablespoon of all-purpose flour

1 cup sugar

¼ cup milk

a dash of vanilla essence

1 ¼  cup of finely crushed graham crackers

¼   to ½ cup of melted butter

1. Preheat oven to 325 degree Fahrenheit (300 degrees if using a dark nonstick spring form)
2. Line the insides of a 9-inch spring form with parchment paper. Set aside
3. In a bowl, mix the crushed graham crackers and melted butter together. Press firmly on the bottom and the sides of spring form.
4. Bake for 10 minutes and set aside.
5. In the meantime, mix the cream and sugar together using an electric mixer until well blended.
6. Add in the flour and continue beating.
7. Add in milk and vanilla essence and eggs and beat until combined.
8. Pour the cream cheese batter onto the baked crust.
9. Bake for 35 -45 minutes. The middle should still jiggle while the sides are slightly firm to touch.
10. Let cool in the oven. 
11. Once cooled, let it set in the fridge for 3 hours minimum before cutting and serving.

I recently made a small one recently using a 6" pan by halving the recipe. I find that baked goods are the best birthday gifts. The top browned quite a bit!Yikes. Using a sharp knife I simply carved the caramelised areas and carved some chocolate curls. I used a Cadbury Milk Chocolate Bar. The trick is to keep it at room temperature where it isn't too hard and not melted. Bam! Dark spots covered.

Bon Appétit!

Love,

Soffy

Apple Pie Bread Pudding

Helllo!

My sisters and I share the same past time; baking. The thing that I love most about baking is the amount of creativity that you can put into a recipe and we always share our newly found holy grail recipes in our whatsapp group.All of us are busy with our own things every day but we love the fact that the kitchen is still  our safe haven.

In all honesty, where I live now the kitchen is tiny and the lack of familiar tools frustrate me. For my birthday this year I asked for a new mixer because the old one is rusty. ( I CAN’T EVEN FIND THE PARTS BEING SOLD HERE!!). So off we went and I was happy with this new standing mixer that I bought while thinking of the amazing breads that I can make later. It was such an effing dismay that the mixer was a complete joke! The stand is literally a stand. The bowl doesn’t rotate or anything. I though the stand was faulty. NOPE. I feel like crying just thinking about it. Another thing that I miss having is a legit oven. The one that I have now is a microwave oven that can grill, bake and many other things. But there is nothing that can replace a normal oven. Did I mention that our kitchen is tiny? Tiny kitchen comes with tiny working space. Sigh. One day, when we move out maybe.


Having a small microwave oven and a simple mixer with very limited counter space, baking can be quite a challenge nowadays. So I tend to stick to fool-proof recipe that are easy to make, easy to clean and easy to play around with. Like this Apple Pie Bread Pudding  recipe. It is basically bread pudding with apple pie filling.

Apple Pie Bread Pudding 

Bread pudding layer

4 large eggs, beaten
3/4 granulated white sugar or ½ cup brown sugar
4 cups of milk
7-9 pieces of white bread
a dash of cinnamon and vanilla


1. Preheat the oven to 180 degree Celsius.
2. Mix the milk, beaten eggs, sugar cinnamon and vanilla in a big bowl
3. Cut the bread pieces into small cubes and soak them in the milk mixture.
4. Pour into an 8" x 8" baking dish and set aside.

Apple Pie filling

4 small apples
½ teaspoon of cinnamon
½ cup of sugar or less, depending on the sweetness of the apples.
3 tablespoon of flour

1. Peel, core an cut the apples into small cubes.
2. Mix the apples, cinnamon, sugar and flour together.
3. Spread  the apple pie filling onto the bread pudding mixture evenly.
4. Bake for about 20 mins to 30 mins.
5. Serve hot with a scoop of ice cream


It is so easy to make, in less than an hour, you can make it, bake it and eat it piping hot with a dollop of vanilla ice cream. The hot and cold sensations in your mouth bring this easy dessert to another level. We served this to our guests recently; and they were amazed by it.

Enjoy!

Love,
Soffy

Clam Soup

Hello!*blows cyber cobwebs off*

I haven’t blogged for so long! Because of that, there were quite a number of recipes that I forgot to write down and now I have no idea what I put in some of the glorious meals made before. Oh well. I obvs had to write down a couple of recipes that I would come back to.

Anyhoos, Jaya Grocer is fiiiiiinaly open near my office. Wandering through fancy supermarkets is one of my favorite pastimes. Walking through aisles and aisles of ingredients that came from numerous parts of the world! Sigh. I could rarely walk out empty handed! Recently I spotted packets of clams on sale! CLAMSSS!!!!!!!!Who could say no to clams? Just a week or so before I was dreaming of dunking garlic bread in a hot soupy seafood broth. Yass!It's a sign I tell you.

I came across Zuppa di Vongole recipe and I tweaked it a bit using the ingredients that I already had at home.

Clam Soup 

(Makes 2 portions)

400g  fresh clams

2 tablespoon of olive oil

3 cloves garlic, chopped

half teaspoon of chili powder

¾ cup bottled tomato sauce/pasta sauce

1 cup water

½ cube of anchovy cube

Salt,to taste

  

1. Wash the clams and soak in water for about 30 minutes to get rid of the saltiness. Set aside
2. In a pot, pour in the olive oil chopped garlic  and chili powder together. (The flavor will infuse better)
3. Sauté the garlic on a medium heat for about 1 minute
4. Add the tomato sauce, water and anchovy cube. Let simmer.
5. Add the clams and close this lid of the pot. Cook for about 5 minutes or so until the clams open.
6. Taste for seasoning. Add salt if needed.
7. Serve while hot.

Please note that bottled tomato sauce and ketchup are two different things. I remember vividly the argument that my sister and I had. It is a sauce made from crushed tomatoes. No? Ketchup has vinegar etc in it right? So no. Please do not put ketchup in this soup. Bleargh. Please Pardon the picture, it was a weeknight dinner after all. Annnd, no. I did not get any artisan bread to dunk into the soup. Next time, maybe.

Bon Appétite!

Love,

Soffy

Lazy-weekend Pancakes

Happy 2016 everyone!

It's been awhile. *Blowing dusts*

2015 was not the best year for me, hence the lack of posts and experiments. This year will be different. WAYYY DIFFERENT from last year. *Amin*

On weekends, my hubs and I would always choose between French Toasts and Pancakes for our lazy mornings. I came across this recipe awhile ago and like other kinds of pancake recipes, I'm sure you can add ANY additional ingredients like Chocolate Chips, Fresh Fruits, Nutella(why not?) even cinnamon and caramelized apples! This recipe is like a blank canvas, color it as you please!

I always use Martha Stewart's recipe because it doesn't require buttermilk or fancy techniques that my Sunday-brain could not comprehend.

Original recipe here.

Martha Stewart's Easy Basic Pancakes

1 cup all-purpose flour,

2 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

2 tablespoons of vegetable oil

1 large egg

some oil for frying

1. In a bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt; set aside.
2. In a different bowl, whisk together milk, oil, and egg. 
3. Add dry ingredients into the milk mixture; whisk until just combined (do not overmix; a few small lumps are fine).
4. Heat a large skillet over medium heat. 
5. Fold a sheet of paper towel in half, and moisten with oil; carefully rub skillet with oiled paper towel.
6. For each pancake, pour about 1/4 cup of batter onto skillet.
7. Cook until surface of pancakes have some bubbles and a few have burst, 1 to 2 minutes. 
8. Flip carefully and cook until browned on the underside, 1 to 2 minutes more. 
9. Repeat steps (5-8) with remaining batter.
10. Serve with desired toppings. ( Butter, maple syrup, honey, whipped cream, etc.)

Cinnamon Apple Pancakes

We always have our pancakes with butter and honey. In my book, it may be a sin to serve pancakes without butter. Really *wink*.

Till then.