DARING BAKERS DO CHEESECAKE!

This month's edition of the Daring Bakers was chosen by Jenny of Jenny Bakes who went with cheesecake! Yay for cheesecake!! For most of my life I was never a huge fan of cheesecake. Growing up, my brother was always the one to order dessert after dinner and 99% of the time it was a New York style cheesecake (1% of the time being an apple crisp.) Since I would never order my own dessert (god forbid!), I would always nibble on the crust of his cheesecake because the idea of the actual cheesecake turned my stomach. However, something happened to me in the last few years. I've become a cheesecake connoisseur. Perhaps it's because I enjoy baking cheesecakes so much. They really are my most favorite dessert to make and eat. The cheesecake pops I made last year really did me in. Clearly.

So here's the deal folks. Unlike most Daring Baker challenges, this cheesecake challenge allowed much room for creativity, uniqueness, and personal touch. The point of this challenge was to create a cheesecake flavor/combination using 'Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake' recipe which acts as your typical "basic cheesecake". I went ahead and created girl scout cookie mini cheesecakes. Yes, you heard right! We've got Thin Mint cookie mini cheesecakes, Samoa cookie mini cheesecakes, and a 6inch round Tagalong cheesecake. These. Were. Awesome.
Pictured above is the Thin Mint mini cheesecake topped with a dark chocolate ganache and garnished with Thin Mint cookie. The crust is made with finely ground thin mint cookie and the cheesecake filling has coarsely chopped Thin Mints throughout.

Here we have a Samoa cookie mini cheesecake prepared the same way as the Thin Mint; Samoa cookie crust with a Samoa cookie chunk filling, topped with a sweet vanilla whipped cream and Samoa cookie crumbles. These were seriously fabulous and such a delightful mini treat! They flew off my desk in a matter of moments at work. Oh, and the actual cheesecake recipe? Fantastic! It was super creamy and rich and so incredibly easy to put together. Since I did the mini's, I didn't use a water bath (they didn't need it) but for the 6 inch cheesecake I did and it baked beautifully.

I had leftover batter after making about 16 minis that I decided to make a 6inch cheesecake using a Tagalong cookie crust, followed by chopped up Tagalongs in the filling. I used the same dark chocolate ganache on top as I did the mini Thin Mints. Fabulous.

This cheesecake recipe is a keeper. It will be laminated and posted on my fridge! To all you cheesecake lovers out there, go ahead and make this recipe, you will not be disappointed!
Check out all the other Daring Baker's cheesecake creations at the Daring Bakers blogroll.

*On a side note, if you're really into baking with Girl Scout cookies check out my Samoa Cookie Cupcakes and Samoa Cheese Tart!*

Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake:

CRUST:
2 cups / 180 g graham cracker crumbs
1 stick / 4 oz butter, melted
2 tbsp. / 24 g sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

CHEESECAKE
3 sticks of cream cheese, 8 oz each (total of 24 oz) room temperature
1 cup / 210 g sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup / 8 oz heavy cream
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean)
1 tbsp liqueur, optional, but choose what will work well with your cheesecake

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (Gas Mark 4 = 180C = Moderate heat). Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker's choice. Set crust aside.

3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.

4. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

5. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done - this can be hard to judge, but you're looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don't want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won't crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve.

Pan note: The creator of this recipe used to use a springform pan, but no matter how well she wrapped the thing in tin foil, water would always seep in and make the crust soggy. Now she uses one of those 1-use foil "casserole" shaped pans from the grocery store. They're 8 or 9 inches wide and really deep, and best of all, water-tight. When it comes time to serve, just cut the foil away.

Prep notes: While the actual making of this cheesecake is a minimal time commitment, it does need to bake for almost an hour, cool in the oven for an hour, and chill overnight before it is served. Please plan accordingly!

TWD: CHOCOLATE HAZELNUT CREAM TART

Kim of Scrumptious Photography chose this weeks TWD recipe. Side note: Kim's blog is incredible. The title speaks for itself. Anywayyyyyy, I've had my eye on this chocolate cream tart since I bought the book over a year ago so I was psyched when I saw this weeks selection. I'm not even sure why I've wanted to make this considering I'm not really into tarts that consist of some sort of pastry cream filling, but I enjoy baking and creating tarts immensely. Strange, I know.

First of all, this sweet chocolate tart crust is fantastic. It has a shortbread consistency with a touch of chocolate flavoring. It's crumbly, buttery, and not overly sweet thus allowing the filling to really shine. I used my best Valrhona cocoa powder which really makes the difference here.

As for the filling, I wanted to alter the flavors a tad by adding hazelnut. The chocolate filling was a cinch to make and it was velvety, smooth, and rich. I used Sharffen Berger bittersweet chocolate which was really delicious to eat plain ;) Before spooning the chocolate filling into the baked and cooled tart shell, I spread a thin layer of Nutella, followed by filling, garnished with whipped cream, drizzled with chocolate syrup and a sprinkle of toasted hazelnuts. Whoa, that was a mouthful. Wallah! The most beautiful tasty chocolate hazelnut cream tart I've ever had, hands down! This recipe brought my love for chocolate tarts to surface! For the recipe, visit Kim's blog.

ANGEL FOOD CAKE BITES

Ahhhhh, I've been doing SO MUCH baking this week..it's serious insanity! Evidence can be seen below this post with brownies, bread pudding, cupcakes, and what have you. Last night I made my TWD recipe due Tuesday; chocolate hazelnut cream tart (whoa, amazing!-will blog about that next week) and between the tarts, cupcakes, and brownies this week I had tons of egg whites left over. I'm going away next week and I didn't want to put all those whites to waste so while the tart was cooling, I thought it would be fun to whip up angel food cake.

I whipped up this recipe from Epicurious in no time and baked these little guys in mini cupcake tins. I figured they would bake as robust as the mini tins allowed but, to my surprise, angel food cake doesn't really rise that much. It's more of a gummy yet light cake. So, here I was with 4 dozen of the littlest, miniest, cutest angel bites that were fat free (pre frosting)! You can pop these suckers in your mouth like popcorn. I spread little dollops of vanilla (canned-so shoot me!) frosting with some white nonpareils. Wallah, angel food cake bites. Enjoy these for a fun, remotely guilt free treat!

BLACK & WHITE CHEESECAKE BROWNIES

OK, hear me out. By the time this post is done, I expect you all to have your ingredients out, measured, prepared, and ready to go. This recipe is a true winner. Brownies. Cheesecakes. More brownies. Something I'd like to call brownie bliss...

It's unfair how good these are. They should be deemed illegal in all 50 states. The bottom brownie layer is soft and gooey followed by a sufficient but not overwhelming thin creamy cheesecake layer. Crumbles of brownie dough are then added to the top while the edges are crisp and cookie-like. It's a combination of chocolate cookies, chocolate brownies, and cheesecake all in one delicious bar.

The one, and I mean only one drawback is that this recipe requires some legwork and time, which I was unaware of before I started. You see, I went to dinner with a friend last night and needed some time to digest before I went for a run. Baking is the best time-killer. So, I set out to make these brownies thinking I'd whip up the batter in no time and have them baked within the hour and have them cool while I'm at the gym. I skipped a few steps to see the baking time which said "25-30 minutes" so I assumed this would be a quickie! Well, the few paragraphs that I skipped detailed a few processes that required time. There's Refrigeration. Baking. Cooling. Baking again. That kinda thing...

All in all, I don't care that I ended up at the gym at 9pm because these brownies were well worth it and after ingesting so many of them the gym was clearly needed! Make these. Enjoy!

Black & White Cheesecake Brownies-From Martha Stewart

Makes 24

Vegetable oil cooking spray

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

3/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

10 ounces (2 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened (this is a ton of butter, I cut back to 2 sticks)

2 cups granulated sugar

3 large eggs

21/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

8 ounces cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup confectioners' sugar

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Coat a 9-by-13-inch baking dish with cooking spray. Line dish with parchment, leaving a 2-inch overhang on both long sides, then spray parchment.
2. Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl. Cream butter and granulated sugar with a mixer until smooth. Add 2 eggs and 2 teaspoons vanilla, and beat until smooth, scraping down sides of bowl. Reduce speed to low; add flour mixture. Increase speed to medium; beat until incorporated.
3. Reserve 1 cup of dough; cover, and refrigerate. Press remaining dough into bottom of prepared dish. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. Bake until base is set and edges are puffed, about 25 minutes. Let cool in dish on a wire rack.
4. Mix cream cheese, confectioners' sugar, and remaining egg and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla in a medium bowl. Spread over cooled base; crumble reserved dough on top. Bake until filling is set, 25 to 30 minutes. Let cool in dish on wire rack, then lift out using overhang. Cut into 24 squares. Squares will keep, covered and refrigerated, for up to 3 days.

TWD:FOUR STAR CHOCOLATE BREAD PUDDING

I'll make this short and sweet. It's late, I'm tired, and I've posted a lot this week! Give a sista a break!

Thanks to Lauren of the Upper East Side Chronicle for choosing this weeks TWD selection: 4 star chocolate bread pudding.  I have to be honest, I've never been a fan of bread pudding. The consistency was always weird to me and I never quite understood the marriage of white bread with pudding. It's just strange.

With that said, I wasn't a huge fan of this recipe.  I even doubled the chocolate with the idea that super chocolaty would equal super delicious. Wrong. I'm sorry to be such a Debbie downer but it is what it is...I just didn't like it! OK? Geez.

The other TWD'ers seemed to have really enjoyed this, so don't go by my biased bread pudding feelings.  Check out Lauren's blog for the recipe!