Oreo Cheesecake

So I got this cookbook for my birthday and its really neat. It's called America's Most Wanted Recipes and it has all these recipes in it that are 'clones' of restaurant recipes. Pretty much, the author experimented until he had recipes that taste almost the same as the ones in the recipes. Now, as the title suggests they come from mostly American restaurants, some of which I have never heard of, but overall it seems like a really great recipe book.

The first recipe from it that I tried is 'The Cheesecake Factory"s Oreo Cheesecake. Now, again, being not an American the only reason I've heard of 'The Cheesecake Factory' is because its the place where Penny on Big Bang Theory works. So, I've never had the original of this recipe and so I can't exactly compare it.

"The Cheesecake Factory" Oreo Cheesecake

2 tbsp melted butter (or margarine)
1 1/2 cups Oreo cookie crumbs

3 pkgs cream cheese
1 cup sugar
5 eggs
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup flour
1 cup sour cream
5-10 chopped Oreo Cookies (for filling)
5-10 more chopped Oreo Cookies (for topping)

Allow all ingredients to come to room temperature (I didn't do this, although I did soften the cream cheese in the microwave as instructed on the package) Preheat oven to 325. Mix melted butter and Oreo crumbs and press into the bottom and partially up the sides of a 9-inch springform pan, set aside. Using an electric mixer beat cream cheese until fluffy. Beat in sugar, slowly. Beat in eggs, one at a time until combined. Add the salt, flour and vanilla. Beat until well blended. Add sour cream, beat well. Stir in the filling Oreos by hand. Pour mixture into prepared pan. Top with topping Oreos. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Use whichever cheesecake crack prevention methods you prefer. I have tried several different methods (water bath, leaving the oven door open for an hour afterwards, running knife around rim, doing nothing special and just letting it do its own thing) and I really haven't found a method I prefer, so whatever you usually do with cheesecakes, just do that. :)

I really liked this recipe, although I overcooked it a bit. It was really tasty and had that nice combination of soft and crunch. It even survived a 6 hour, 500km, road trip to my Grandmother's all nicely wrapped up in Saran and newspaper with an icepack attached. It was pretty great, now I can't compare it to the original, so the jury's still out on that. But I do think I will be trying other recipes from this book soon.

But! Even sooner that that I am going to be sharing a post with you that is so filled with awesome that your win-o-meter will be blown off the charts! I don't want to give any hints if you don't already know what's coming but make sure you tune in next week sometime for the most epic post you have seen on this blog so far. :D

Cookie Press Cookies

My Grandma gave me a cookie press for my birthday and I couldn't wait to try it out. I found this recipe and made the cookies a few weeks ago but I forgot to take pictures! So here it is now, cookie press cookies a.k.a Spritz Cookies

2 cups butter, room temperature (must use butter!)
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
4 cups flour

Preheat oven to 350. Put cookie sheets in refrigerator. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla. Slowly add in flour. Mix well. Fill cookie press with dough. Squeeze out cookies, following instructions included with the cookie press. Decorate as desired, with sprinkles or whatever else you like. Bake for 10 minutes. When you take them out of the oven you can glaze them (recipe to follow) or just leave them plain. Make sure you return the cookie sheets to the refrigerator after each batch. I usually have 3 cookie sheets going at a time, one in the oven, one in the fridge and one with waiting cookies on it.

Glaze
1 cup icing sugar
2 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla

Mix together. You may need to add more milk or icing sugar to get it to the right consistency.

I love these cookies! And I love my cookie press! It makes it so much easier to make sugar/shortbread cookies without all the rolling and chilling and rolling and chilling of the dough. And, as you can see it makes A LOT of cookies! Almost too many, and unfortunately due to the one egg, you can't halve the recipe very easily.

"Asparagus" "Cashew" Rice Pilaf

As you can probably tell by the large amounts of quotation makes I used in the title for this recipe, I've made a lot of modifications to the original. I found this recipe because I wanted to try something different for dinners and I've modified it several times and it's pretty good. Also, its flexible, which is good when you have so many picky eaters in the house. :-P

The Original - Asparagus Cashew Rice Pilaf - From Allrecipes

2-3 tbsp butter
2 oz uncooked spaghetti, broken into pieces
1/4 cup minced onion
1/2 tsp minced garlic
1 1/4 cups uncooked jasmine rice
2 1/4 cups vegetable broth
salt and pepper
1/2 lb asparagus, trimmed and cut into 2 inch pieces
1/2 cup cashew halves

Melt butter over medium-low heat. Increase heat, add spaghetti pieces and cook until lightly browned. Stir in onion and garlic and cook until tender (2 min). Stir in rice, cook another 5 min or so. Add broth. Bring to a boil and cook about 20 min or until liquid is gone. While rice is cooking, cook asparagus. When everything is ready, mix cashews and asparagus into rice.

Okay, so that's the original, but I've never made it that way.

For starters I've always used broccoli rather than asparagus. Mostly because I don't know the best way to cook asparagus.

Secondly, this dish was made as a 'vegan' dish. If you want to unvegan-ize it and also make it a lot more flavourful and yummy, replace the cashews with shrimp! It makes it so amazing, even if my dad refuses to eat it that way. :-P

Black Forest Cake - Take 2

I made another Black Forest Cake for my mom for Mother's Day a few weeks ago. And it looked A LOT better than the first one.

It looks almost professional doesn't it?
If only I could figure out how to get the chocolate shavings on the sides without getting them EVERYWHERE else!
OH! And when I was in the States this past weekend I found cans of Sour Cherries that don't cost $6 a piece! So I can make this cake more often! (I bought enough cans for two more cakes, or a pie)

'Potluck' Marshmallow Bars

My brother and I were trying to figure out something to make with the bad of mini-marshmallows in the cupboard and we started discussing these treats known only as - those things with the rainbow marshmallows that we always had at potlucks. We both remembered them as being rainbow mini marshmallows covered in some sort of goo, which I remembered consisting of peanut butter and butterscotch and he remembered as including chocolate as well.

So, armed only with childhood memories, we went hunting. And we found this...

1 pkg butterscotch chips
1 pkg (about 2 cups) chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter

1 pkg mini-marshmallows

Line 9x13 pan with tinfoil. Grease tinfoil. In a large bowl microwave together chocolate chips, butterscotch chips and peanut butter in 30s-1min intervals until melted. Add marshmallows. Pour into pan. Refrigerate until solid.

Okay, so we realized why these are brought to potlucks - because one or two is tasty but anymore gets a little much. So I don't know if I'll make them again.

Mad Hatter Cake

So one of my good friends decided to throw a Mad Hatter Tea Party for her sister's birthday. Both sisters are friends of mine and so I was delighted to help out with the cake. I got a bunch of new cake decorating supplies around Christmas time but I've been so busy that I hadn't had a chance to use them.

For the Mad Hatter Tea Party we figured it would be suitable to build a 'Mad Hatter' cake.

Mad Hatter Cakes are also known as "Topsy Turvey" cakes because of the fact that they look like they're about to fall over all the time.
Of course the trick for the baker and decorator is to make sure that the cake will defy gravity and stay intact, like the leaning tower of Pisa.

In Celebration of PI Day

So I haven't updated in nearly 3 months! I've been extremely busy with school this semester, I can't wait to go back to work in the summer. I have had a few chances to do some baking though and I'll try to be updating with those soon.

So, today is PI Day and in honour of the occasion I made a cake, of course. I was planning on making a Pie but then I was craving some carrot cake and so I decided to try my hand at that instead.

Carrot Cake

4 eggs
1 1/4 cups oil
2 cups sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
3 cups grated carrots
1 cup walnuts

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour 9x13 pan. Mix eggs, oil, sugar and vanilla. Stir in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Mix in grated carrots. Fold in walnuts. Pour batter into pan. Bake for 40-50 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes in the pan before turning out onto cooling rack. Cool completely before topping with Cream Cheese Icing.

Cream Cheese Icing
1/2 cup butter
1 pkg cream cheese
4 cups (ish) icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Soften butter and cream cheese. Cream together, then cream in icing sugar and vanilla. Mix until smooth.