Dark and Colorful but Luscious

"I started eating my yogurt, and then, my tongue was so used to the sugar in the cheesecake, that when I took a bite of the yogurt it was sour! IT WAS SOUR!!" 
-Myself

This one goes out to all my chocolate lovers! Rich chocolategurshaunganache mixed throughout succulent cream cheese batter with strewn M&M candies all around. Yummers.

Belgian Chocolate Cheesecake

with M&Ms

I don't have a fancy shmancy tart pan like that, so I just had to use my regular one.

Dilemma 1: Extras!

My book tips that how to get the best ingredients. "Ordering ingredients in quantities large enough that the suppliers were willing to customize to ensure consistency on all fronts … store-bought ingredients will vary" (Schulman 68). Although I didn’t order 50 lbs. of cream cheese, I did buy a container of whipping cream that was a bit bigger than I needed. This made the quality more consistent. In addition to having a better cheesecake, I also had extra whipping cream! I mixed it up and made creamy yum, a perfect accessory to my cheesecake!

 Dilemma 2: No sagging!

It is recommended to let the cheesecake to cool in the fridge overnight to completely set before attempting to remove it from the pan (Schulman 154). For my apple creation (my previous cheesecake) I slid it out of the pan before it had cooled completely. The cake was still warm and very soft. Without the support of the sides, gravity smooshed the cake down, making it also overhang from the crusty bottom. This made a mushroom effect and the sides weren't completely straight. On this cheesecake, I was sure to let it cool overnight before loosening the pan, like the book says to. The result was a beautifully shaped cheesecake.

See how the soft part of the cake protrudes over the crust?

This is what patience gets you! Always remember this children.

Overall:
This was one of my favorite cheesecakes. It was rich, chocolaty, crunchy, smooth, and cute.

Pros:

• I was delightfully surprised at how aesthetic this cheesecake looked.
• Cooked correctly I think.
• Colorful.
• Crust tasted fine!!!
• I had leftover whipping cream from the batter, so I whipped up some whip cream!

Cons:

• There was only a finite supply of it.

Smirking because of how DELICIOUS it tastes.

Question:

Out of the following cheesecake flavors, which sounds the best to you and why?

• Plain
• Eggnog & Candy Cane
• Chocolate Chip
• Apple Pecan Oat Streusel
• Belgian Chocolate and M&Ms

Adios! This was such a fun adventure!

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Schulman, Maureen, Tara Lane, Diana Moles, and Jolene Worthington. The Eli's Cheesecake Cookbook. N.p.: Eli's Cheesecake, 2015. Print.

Posted by Kierra Long

Looks Like Trash, Tastes Like Heaven

"I think this is your best one so far. Your others were gross." -Older brother

I chose to make a cheesecake that involved some more complicated steps this time. Looking through the recipes, I found one that involved frying up some apples in butter so I thought that'd be interesting. What it lacks in beauty, it makes up for in taste.

Baked Apple Cheesecake

with Toasted Oat and Pecan Streusel

Dilemma 1: Is this how you do it?

To make the crusty crumble (or crumbly crust depending how you look at it),  you are supposed to "add 1/4 cup lightly toasted oats and 1/4 cup chopped pecans in step 2" (Schulman 115). Uhhhhh okayyyyyyy. I didn’t know what they meant by "toasted oats" so I had to put my thinking cap to work! Do oats go in the toaster? I don’t think that would work. Do you put them in the oven? I see my mom doing that sometimes. Do I cook them in a pan? That sounded pretty fast so I just dumped them in a pan and left them there for a few minutes (with the heat on). Once they were adequately hot (I guess) I tried eating one and it just tasted line an oat, Nothing special. But, that was good enough for me and I carried on with my recipe.

Is this how you do it?

Whatever.

 Dilemma 2: Greasing and scraping.

Before adding the crust and batter, you are supposed to grease and flour the spring form pan (Schulman 148). This makes the cheesecake release easier and not get stuck to the sides. On my first cheesecake I did not follow this piece of advice. The sides got stuck and I had to scrape them away from the pan with a knife. On this cheesecake however, because I greased the pan better, the cheesecake easily came away from the sides and slid right out. I had no need to pry them apart.

Notice all the scraggly bits of cheesecake siding that was scraped away from the pan?

Nothing but smooth siding from here, boys!

Overall:
This cheesecake was very delicious. The batter part (cooked) was very creamy and tasty. The apples on top were nice and sweet and tasted good with the cinnamon and added crunch of the pecans. Personally, I don't think the two components of the cheesecake mixed too well, although it was definitely a better flavor combination than my FESTIVE cheesecake.

Pros:

• Perfectly cooked.
• Didn't stick to pan.
• Apples tasted nice with cinnamon.
• Crust tasted good.

Cons:

• The top looks grossssssss.
• I took it out of the pan too soon, making it sag like a fat man with a muffin top.

Question:

Can you think of something gross looking that is actually really tasty?
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Schulman, Maureen, Tara Lane, Diana Moles, and Jolene Worthington. The Eli's Cheesecake Cookbook. N.p.: Eli's Cheesecake, 2015. Print.

Posted by Kierra Long

Making Lemon Granita!

Granita Al Limone

What is lemon granita? 
From the book: "The Granita is a cold dessert that is of typical Sicilian sweets. It is traditionally a semi-liquid concoction of water, sugar, and fresh lemon juice. The origins of Granita date to the Arabian domination of the island. The Arabs introduced an iced drink flavored with fruit juice or rosewater, often prepared with the snow collected in Mount Etna, and kept in "nivieri", freezers built of stone." (Grazia, 170).

What this means: Granita has many different variations and dates back to when Arabians controlled Sicilia, and in older times when stone was used as a freezing tool.

picture from the book of Lemon Granita

Ingredients;

The first step was to boil sugar and water for one minute to create a syrup. Once it had boiled, it was time to take off all heat and then add the lemon juice in. 

doesn't this look scrumptious?

boiling wow!

After that, all you had to do was put the syrup mixture into a bowl and freeze it for 2-4 hours. However, the recipe states that you should mix up the ice every hour, and only continue once it reaches a uniform consistency. I basically waited for it to resemble the picture which took 3 hours. I also bought an extra lemon for the sake of the picture #89cents@fredmeyer 

The final result:

fun quote from my dad: "why are you using shot glasses"

Review: YESSSSSSS it finally looks like the picture! I think this was maybe an overly simple recipe but that's fine with me. This was definitely my favorite Italian dessert to make because it tastes the best, looks the best, and was the easiest! It tastes like lemonade, but better. It is somewhere between maybe a lemon slushy and lemonade yet is quality. 

Questions: What is your favorite cold/ice drink? Do you still drink them in the winter?

p.s do you like the yellow background? Yellow and lemons are fun. Three best things in a girls life (or maybe just mine); lemonade, mac n' cheese, and cats.

Citation: Barilla, Academia. Italian Desserts and Pastries: Delicious Recipes for 100 Authentic Sweets. Vercelli: White Star, 2014. Print.