cream cheese

Biscoff Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries

February 14, 2012

This has to be a yummiest and easiest dessert that you can whip up for Valentine’s Day. Perfect for a last minute idea for any occasion really. In total this took me 20 minutes to do and I’m sure someone could do it even faster. I love fast desserts. Mainly because I don’t want anything to take too long and because I would rather eat chips so why would I want to spend a ton of time on something sweet. Whip up a batch up these Biscoff Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries and I swear you will enjoy them. I would not steer you wrong!

Plus stuffed strawberries are so much better than chocolate covered strawberries for Valentine’s Day. When you get a massive chocolate covered strawberry you have to take at least 2 bites of it and when you do the chocolate cracks and falls off. You instantly rush your hand to your mouth to catch those bits so they don’t fall on your new outfit, all the while looking ridiculous= not sexy.

Ever since I made my Biscoff Muddy Buddies, I have been thinking of making another treat using Biscoff. I love cheesecake stuffed strawberries, so I figured the next best thing would be to add Biscoff spread to the cheesecake mixture. But I knew I could not just leave it there… Oh no, I had to use Biscoff Cookies as well! I ended up processing the cookies to create crumbs that I could dip the strawberries into. I love the aroma of the cookies as I processed them. Oh killer. It was well worth a wait to get the crumbs on there since these suckers were so good.

Biscoff Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries

*Serves 4*

Ingredients

1 lb of large strawberries
4 oz of cream cheese
1/4 cup confectioners sugar
1/4 cup Biscoff Spread
4 Biscoff Cookies

Process

Cut the top off of each strawberry. Using a paring knife, gently hallow out the center of the strawberry by carefully inserting the knife 1/8″ of an inch from the edge of the strawberry. The point of the knife needs to be angled towards the center of the strawberry. Carefully work the knife around the entire strawberry completing the circular cut. As you remove the knife, gently apply pressure to the pull the core of the strawberry out. Repeat this process until you have cored all the strawberries.
In a small bowl, mix together the cream cheese, sugar, and Biscoff spread until it have a smooth, consistently mixed cheesecake mixture. Put the mixture into a sandwich bag, massage it to a corner of the bag, twist the extra bag in your hand, and then cut a small portion of the tip off the bag.
In a food processor, blend the Biscoff cookies until a fine crumb as been achieved. Put the crumbs in a small bowl for dipping.
To fill the strawberries, insert the tip of the filled bag info the hallow core of the strawberry. Squeeze the bag to force some of the mixture out. As the strawberry begins to fill, slowly pull the bag out of the strawberry allowing more to fill the berry. Fill the berry until some of the cheesecake mixture is out of the strawberry.
Once the strawberries have been filled, gently dip the filled portion into the cookies crumbs.

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Cheesecake Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

February 14, 2011

These Cheesecake Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars are so easy to make that you’ll be saying “Ta-Dah!”. You’ll also be amazing at how quickly they disappear. Yum!

Post from 2/4/18, Pictures updated 8/22/18

Do you know people who don’t cook?

I didn’t think people like that really existed, but my friend Dawn does not cook.

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Very Cheesy Jalapeño Popper Dip

February 3, 2011

This Very Cheesy Jalapeño Popper Dip is a party favorite. Skip the tedious poppers and mix up this jalapeno popper dip- easy & delicious. Spicy too!

Post from 2/3/2011, photos updated 2/25/18

Post Contains Affiliate Links. Read my full disclosure HERE

One of my favorite foods to eat while watching football is a jalapeno popper. I love the crunch from the outside breading, the heat from the jalapeno, and creamy, cheesy filling. The perfect bite!

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Hummingbird Cupcakes

October 5, 2010

I previously wrote about Price’s birthday and how great a day it was. Well, the one thing that was missing was a birthday cake. I had originally planned on leaving early that day so I could make the cake before dinner, but that did not work out. Then, I intending to make it after dinner since I’m used to baking pretty late, but we drank quite a bit so that was scraped and we just went down the road for a little piece of cake. No worries, it all worked out but I still owed Pricer a cake. So the birthday cake became a First-Day-Of-Work cupakes. (I realized I left my can pans in CT in August for my dad’s Bday)

Back to Price… I told him to pick out a cake for me to make. So he picked out a few of my cookbooks and went to work. He picked a Hummingbird Cake from The Baking Bible: From the Oven to the Table. We had never heard of this cake before. I wanted to know why it is called a Hummingbird Cake, so I did a little research. My research yielded that the reason behind the name is unknown. It is suggested that is has to do with how sweet the cake is, being that hummingbirds eat nectar. The cake has Southern origins, but word spread about this cake when it was featured in Southern Living in the late 70’s.

The cupcakes were easy to make and produced a great result. The cupcakes were rich a moist- from the oil in the cake. While I like {cup}cakes with butter in them I appreciate baking with oil since I don’t have to wait for the butter to come to room temperature. And without having to cream butter and sugar together I didn’t need to use a mixer for the cake portion. The pineapple also made for a moist cake. However, the banana flavor was much more dominate than the pineapple flavor. I admit that just mashed up bananas and figured ‘close enough’… this just goes to show that measuring is really important! The frosting is a basic cream cheese frosting and it tied the whole thing together.

Hummingbird Cupcakes

makes 24 cupcakes

Cake

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/4 cups superfine sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup sunflower oil

3 eggs, beaten

1 cup pecans, finely chopped, plus extra for decorating

1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2-3 bananas)

3 oz/85 grams canned crushed pineapple (drained weight)

4 tablesppons pineapple juice from can

Frosting

6 tablespoons cream cheese, softened

4 tablesppons unsalted butter, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 1/2 cups confectioners sugar, sifted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray or line 2 12 cup cupcake pans.

Sift together the flour, sugar, cinnamon, and baking soda in a large bowl, set aside.

In a medium sized bowl, combine the wet ingredients together. Incorportate the wet ingredients and chopped pecans into the dry ingredients. Mix throughly with a wooden spoon.

Divide the batter into the cupcake pans. Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick is inserted and comes out clean

While the cupcakes are baking, make the frosting by combining the soft cream cheese and butter. Add the sifted sugar and vanilla extract, and mix until smooth.

Once the cupcakes have cooled, frost with the cream cheese frosting. Top all with chopped pecans.

Cream Cheese Spirals aka Rugelach

September 21, 2010

These little buggers are trouble. I don’t think you can eat just one- I know we couldn’t. Luckily, we brought these over to a friend’s house when we were watching the Giants vs Colts game on Sunday to share the wealth. (Seriously, what they hell happened guys? Giants have to step it up!)

You might be thinking ‘these look like rugelach’. Well you’re right! These basically are. I’m just calling them Cream Cheese Spirals since I don’t want someone looking at this saying ‘Rugelach has apricot jam in the filling’ or ‘this does not have enough sugar’ etc. Either way, both these and rugelach are amazing. I’m really glad that I made these because it opened my eyes to why I love rugelach… cream cheese and butter. I won’t be eating rugelach for a LONG time now.

I loved rolling these guys up into a cresent (roll) shape. But to be honest… next time (a long time from now) I will just divide the dough into 3-4 sections and roll them out into rectangles and make them into the logs to slice them. So you can skip the rolling out into a circle, trimming, and then reworking into trim parts into rectangles if you want. I totally give you permission. Do whatever it easy and enjoyable.

Cream Cheese Spirals

2 sticks of unsalted butter, softened

8 oz cream cheese, softened

2 tablespoons vanilla sugar*

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

2 cups of flour, sifted

Filling

1 cup walnuts or peacons, finealy shopped

1/3 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup vanilla sugar*

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Using an electric mixer, cream together the cream cheese, butter, sugar, and vanilla extract until soft. Add in the flour in batches and mix until a dough forms. Divide the dough in half and flatten into disks, wrap in wax paper and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Make the filling by combining the nuts, sugars, and cinnamon. Set aside.

Preheat your oven to 375. Grease 2 cookie sheets.

Remove dough from refrigerator. Roll out each half into a thin circle and trim to 11 inches (about the size of a dinner plate). Reserve the remnants. Sprinkle some of the filling mixture onto the circle, press into the dough. Cut the circle into 4 sections, then 4 more, totaling 16 sections. Roll the spirals from the widest point to the smallest.

Gently kneed the trimmed pieces to incorporate together. Roll out into a rectangle. Press the remaining filling mixture into the dough. Roll the dough into a log and then slice.

Evenly place all spirals on a baking sheet. Bake until golden, 15-20 minutes.

Mini Cheesecakes with an Oreo Crust

May 15, 2010

I saw a mini cheesecake recipe on Fake Ginger, one of my favorite cooking blogs, that looked so good that I knew I had to try them. But the thing is I approached this recipe like how I approach scrapbooking. That means when I’m in a scrapbooking class or using a kit I completely modify it to make it my own. But the thing is that for this recipe I dumbed it down completely. Amanda at Fake Ginger made these lovely mini turtle cheesecakes but I changed it up because…

1) The quantity. I decided to make this our monthly staff meeting so I would need to make like 4 batches of them so I wanted to keep it simple. Keep it simple stupid.

2) I’m lazy. I did not feel like making my own caramel or chocolate sauce, esp for so many little cheesecakes.

3) Nut allergies. When I made a delicious chocolate cake with a peanut butter frosting last fall and saw that a few people could not eat it I decided that I would try really really hard not to make treats with nuts so the pecan on top and the pecan meal in the crust had to go.

4) Never made this many cheesecakes before. ‘Nuf said.

Of course when Price saw the completed ones he was just slightly disappointed “Where’s the good stuff on top??”

I love the cheesecake recipe because it made a really creamy cheesecake. I don’t really like cheesecake because it seems like I’m eating a block of cream cheese, and while I like cream cheese, I like small quantities on a bagel. Anyway, take the time to let your cream cheese and butter to soften otherwise your cheesecake might have some lumps in it. Plus your mixer will hate you, and possibly make funny noises fighting the tough fight. Take the cream cheese out of the box, so it is just sitting in the foil wrapper, since this dramatically reduces the time it takes to soften up.

PS- Sorry for the crappy photos I got up at 5.45am to make them so I just wanted to bake and get ready for the day and not worry about photos. Then I forgot to take a photo of the finished result so I was stuck with taking a photo of the prettiest of the uglies, since they got banged up on the way in to work.

Mini Cheesecakes with an Oreo Crust

Makes 12 mini cheesecakes

Ingredients

Crust:

1 cup of crushed Oreos
1/4 cup of melted unsalted butter

Filling:

1 1/2 packages (12 ounces) cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
1/2 cup plain yogurt

Process

Preheat the oven to 325. Line a 12-muffin pan with aluminum liners.
To make the Crust: Put Oreos into a large resealable bag to crush with a rolling pin. Continue rolling Oreos until they are finely crushed. In a medium bowl, combine the Oreo crumbs with the melted butter. Divide the crust mixture into the muffin liners. Press down the mixture firmly with your fingers. Bake the empty crusts for 5 minutes.
To make the Filling: Using a hand mixer or stand mixer, beat cream cheese until creamy. Gradually add the sugar, salt, and vanilla; beat well. Add eggs one at a time, mixing just until blended. Stir in yogurt.
Evenly divide the filling into the baked Oreo crusts, about a 1/4 cup of filling. The filling should should come almost to the top of the liner. Bake for 15 minutes or until tops of cheesecakes are puffed and only slightly jiggly in the very center. Cool to room temperature and then refrigerate for at least a couple hours, preferably overnight, until serving.

Pumpkin Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

November 24, 2009

This being fall and being in the mist of the Great Pumpkin Shortage of 2009, I had to grab as much canned pumpkin as I could to be prepared of anything to come my way. What’s a person to do with like 8 cans of pumpkin, and quite a few of squash bought in a fit of hysteria? Make Pumpkin Cake, of course! All of this worked out perfectly for the monthly cakes I make for our staff meetings to celebrate the birthdays. Unfortunately, I had to combine Oct and Nov since I was too busy with hw the night before the Oct staff meeting.

I found a recipe online but it called for an insane amount of eggs and oil so I figured I could find something a bit less artery clogging and keep searching. I went for my Fearless Baking cookbook by Elinor Klivans and found a recipe called Pumpkin Cake with Brown Sugar Icing. This recipe seemed normal with 2 eggs so I decided to move on from there. I would have made the recipe as is except I did not have whipping cream for the icing since I had anticipated a cream cheese frosting from the start. I think I’ll give this another go and make it with the brown sugar icing since the cake came out so well with a light texture, perfect flavor, and a nice hint of ginger.

Yes, this is true. I don’t really eat the cakes I make. I’m a savory person who would rather eat chips/pretzels/tortilla chips than cake/cookie/ice cream/fudge/etc. I can’t buy goldfish crackers or cheez its… cheese and salt, damn you being my two favorite things! Honest I tried a piece of the cake that I trimmed off to sqaure them off that square inch was enough for me.

I made 3 batches of this cake that I divided among 2 pans. I had two 9×11 pans but 1 was ‘borrowed’, so I used the 9×11 and a 11×13 that I have. I just had to keep an eye on the baking times. Instead of using 1 cup canned pumpkin I just used the whole can. This might have prevented the cake from rising as much but it resulted in a very flavorful and moist cake.

Pumpkin Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

9-in square baking pan or 11×17 inch baking pan, both with 2 inch sides

1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1 can pumpkin

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup canola or corn oil

2 large eggs

3/4 cup pecan halves (optional)

Cream Cheese Frosting

1/4 cup butter, at room temperature

1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, room temperature

1 pound confectioners’ sugar, sifted

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325 F. Line pan bottoms with parchment paper, and butter or oil the sides and bottom.

Sift together the dry ingredients (except sugar), set aside.

Combine the canned pumpkin, sugar and oil in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer/stand mixer until smooth, about 1 minute.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating until well incorporated.

Once the mixture looks smooth and shiny begin to add the dry ingredients in batches.

Pour batter into pan, layer pecan halves into batter. Bake for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick is inserted in the center is clean when removed. Let cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes before removing to continue cooling.

The frosting is made by creaming the butter and cream cheese together with an electric/stand mixture. Sift the powdered sugar and slowly combine into the butter mixture. Lastly add the vanilla and beat until smooth.

Apply the frosting once the cake has completely cooled. When transporting layer cakes place dowels or toothpicks into the cake to prevent the layers from sliding apart.

Chipotle Chocolate Cupcakes

September 3, 2009

I saw the Spicy Chipotle Chocolate Cake from What We’re Eating and have wanted to do it for awhile. I love Mexican hot chocolate so I thought they that I would enjoy this too. Our friend Essa is going back to Egypt to sort some Visa issues out so decided to make these his ‘pot luck good luck send off’.

It was fun to bring them to the pot luck dinner because I was able to have quite a few reviews of it. Everyone liked them but they liked the cake and frosting seperately. The cake gave you a hint of chili about the 3rd bite in, a slow mellow burn. They could not taste any nutella in the frosting, just cream cheese. But people like the frosting since they were eating it out of the mixing bowl (frosting them there made transporting them a bit easier!). I will try it again with a plain chocolate buttercream frosting so the cream cheese does not battle with the chipotle. Such a good cake, I know I’ll make it again.Amanda had a great idea with the chili/chocolate combination. So good!

I made changes to the recipe to work for cupcakes and my convection oven. (You may refer to the original recipe here)

Chipotle Chocolate Cupcakes

Makes 24 cupcakes

2 sticks butter, unsalted
10 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
5 eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp chipotle chili powder

For Frosting
16 oz cream cheese, room temperature
6 oz nutella
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1/3 cup milk, plus extra as needed

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line 24 cups in cupcake pans with wrappers. Set aside.

In a medium size bowl, sift together the salt, flour, baking powder & chipotle chili powder. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl/stand mixer, combine the eggs and sugars. Beat until the sugars have completely dissolved into the eggs and the mixture begins to thicken- 3-5 minutes.

While the egg/sugar mixture is mixing, melt the butter in a double boiler. Once the butter has melted, add the chocolate chips. Stir until all chocolate has melted. Do not burn chocolate. Remove from heat.

Once the egg and butter mixture has thicken fold in the dry ingredients. Add the vanilla extract and chocolate-butter mixture into the batter. Fold to incorporate. Batter will be thin

Divide the batter evenly among the cupcake lines. Bake at 325 for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. (If it comes out with any gooey batter, let the cake bake longer, as needed.) Remove the cupcakes from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Cool for at least 2 hours before frosting, store frosted cupcakes in a cool place/refrigerator. Once cooled, the cupcakes may be covered and stored at room temperature for a day before frosting.

Making the Frosting:

Using a larger bowl and electric beater or standmixer beat the the cream cheese and nutella into until light and fluffy. Sift in the cocoa powder and powdered sugar. Add the milk then then gently beat to incorporate. Beat until the frosting is light and fluffy. Frost cupcakes!