Coffee Toffee Cheesecake - The Results!

 

Ta-da! My beautifully decorated cheesecake.

So, if you'll recall, I was making my first ever cheesecake just the other day.  Great news!  The coffee toffee cheesecake worked out awesomely!  It was far easier than I could have ever imagined.  If I can do it, you can do it.  I swear.  The above picture is my cheesecake after it had cooled over night.  I added the chopped up Heath Bars all over it and then melted dark chocolate and piped a nice design - cause that's how I roll. 

Now, here's how you too can make a delicious Coffee Toffee Cheesecake.  I used the linked recipe with a couple of small adjustments, which you can read about in my original cheesecake post.

I seriously followed the directions other than the previously read/written about small adjustments which I couldn't help, because I'm lazy.

One thing I will tell you, that I didn't know about until I was making a cheesecake is that you MUST wrap your spring form pan with tin foil.  (Yes, even if your spring form pan has a bottom.)  I laughed at the idea of wrapping tin foil around my pan, but did it anyway because I wasn't sure.  I'm really happy I did wrap the darn thing because when I removed the foil and pan it was all sticky/buttery gross and that would have ended up all over the place.  The tin foil just helps you contain the mess.  I used two sheets of foil and made sure to wrap all the way up around the sides of my pan.

I'll also say that when/if I make my crust again I will pulse the crap out of those cookies to make the crust easier to spread and mold to the bottom of the pan.

This is a picture of my cheesecake right after it had come out of the oven, still in it's water bath.  (Yes, you need to use the water bath.  Do it.)

 

After my cheesecake came out of the oven I delicately removed it from the water bath - so it'll stop cooking - and placed it on the counter to cool.  When it had cooled completely I covered the top with foil (cling wrap tends to fall in on the top and make it look ugly.) and put it in the fridge for the night.  Yup, just leave the foil and spring form pan as is, there's no reason to remove it yet.

The next morning I pulled the cheesecake out of the fridge and removed all the foil and the spring form pan.  It's messy, be prepared.  I used a new piece of foil on the bottom of my pan so I could move the cheesecake around without getting everything else in my kitchen gross.  I had my Heath Bars already chopped into a fine powder and sprinkled it all over.  The recipe calls for 4 Heath Bars but you will be fine with 3.  I melted my dark chocolate (when you melt chocolate in the microwave you should do it in 30sec increments so you don't burn your chocolate, ever 30sec take it out and stir it around), and put it in a small ziploc bag so I could pipe a nice design.  I stupidly didn't wait for my dark chocolate to cool sufficiently so I tried to burn my hands off.

Here's a nice side view of my decorated cheesecake.

 

And finally, cut that cheesecake up and eat it! Eat it like there's no tomorrow!

Coffee Toffee Cheese Cake!

I bought a spring form pan today so I could make my first ever cheesecake. Of course, being me I couldn't just make regular cheesecake, the fancier the better, so I'm making a Coffee Toffee Cheesecake! And I'm crossing my fingers that everything turns out properly. My creation is currently in the oven.

I mostly followed the recipe I found online.  My first alteration was that I couldn't find a 9" spring form pan- okay i was lazy and bought my pan at Safeway- so I bought a 10" pan. My second alteration was that I couldn't find chocolate wafer cookies so I used "Tuxedos" aka the generic Oreo.  I used my sexy new food processor (my anniversary gift from Bob this year) to pulse the crap out of the cookies. It was perfection. And my last alteration was using instant espresso rather than just plain instant coffee.

The above picture is my sexy crust.

The below picture is my filling before I poured it into the crust. The filling was thick and pudding-esque, and DELICIOUS! It honestly crossed my mind to just eat the filling as pudding.

After my cheesecake comes out of the oven and I doll it all up I'll have a follow up post.  (PS- I wrote this from my phone! How totally awesome is technology?!)

Cooking Measurements

Dark chocolate mousse, with chocolate cake, poached cherries, and a yogurt mousse.

I recently took the Chocolate Class, taught by Bill Corbett the Executive Pastry Chef of the Absinthe Group, at SFCooking.  I mostly took the class because my friend Hazel was taking it as well and we like to cook together.  I was really surprised by how much I learned in this class because, while I had expected to have a good time and make delicious desserts, we measured everything in grams.  All the classes I've attended at SFCooking have been great, and I've learned a lot and had wonderful time cooking, but Bill's class put a whole new spin on everything.  

Everyone in the chocolate class still had a good time, but you could tell that everyone was more focused on what they were doing because the recipes were so precise.  Most people don't realize that one cup of flour is not equal to every cup of flour.  If you're heavy handed and smoosh the flour into your measuring cup you will end up with a different amount of flour than say a person who delicately sifts a cup of flour.  Bill eliminated any kind of discrepancy by using grams for everything in our recipes.  Each group had a food scale (I know I love mine at home, but it had never crossed my mind to use it like this.) and we used it religiously to measure out all our ingredients.  

My team was in charge of the White Chocolate Cremeux, with Lime Curd, Coconut Crumble and Rum Whipped Cream.  Each piece of this dessert was made separately.  My team of four (Roger, Mike, Hazel and I) split into teams.  Hazel and Mike worked on the Lime Curd part while Roger and I worked on the Cremeux.  The best way to describe the Cremeux is like the mix between a custard and a pudding.  First we made a custard, and we whipped it into a pudding-ish consistency and added more ingredients.  This leads me back to being amazed with the measurements.  After making the custard portion Roger and I discovered that it had not yielded as much as the recipe said it would.  Because we were cooking with grams we were able to measure how much we had and then easily adjust the rest of the recipe.  For example, we only had 86% of 415g required to go with the rest of the ingredients.  We just adjusted the rest of the ingredients to only be 86% of their grams and went on our way.  If we had been using cups to measure it would have been a complete disaster.  How do you take 14% away from a cup of something accurately?  It was an eye-opening experience.

On the left: Milk chocolate panna cotta, with basil meringue and pistachio streusel. On the right: White chocolate cremeux with lime curd, coconut crumble and rum whipped cream."

Our desserts came out restaurant ready.  The precision and delicate attention to details paid off and everything was delicious.

I've since been looking for recipes measured out in grams, or ounces, or really almost anything more precise, and it's been quite a challenge.  Bob found an excellent article for me just this morning from The-Magazine.org by Joe Ray, called Weight For It.  It pretty much says the same thing I've said here but it's still a great read.  It also led me to do some further investigating and I've just ordered The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook and Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work which both contain measurements in grams.  I also went ahead and picked up a copy of On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen because I feel like if I can better understand the chemistry involved in ingredients I will finally be the McGyver of my kitchen. I'm so excited!

I'm also happy to share the chocolate class recipes with anyone, just let me know!

:)Margaret

SF Cooking School - Sauteing and Searing (Week 2)

My second class of Cooking Fundamentals was fantastic, especially because I'm not a vegetarian.  This week's class focus was on sautéing and searing and we sautéed and seared the crap out of some delicious food.

Here's the list of this week's receipts (full recipes at the bottom of the post):

• Creamy Sauteed Mushrooms w/ Toasted Bread
• Seared Ahi w/ Couscous and Citrus Aioli
• Pork Chops in Cider Pan Sauce
• Seared Flank Steak w/ Romesco Sauce
• Chicken Breast w/ White Wine Pan Sauce
• Sauteed Zucchini w/ Tomatoes, Mint, and Feta Cheese
• Cinnamon Ice Cream w/ Caramelized Bananas and Toasted Pecans
• Maple Nutmeg Shortbread

Before starting all our cooking we talked about different kinds of pans, skillets, and stock pots. You mostly want something that heats evenly, and is big enough for whatever it is you're making. Oh, and a sauce pan, is typically not a pan you should make sauce in, just FYI.

This week I worked on the Chicken Breast w/ White Wine and Pan Sauce with Courtney. We got to implement the "boom schmoosh" method of flattening the chicken breast. We used a "meat pounder" like this one We called it the "boom schmoosh" method because unlike when you tenderize pork chops, you want to smack the chicken breast and then while holding the weight down push it down and out, kind of like you would with a rolling pin. By flattening your chicken breast everything will cook more evenly. We decided at the end of the day that while the dish was very good, that we enjoy things with more kick and would have added some more spice.

We seriously feasted when everything came together at the end of class. Everything was delicious, and perfectly cooked. The flank steak was juicy and medium rare and the romesco was killer. The cider pan sauce for the pork chops was sweet and succulent at the same time. And the Ahi was perfectly seared on the outside while beautiful and pink on the inside. We were kitchen geniuses!

Take-aways:

• Let your meat come to room temperature to help it cook more evenly.
• You let meat "rest" so it can soak up the juices inside, rather than spilling out when you cut into it.
• "Boom schmoosh" is serious fun.

And now, what you've been waiting for, the recipes! (I'll be adding the recipes slowly, because they're pretty long and detailed.)

Creamy Sauteed Mushrooms w/ Toasted Bread:

• 1 pound cremini mushrooms, or a mix of wild mushrooms such as morels, shiitakes, oysters or chanterelles
• 4 tablespoons butter, more for toast
• ¼ cup minced shallots
• ¼ cup dry white wine or white vermouth
• ¼ cup heavy cream
• coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper
• sliced brioche or good white bread
• 1 tablespoon fresh chopped chives
• coarse sea salt such as flour de del or Maldon, for garnish

Clean excess dirt from mushrooms. Slice mushrooms in half lengthwise and brush away any grit; chop into ¼ pieces, or smaller.

Melt butter in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add shallots and sauté until very limp, about three minutes. Add mushrooms and cook, stirring, for about five minutes. Add wine, reduce heat to medium, cover, and cook for about five minutes more.

Uncover pot and continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until most of the liquid has evaporated, about two minutes. Stir in cream; simmer until slightly thickened, two minutes longer. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Toast bread and spread with butter. Cut each slice in half diagonally and sprinkle lightly with chives. Top each toast triangle withs one mushroom mixture. Sprinkle with additional chives, garnish with sea salt, and serve.

This recipe was adapted from Melissa Clark, New york Times, 5/16/07, and serves 6 people.

Seared Ahi w/ Couscous and Citrus Aioli

Tuna:

• 2 teaspoons fennel seeds
• 1 teaspoon coriander seeds
• 1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 ½ pounds ahi tuna steaks, about 1 ¼ thick
• 6 tablespoons olive oil

Aioli:

• ⅓ cup mayonnaise
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 3 tablespoons minced fresh chives
• 2 teaspoons minced garlic

Couscous:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 medium carrot, cut into ½ inch dice
• ¼ cup diced red onion
• 2 teaspoons minced fresh thyme
• 2 teaspoons minced garlic
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ pound sugar snap peas
• 2 cups couscous
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill

For the tuna, combine the fennel seeds, coriander seeds and peppercorns in a small sauté pan and cook over medium heat until fragrant, about 3 minutes, shaking occasionally. Transfer mixture to a spice grinder and grind until fine. Transfer to a bowl and stir in the salt. Coat fish with some of the olive oil. Sprinkle the fish on all sides with the spice mixture. Heat a large state pan over medium high heat. When pan is hot, sear tuna until well seared on the outside but still rare in the center, 3-4 minutes a side at most. Remove fish from the pan, place on a plate and refrigerate, uncovered, for 1 hour. Cut fish into 1/2-in thick slices.

For the aioli, combine the may, lemon juice, chives and garlic in a small bowl. Stir together well, taste and season if desired with salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate up to 2 days before using.

For the couscous, heat the olive oil in a heavy large skillet over medium high heat. Add the carrot and onion with a pinch of salt and sauté until crisp tender, about 3 minutes. Add the thyme, garlic and remaining slat, along with 2 ¼ cups of water, and bring to a boil. Add snap peas and cook until crisp tender, about 1 minute. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the snap peas to a plate. Immediately add the couscous to the boiling water and stir to combine. Cover and remove the pan from the heat. Let stand 5 minutes then fluff gently with a fork. Transfer the couscous to a bowl and cool completely. When cool, mix in the snap peas and dill. Taste and season with salt and pepper. (This dish can sit up to 2 hours at room temperature.) To serve, spoon couscous onto serving plates, top with tuna slices and drizzle with aioli.

Pork Chops in Cider Pan Sauce

• 4 center-cut bone-in pork chops
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 medium red apple, such as a Pink Lady, Fuji or Gala, halved, cored and cut into small dice
• 1 medium shallot, chopped
• ½ teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
• ½ cup apple cider (dark beer works well too)
• ½ cup chicken stock
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard, preferably country-style (coarse-grained)

Position a rack in the center of the oven and heat the oven to 425°. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil.

Season the chops with salt and pepper.

Melt the butter in a 12-inch sauté pan over medium-high heat until the foam subsides. Working in 2 batches, cook the chops until nicely browned, about 2 minutes per side. Transfer to the baking sheet and roast until no longer pink near the bone (use a paring knife to check), about 8 minutes.

Meanwhile, lower the heat to medium and add the apple, shallot, and thyme to the skillet and cook, stirring often, until beginning to brown and soften, about 2 minutes. Add the cider, scraping any bits off the bottom of the pan, and cook until reduced by half, about 2 minutes. Add the broth and mustard and continue to cook until slightly reduced, about 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve the sauce over the chops.

This recipe was adapted from "Fine Cooking," and serves 4.

Check back for more of the recipes!

Cooking Up a Storm with SF Cooking School

About a month ago, I was walking down Van Ness, from having awesome dinner at Zarzuela - I'll need to remember to write up a review about my experience because it was so delicious - when I discovered that my beloved Naan and Curry was gone.  The good news is there's a new fantastic Culinary School now at the corner of Van Ness and Turk, SF Cooking.  SF cooking offers a full culinary degree - is that what it's called because I'm not sure - or you can sign up for one day classes, or multi-week courses.  As soon as I started looking over what SF Cooking offered I was, as my friend Rhiannon would say, "In deep smit." (As in really really smitten with the place.  PS - Let's make this a new phrase.)

I immediately signed up for the "Cooking Fundamentals" six week course, along with a one day class on "Asian Dumplings."  (I signed up for the April 7th dumplings class if anyone is interested in joining me.)  I attended my first class yesterday, Thursday February 21st, "Knife Skills."  I have nine awesome classmates (they classes max out at fourteen) and we had a great time learning about the proper way to slice, dice, mince and chop.  Our instructor for the course, David, is super fantastic.  David previously worked at Zuni, and you can tell that he loves cooking.  

After going over the knife basics the class was divided into teams of two and we started on seven different recipes.  

• Crostini with Goat Cheese and Olive Tapenade
• Shrimp Fritters with Grapefruit Cucumber Relish
• Mediterranean Chopped Salad
• Minestrone Soup with a Pesto Garlic Garnish
• French Onion Soup
• Baked Salmon Filet over Veggie Slaw
• Apple Crumble with Whipped Cream

The space we cook is beautiful and very spacious. We were all easily able to work on our separate dishes with plenty of room, but still close enough to check out what everyone was doing. We were all provided with aprons when we arrived, along with printed handouts of all the recipes we'd be making that day. (In my excitement to rush home and tell Bob about how awesome my class was I left my recipes behind. I sent an email and they'll hold onto my recipes until I go to next week's class. Whew.)

After everything was prepared we all sat down together to enjoy our delicious meal, and talk about things we enjoyed or would do differently in the future. For instance my cooking buddy, Hazel, and I worked on the shrimp fritters and we think adding jalapeños to the dish would really kick it up a notch. There was sooo much food and everything was really good. I can hardly wait to see what we're making next week in "Sauteing and Searing."

If you've been looking for cooking classes in San Francisco, you must check out SF Cooking!

Lastly, I'll leave you with some things I learned:

• My knives at home are not sharp.
• I had never used a properly sharpened knife until this class. Did you know that with a sharp knife you can cut through an onion like it's butter? Craziness!
• I can now "supreme" a grapefruit. And you can too with this video.

As soon as I get my recipes I'll add them to the blog so you can all see what you're missing.

:)M

Black Cherry Chocolate Devil's Food Cake Mini Brownies with Blueberry Cream Cheese Frosting

I was in a baking mood this last week, but I'm kind of a lazy baker.  I buy the Betty Crocker boxes of cookies and cakes and then instead of following the directions I turn them into something else.  It's kind of like making it myself, but so much easier.  I highly recommend this process to everyone.  Anyway, my friend Meaghan was having a house warming party and I told her we'd bring some treats and I decided I wanted to try something new.  The original plan was to have blueberry chocolate cupcakes but that plan was sidelined by 1- Safeway not having any pure blueberry juice, and 2 - my eyes landing on a devil's food cake mix.  

One of the first things you need to know about baking with a box, is that you really should never use oil or water.  I will typically substitute butter for oil, and milk for water.  I find that this leaves my baking goodies more chewy and fresher for a longer amount of time.  Everything is also richer in flavor.  Okay, so here's what you need:

Cupcakes

• A box of chocolate devil's food cake - I like Betty Crocker Super Moist Devil's Food Cake Mix
• 1 Cup Black Cherry 100% juice-Alternatively, you can really use any juice you'd like.
• 3 eggs
• ½ cup Butter
• 48-ish mini cupcake cups

Frosting

• 4oz Cream Cheese
• 4oz Unsalted Butter
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup fresh, or thawed frozen blueberries

Follow the directions on the back of the cake box, subbing the juice for the water, and the butter for the oil. Using a teaspoon, yes a teaspoon. Fill you mini cupcake cups. Bake each batch for approximately 20 minutes. You're going to end up with 48+ mini cupcakes.

While your cupcakes are baking put your cup of blueberries, along with about a 3/4 cup of water in a small sauce pan. Bring the blueberries and water to a boil and then allow them to simmer for about 5 minutes. Strain the blueberries and then mash them up like there's no tomorrow. You can also use a blender if you want, which does work very nicely. Add all your frosting ingredients and stir everything together until you have delicious blueberry frosting.

For easy cupcake frosting I recommend spooning your frosting into a ziploc bag and then cutting a small hole in one corner. Then you can use the ziploc bag like a pastry chef, and feel like a badass as you easily and quickly frost your 48+ cupcakes.

If you're not going to eat all your cupcakes in one sitting you should definitely remember to put them in the refrigerator as the frosting will be super nasty if you don't. Now go enjoy your delicious creating.

:)M

P.S. - I wrote/built this entire entry using my new HTML skills. I'm feeling pretty awesome about it.

Raclette awesomeness!

So a while back I bought Bob a raclette set for his birthday.  (Yes, his birthday is in July.)  Anyway, we hadn't used the raclette and it was sitting in the corner of the office looking sad and neglected so we decided to finally use it.  Had I known how awesome the raclette set was it would never had sat abandoned for so long.  

I had purchased the Swissmar KF-77041 Gourmet 8-Person Raclette Grill because I figured if we were going to have a raclette set, we were going to be having raclette parties. And we will definitely be using this for parties.

We decided to start our raclette adventure with a typical dinner for just the two of us. We purchased some French raclette cheese from 24th Street Cheese in Noe Valley. To go with our cheesy awesomeness we picked up some gherkins (little pickles, but let's be honest, saying gherkin is so much more fun) pickled carrots, salami, fingerling potatoes, portabellinis (little portabello mushrooms, they're soooo cute), zucchini, broccoli and some olive sourdough bread.

We boiled the fingerling potatoes in some salty water while the raclette grill heated up. We also sliced up mushrooms, salami, and zucchini so we could easily grill our yummy food. And then, we feasted like kings! While our zucchini and mushrooms were grilling, we placed small pieces of our cheese in the little shovels that go with the raclette set, so it could get all melty and delicious. AFter our cheese had melted we could easily pour it all over whatever it was we wanted to eat. It was fantastic! And because you melt the cheese as you go it was always gooey and hot.

I was so impressed with our raclette grill that the next morning I used it again to make breakfast sandwiches. I cooked some bacon on it first. After the bacon was done and set aside, I fried a couple of eggs, grilled the bread, and melted the cheese in the little shovels. I was able to quickly build us bacon, egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches. I felt like a genius.

My favorite thing about the raclette set is that the grilling top has two options: a flate griddle, or a grill top. AND I can easily remove the grill top and clean it in the sink with out having to worry about a chord or plug. The heating element is totally separate making clean up super easy!

I can't wait to use the raclette set again!

:)M