Saturday, November 26, 2011

Petit Mocha Cheesecakes


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When I first saw the recipe, I was like “Why Not?” I always want to try something with coffee and I still have those crumbs of cookies left from baking a blueberry cheesecake before. To make it better, it is a petit cake. It means that I can use my leftover muffins cups too (I’ve got tonnes of them u___u;).

So here is the original recipe:
Ingredient
(Crumb Crust)
  1. Stir together 1/2 cup graham cracker crumbs, 2 tablespoons powdered sugar and 2 tablespoons melted butter or margarine in a small bowl or until well combined.
(Cheesecake)
1 package (18 oz) cream cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup Hershey’s cocoa
2 tbs all purpose flour
1 tbs powdered instant coffee
1 tsp hot water
  1. Heat oven to 375F. Line small muffin cup (1 3/4 inches in diameter) with paper baking cups.
  2. Place 1 slightly heaping teaspoon crumb mixture into each cup; press lightly. Beat cream cheese in large bowl until fluffy. Add sugar, eggs, and vanilla; beat well. Add cocoa and flour;  beat well. Dissolve coffee in water, add to chocolate mixture. Place about 1 tablespoon chocolate mixture into each cup.
  3. Bake until 15 to 18 minutes or until just set. Cool completely in pan or wire rack. Drizzle with chocolate glaze if desired. Refrigerate until cold about two hours. Cover, refrigerate left over cheesecake.
(Chocolate Glaze)
  1. Combine 1/4 cup Hershey’s Special Dark Chocolate Chips or Hershey’s Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips and 2 tablespoons whipping cream in small saucepan.
  2. Cook over very low heat, stirring constantly, until smooth. Use immediately.
Source: Hershey’s Incredible Easy Recipes

So, as usual, my final product does not look as good as the picture above xD

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I know, it looks freaking ugly but I think it’s taste just fine. My mum and my lil sis loves it, though I think it was a bit bitter u_u;; My sis even ask if she can bring it to school lol.

So, first thing first. I DO NOT used Graham Cookies for my base. The biscuit crumbs that I had leftover is Oreo so I used those instead. Oreo base for a Mocha Cheesecake was not too bad huh? Since I was using Oreo Cookie crumbs as the base, I omitted the powdered sugar because Oreo is sweet by itself. But that of course resulted in a too chocolate-y dessert. You can only eat it once before you get a bit too ‘muak’ haha xD I think maybe I should try a crunchier base next time, a tart base perhaps or maybe something  that would add a bit of freshness to the cake so that it doesn’t taste to~ ermm full?  

The Oreos Cookie Crumbs

The recipe should makes about 42 cheesecakes in total but since I used a large muffin cups, I only got about 12 cheesecakes. They should really be covered when you kept it in the fridge because it will get hard if you did not. I’ve learn that lesson with the modified version of this recipe that I’ve done recently.
What interesting with this recipe is the flavor of the cake is really different when you use different kinds of instant coffee. For this one, I was using a Mix Instant Coffee Cap Tupai. For the one that I’ve just made recently, I used a Nescafe brand Instant Coffee and the flavor is really stronger compared to the Tupai brand. So, you guys should have fun with the different brand of coffee xD See which one suit to your taste better.

I did not made the glaze. Okay, I lied. I did made one but with my own recipe. Milk with chocolate. I made a mistake of putting it in the refrigerator and it got freaking hard u_u I want to put it in the refrigerator only for a minute or two but forgot all bout it for about 15 min (or is it 30 min?) haha xD  I know, stupid mistakeSmile with tongue out

As usual, I did not use Hershey’s cocoa at all. I substitute it with normal cocoa and instead of vanilla extract, I used vanilla powder. I guess that is all I had to say for today. Have fun trying something new!

Monday, November 21, 2011

Chocolate Streusel Coffeecake


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Sadly this is not how my cake looks like LOL XD

I have made this cake to be brought back to my family gathering for Eidul Adha. This is my first attempt of this cake and I have to say that the results turns out so-so. The original recipe needs to be modified a little to suit my pallete and I don’t really like sweet so much haha (this make one wonder how I could love baking so much LOL). So, I’ll be making this cake again, definitely with modification.

So, here is the recipe:

Ingredient
(Batter)
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
8 oz dairy sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
  1. Heat oven to 350F. Grease and flour 12 cup fluted ube pan.
  2. Prepare CHOCOLATE STREUSEL; set aside.
  3. Beat butter and sugar in large bowl until fluffy. Add eggs; blend well on low speed of mixer. Stir in sour cream and vanilla. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in separate bowl; add to batter, blend well.
  4. Sprinkle 1 cup of CHOCOLATE STREUSEL into prepared pan. Spread 1/3 of the batter (about 1 1/3 cups) in pan; sprinkle with half the remaining streusel (about 1 cup). Repeat layers, ending with batter on top.
  5. Bake 50 to 55 minutes or until wooden pick inserted near center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes, invert onto serving plate. Cool completely.
(Chocolate Streusel)
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup butter or margarine, softened
3/4 cup chopped nut
3/4 cup Hershey’s Mini Chips Semi Sweet Chocolate
  1. Combine brown sugar, flour and butter in medium bowl until crumbly. Stir in nuts and small chocolate chip.
Source:Heshey’s Incredibly Easy Recipes

So, this is the original recipe on the book. You guys had to buy the book. It totally worth it ♥ Having that said, I want to let the cat out of the bag first. I don’t really follow the exact recipe, hah xD.
And this is what my cake looked like:

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The chocolate streusel is very sweet. If I were to bake this cake again, I would definitely reduce the brown sugar. There’s already chocolate chip inside and that already added to the sweetness of the cake. Maybe I would just reduce it to 2/4 cup brown sugar and see what would happen.  Oh yeah, taking the recipe from Hershey’s recipe book, of course the recipe calls for Hershey’s product. Since I’m short on money, I substituted it with mini dark chocolate chip 8D

So, following the recipe, I put exactly 1 cup of the streusel on the bottom layer but I think that was a mistake. When I inverted the cake, I found the cake was hard to cut because the streusel layer hardened. What do you expect, it is after all a layer of sugar, chips and nuts haha xD I guess to sprinkle 1 cup of streusel on the first layer was not a good idea.

The batter (white layer) is absolutely delicious. The sweetness is just right. My cousins said that it was creamy and I agree. I think that is due to the sour cream. It gave the cake a soft and creamy texture; it felt really heavenly as you sank your teeth onto it. I think we could play with the flavor a bit. I was thinking orange xD Let see if I dare to play with its flavor xD

I don’t use vanilla extracts and vanilla essence in my cake. I usually use vanilla powder which easily substitute vanilla extracts. I had my doubts about vanilla extracts and when I have my doubt, the ingredient became a mashbooh ingredient. I would later explained it in my other post but for now I had to say that using the powder instead of extracts does not affect my cake that much. Though since I live in Malaysia, I’m sure the powder I got is not pure so the vanilla powder might contain sugar in it LOL.

My conclusion is, the cake still needs a few adjustment and maybe if I’m daring enough I would be playing with different flavor for this cake. Maybe it will work, maybe it won’t xD. That’s the beauty of it xD

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

About Me

 

About Me

I am a chirpy girl who just really do not know how to watch what she says. Not really mature but is not immature either. I'm in between xP Love something colorful instead of monotone colored. If you want anything, just say it directly to me. I can handle my emotion pretty well I guess so bring it on!

So yeah, I am 23 years old (young, I know ;P) and really love experiment with things. So, you'll find this blog full with recipes that I've been experimenting and not all of them are successful, mind you xD This blog would not be updated frequently because I really like to procrastinate a lot so I almost never get anything done.

Most picture in this blog belongs to me unless I say otherwise. Do not steal it without permission, okay?I'm trying my hardest to give credits to someone who deserve it. If I forgot to credit someone, I appreciate it if you would tell me first before running to that person. Don't be a tell tale u_u Nobody likes a tell tale D;

English is not my first language. I would appreciate it if you can bear with my grammar mistakes 8D Do be a grammar nazi and correct me 8D)b Oh, MANGLISH WARNING AHEAD! XD For those who didn't know, Manglish is a mix of Malay and English :3

Yurp, I am a Malay and a Muslim. And PROUD of it <3