baking and love

Creamy, Luscious, New York Cheesecake

dessertsyum — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 01:44:00 -0800

I love having blocks of butter and cream cheese at home. I love the I-need-to-clear-my-butters-so-I'm-baking! feeling whenever I open the fridge and see them arranged on top of one another. Its like a reflection of my passion for baking!

I don't know if that's the same for you, but they certainly are the fastest-moving yet most expensive ingredients I use.

Cakes, cookies, pies, tarts, bars...... I can hardly escape from opening sticks after sticks of butter. Especially when baking becomes a little more intensive, like how I've been baking almost every day for the past one week, I've finish almost 4 cups of butter!

Last night, I was really tempted to 'clear' my cream cheese again. LOL. It'd be the best chance for me to finish my remaining sour cream from the superlicious Blueberry Crumb Cake too! After much consideration on what cheesecake I should I bake, I decided on New York Cheesecake!

The recipe was from a book bought by one of my best boyfriend in Taiwan. Although the entire book was written in CHINESE..... (Okay, I'm a Chinese, but I really dislike reading chinese words!) I still wanted to use its recipe because I'm actually very appreciative to get his support for my interest! I adjusted the recipe a little as I was a bit disturbed by one of the ingredient "butter" in the cream cheese filling. I substitute it with milk instead =)

The result was really great. I love how the surface of the cheesecake is slightly brown. The best part was that it didn't cracked, it didn't sink in the center, and it wasn't over-baked!

See. Still nice and creamy, one of the best cheesecake texture I'd made!

Blueberry Crumb Cake. Or is it PIE?!

dessertsyum — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 00:25:18 -0800

GOOOOOD DAY BAKERS!

I made a dessert using the recipe I bookmarked very recently, Blueberry Crumb Cake, at FoodNetwork.com! I was simply craving for something sweet and fruity but I didn't want to play with strawberries because the supermarket does not have the reddest and prettiest strawberries at this time of the year. I will be waiting for summer to arrive in the North patiently :)

Anyhow, the Blueberry Crumb Cake I baked today was really fantastic. Soft, tender cake topped with browned crumbly streusel. Exactly what I was looking for in a g-r-e-a-t crumb cake! It is so delicious, I'm sure I have to make this again :)

Now, watch me make the most satisfying Blueberry Crumb Cake, step-by-step!!

Rainbow (white) Cake with Oreo Cream Cheese Frosting

dessertsyum — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 05:06:01 -0800

As a child, I was always fascinated by colours :)

I still do and even now that I'm already a teen, any objects of my favourite colours draw my attention to them. I would eat vegetables & salads because I love green! I would buy Hello Kitty accessories because I like pink! & I'd tan myself nicely brown just to match beautiful white dresses :)

Yeah, colours are very happy stuffs and they do magic to little things in life. Hence, I baked this cake for my teammate's birthday, Z. She is definitely the most outstanding player in our basketball team who had contributed a lot during competitions. We play the same position and I'd always feel safe during the game with her around!

Although the graduation from high school meant that we were all going separate ways, she's one of those I still meet up with very very often :) Basketball is our language and I'm glad this common interest has glued us pretty well!

I rushed home immediately after school to get this done, AND more importantly, to take enough shots before the sky turns dark! I don't have photoshop and I cannot do much to edit the pictures =\

This Rainbow Cake sponge (bottom) is strongly reccommended if you are looking for a white cake recipe. It is extremely soft, crumbly and moist, very very tender even if you used plain flour instead of cake flour! The only thing you might want to take note is that the cake is quite fragile, so please be gentle when you lift each layer.

I spread nutella over the cake, followed whipped cream in between every layer. Finally when it is chilled, I frosted the cake with Cream cheese and pressed oreo crumbs on it gently :)

Daring Bakers Challenge: Heaven on A Dessert Plate

dessertsyum — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 17:00:27 -0800

The February 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They chose Tiramisu as the challenge for the month. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post, Cordon Bleu at Home and Baking Obsession.

Tiramisu brings back a very exciting familiarity for me as this was just what I had been preparing weekly one month ago at the restaurant I worked! Yes, a very traditional Italian restaurant selling Cannoli too, remember? Haha! There is a very huge difference, though, between the recipe chosen for this month's challenge and the one I used at work. Ours are actually simpler in the ingredients used but still unique in its own way.

(My sponge fingers were really delicate, thus I brushed the coffee syrup over them instead of soaking them in it. I was very sure that it might melt within the 0.5 seconds in liquid LOL.)

Anyway, I'd been really busy the past few days and didn't got the chance to use the computer, so here's a very late post!

Dolly Does DONUTS! (yeast-raised Donuts! Doubly satisfying)

dessertsyum — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 05:39:18 -0800

Last night I had this sudden urge to make donuts!! So I did this afternoon using the recipe taken from 17andBaking. I had bookmarked it for a looong looong time but was simply unwilling to mess with yeast. It seemed easier than I thought though and I was certainly glad I tried.... Anyway, the writer of 17andBaking, Elissa, is a very very talented senior whom I look up to very much. Not only does she bakes well, her photography skills are also excellent!!

Being a student baker myself, nothing excites me more than knowing friends in this big family of bakers who are around my age! :) Other student bakers' blogs I visit frequently would be Wendy of My Buttery Fingers, Lauren of CeliacTeen and Karina of Pastries of a Chocoholic :)

Right, so back to my donuts, I'd think it's pretty much a failure because I dislike how thick they were! I felt like I was eating more donut bread than the filling I had topped it with :\ However, I'd definetely use this recipe again as the texture of the donuts were great. The only adjustment I'd make is rolling out a thinner donut dough (less than 1/2 inch as directed by the recipe). Also, I'm sooooo going to get a donut-cutter for my next attempt. I wish that my donuts had the small little holes in them =(