White chocolate cheesecake and lemon cream cheese cupcakes

Merry Christmas to all visiting my blog. Ya, its christmas, but I am not capable of baking a log cake so with an expiring packet of white droplet chocolate and Philly cheese (good offer in NTUC now), I tried the white chocolate cheesecake from 孟老师's book.

The cake is a little on the sweet side, perhaps due to the white chocolate. Its also a little harder than those cheesecakes that I tried from coffee joints. My kids can't even finish a small piece, but they can finish the whole piece (which is bigger) bought from the coffee joints. This probably means that the cake isn't to their liking too. Had problem with the white chocolate too. The instructions told me to melt it and have it on standby ... I melted it and took it out of the hot water and it turns hard again when I am ready to use it. However, I am surprised that I cant turn the harden white chocolate back to "melted" state.

Here's the white chocolate cheesecake.


Besides the white chocolate cheesecake, my friend has provided me with a lemon cream cheese cupcake recipe. It's straight forward and doesn't require mixer so I went ahead to try out too. The cupcakes rises a little in the oven but sank when they are cooling, however, my friend's did not sink.

The cupcakes are so soft and light, and they taste fantastically nice. Both my kids had two on the first try. The down side is the sugar and butter involved. My friend advise to cut down on sugar and butter, so will have to try the recipe again with new proportion.

Here's how they looked. (Sorry, I do not know how to "collage" them)





吃完了凤梨芝士蛋糕，看到那包白巧克力在二月就要到期了，赶紧翻查食谱，就在孟老师的书里找到用到白巧克力和芝士的食谱。我的白巧克力乳酪蛋糕就诞生了。这蛋糕超甜，还好只是个6寸的，一人一小片，再给我妈和老弟，第二天就解决了。用剩的100克芝士刚好用在一位朋友给的柠檬芝士小蛋糕。这个小蛋糕真赞，不知怎么形容，反正好吃就对了。我孩子还一口气吃两个。

Pineapple cheesecake

Made this cake because I have the ingredients at hand.
This is an easy recipe from the "Easy Stir n Bake Cakes' book by Kevin Chia.
I became the proud owner of 3 new cake making books 2 weeks ago and one of them is this. This book's recipes guarantee 100% success rate (just what I need, isn't it?). I especially love this book because the recipes do not require mixer, just require simple mixing or a few stirs, perfect for lazy people like me.

I had not much of a trouble at all throughout the whole process, and my boy loves the cake so much that he asked for 2nd helping. He even ask me to bake it again.

After trying two recipes from this book, I really did not have any trouble getting good tasty cake. Perhaps all thanks to the extra baking powder, bicar, alot of oil and alot of egg. My mother says, all cakes with alot of oil and eggs taste good. So, I should start to experiment with same recipes by putting in less oil.

So I share with you the recipe and my bake below.

Ingredients

180g cream cheese
120g caster sugar
90ml corn oil
3 eggs
130g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
170g canned pineapple (diced)

Method

1) Grease and line a 10cm x 20cm (4 x 8 inches) loaf pan. Preheat oven to 170dC.
2) Stir cream cheese and sugar over simmering water until soft and smooth. Remove form heat. Stir in oil and eggs until well combined.
3) Combine flour, baking powder and soda. Fold into cheese mixture together with pineapple dices until well blended.
4) Spoon mixture into prepared pan. Bake in oven for 40 - 45 minutes or until cooked. Stand for 10 minutes and turning on to wire rack to cool.






超市的芝士有折扣，所以赶紧买了两块回来（还是最后的两块，幸好我手快）。加上打算拿来做比萨的罐头黄梨，这“凤梨起司蛋糕”就诞生了。它是个手拌式蛋糕，食谱出自于蔡高晋老师的书，书名“手拌式蛋糕”。我这个懒虫，最喜欢易做，少功夫的事，况且还是100巴仙成功率的食谱。可惜，这些食谱的油和蛋份量蛮多，相信日后需要尝试看减少油的份量，否则我不久就会升级变超级大肥妈了。

p/s : Sorry, somehow the features for formatting my text is gone, so I can only arrange the recipe as neat as I can.

Pumpkin cakes and more pumpkin cakes

Since the school holiday started, I am busy in bringing the kids out and about, so did not really bake alot. Anyway, the kids accepted my pumpkin "cup"cake so I tried the recipe again since I did not add ground hazelnut previously. The kids still like it. Good :). I still bake in cups since it is more convenient.

My sister in law also tried her hands on the same recipe, and her cake look more like the one printed out in the book. I am thinking if it makes a difference grating the pumpkin or shredding it by knife so I baked two batches on last friday night.

Indeed, the pumpkin in the batch where pumpkin is shredded by knife shows well but not in the grated batch. Anyway, both taste nice. I gave some to my friend whom I met on saturday morning and she gave good reviews.

This time, I only put in 100ml of oil. The cakes still taste good to me.

I still have half of a big pumpkin in the fridge. Mother in law gave it to me. I am sick of doing the same thing .. so got to look for new recipes.

Here's two samples from a batch with ground hazelnut. I did not picture any from the last batch since its the same thing.




学校假期开始后，我忙着带孩子出去走走， 所以并没有专注于烘焙。不过，上回的南瓜蛋糕没用ground hazelnut, 所以这次特别买来加进去。我也减少了油，只放了100ml. 我还是在星期五的晚上大概十点才开工，因为想隔天拿些给朋友试吃。还好朋友与她家人都说不错。虽然我孩子还是喜欢，但我还是要用别的食谱来解决还在我冰橱的那半粒南瓜。