Sticky Date Cheesecake with Caramel Fudge Sauce

If you love cheesecake and sticky date pudding, this is a cake that you must try!

This recipe caught me by the eye the first time when I curiously laid my eyes at the packaging of a cream cheese at my local supermarket. Within my heart, I knew from then on that I would definitely bake it one day. This sticky date cheesecake is super delicious. If you have a sweet tooth, this is definitely the cake for you. However, I tend to see a bipolar response from friends and family with regards to the caramel fudge sauce. Ones who love it can literally drink the sauce by itself ( I do mean it literally!) and ones who don't like their desserts being too sweet will draw back and ascend the white flag. I personally like to have a slice with some drizzles of caramel fudge sauce on top, as illustrated in the photos. If your family is not a big caramel fan to begin with (like mine) then I recommend you to halve the amount as suggested. I made three-quarters of the amount and it was still too much that it had to go to waste in the end. On the contrary, I had wished that if only this recipe was able to give me a bigger cake instead of a loaf-sized one instead. But nonetheless, I know this would not be the last time that I'll be baking it.

Sticky Date Cheesecake

(adapted from Kraft Philadelphia Cream Cheese)

100g butternut snap biscuits, crushed (I used 150g arrowroot biscuits instead...I like my crust thick)
20g unsalted butter melted (I used 50g instead)
375g Original Philadelphia Cream Cheese, softened
1/3 cup caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 large egg
2 teaspoons plain flour
5 (125g) fresh dates, chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 160°C/140°C fan-forced. Grease a 9cm x 20cm loaf tin and line with baking paper.

2. Make the crust first by combining crushed biscuits and melted butter in a bowl. Press into the base of lined cake tin. Chill in refrigerator until the cheesecake mixture is ready.

3. Beat the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla with an electric mixer until smooth. Beat in the egg until well incorporated, then stir in the flour and dates with a spatula.

4. Pour the cheesecake mixture on top of the crust and bake for 25 minutes or until just set. Cool in the oven with the door ajar for at least 30 minutes and then transfer into the refrigerator to chill for at least 4 hours or overnight.

Caramel Fudge Sauce
(Make this on the day when serving)

1 cup of brown sugar, firmly packed
80g butter, chopped
1/3 cup cream
Optional: Cream, extra to serve.

In a small saucepan, combine the brown sugar, butter and cream and stir over low heat for 5 minutes until mixture has thickened. Serve immediately with a slice of cheesecake.


Disclaimer: This blog post is based on my personal and honest opinion about this recipe published with permission but has no relation to Mondelez Australia.

Coconut Cake with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

I like my coconut in chocolate and cakes. Moist, fluffy, soft, tangy and not overbearingly sweet are the words to describe this cake. It's simply delicious. I knew something was missing after I finished frosting the cake as it looked a bit too plain. Luckily I had some flaked almonds and coconut shreds to give me a beautiful mess on top of the cake.

Coconut Cake with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

(adapted from Raspberri Cupcakes)

250g butter, softened

1 1/2 cups caster sugar

1 teaspoon coconut essence (I didn't use this)

4 eggs

1 cup (80g) dessicated coconut

3 cups self raising flour

250g sour cream

1 cup milk

1. Preheat oven to 180°C/160°C fan-forced. Grease and flour two 18cm round cake tins.

2. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add in coconut essence and beat until incorporated then add in eggs one at a time.

3. Add half of the dry ingredients (flour and coconut) followed by wet ingredients (sour cream and milk) and mix until just combined. Add the remaining dry and wet ingredients. Make sure to not overmix.

4. Separate the batter evenly into the two greased tins and bake for 45-50 minutes or until skewer comes out clean. Cool the cake in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

250g cream cheese

25g butter, softened

1 cup icing sugar

1/2 teaspoon lemon zest

1/2 cup thickened cream

Beat the cream cheese and butter until smooth. Add the lemon zest then gradually add in the icing sugar and beat until incorporated. Using clean beaters, beat the cream until stiff peaks form then add to the cream cheese mixture and mix until smooth. Sandwich icing between the two cake layers and crumb coat the cake with icing. Use the remaining icing to cover the cake completely.



Classic Baked Cheesecake with Blueberry Sauce

Hold back your salivas ladies and gentlemen! Here comes a drool-worthy cheesecake drizzled over with some amazing blueberry sauce. I actually cannot believe that I haven't made a post on this yet.

This is the cake that changed my life.
The one that made me believe that I can actually bake as I previously had little faith in myself.
The one that made me fall in love with baking.
The one that is so simple to bake.
The one that is revered deeply in my heart.
And the one that has become my 'signature' cake that friends and family remember me for.
 
Recently, our household accommodated a lovely couple from overseas. The uncle and aunty were such a cute pair together. Since it was auntie's first time in Australia, I thought why not welcome her with my 'signature' cheesecake...and oh gosh, she loved it. Love to the point that she proactively seeked for the recipe and got me to explain in detail of how to bake it. For the first time, I had to translate a recipe in chinese for someone... and that part was a little bit daunting for me since my vocabulary is quite limited.

The blueberry sauce definitely deserves a mention as well. It's so good that it's not just an accessory to the cheesecake but a wedded partner. It's got the naturally berry sweetness with a bit of tangy flavour from the lemons. Beautiful combination. Now I'm craving pancakes just as an excuse to have more of that blueberry sauce.

Classic Baked Cheesecake with Blueberry Sauce

(cheesecake recipe adapted from Arnotts)

Biscuit base
250g plain biscuits, finely crushed (Marie, Nice, Arrowroot etc)
125g unsalted butter, melted
1 tsp ground cinnamon (optional)

Cheesecake
500g cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence (I used Vanillin)
3 eggs

1. Preheat the oven to 150°C/130°C fan-forced. Lightly grease a 20cm springform tin or line the cake tin with baking paper (if you don't have a springform tin).

2. In a bowl, combine crushed biscuits, cinnamon and melted butter. Press firmly onto base and 3/4 of the way up the sides of the cake tin. Refridgerate for 30mins or until the cheesecake batter is ready.

3. Using an electric mixer, beat cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until smooth.

4. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition until combined. Pour into biscuit base. Bake for 50 minutes.

5. Once baked, turn off the oven. Leave cheesecake in the oven with the door ajar for 1 hour.

6. Chill in the refrigerator for 4 hours or overnight.

Homemade Blueberry Sauce

(recipe adapted from My Baking Addiction)

2 cups (250g) fresh or frozen blueberries
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp cornstarch, mixed with 2 tbsp cold water
1/2 tsp vanilla extract (I used Vanillin)
Zest of 1 lemon (approx. 1 tbsp)

1. In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine blueberries, 1/2 cup water, sugar and lemon juice. Stir frequently and bring to low boil.

2. In a small bowl, mix cornstarch with cold water. Slowly stir the cornstarch into the blueberries, taking care not to crush the blueberries. Stir until the sauce is thick enough to coat the back of a metal spoon, about 5 minutes.

3. Remove from heat and gently stir in the vanilla and zest. If the sauce is too thick for you, slowly add in water until you've reached desired consistency.

Blueberry Cream Cheese Macarons

Macarons are a work of art in baking. Petit, delicate and simply sweet. Such a popular sweet that many people go crazy for, all thanks to a certain tv show. Even the two little twirps sisters at home can have FIVE  or more at one go. I do not have that crazy ability unfortunately...level down as a cake monster here, or should I say, sweets monster. As you can tell, the batch never lasts long in my household. There aren't many ingredients required to make this but mixing the macaronage to the right texture is such a fickle thing to do. Macarons have always been the bane of my existence due to many of my past failures. It really hurts each time a batch of macarons fail because of the costly almond meal and the amount of egg whites gone to waste. Previously, I never understood why macarons are so expensive but now I understand and appreciate the level of difficulty of getting everything just right to obtain the final product. It got to the point where I almost lost faith in myself with the potential to be able to produce pretty little macarons.

I've tried both the french and italian methods only to see them: flat as pancakes, cracked on top, do not 'feet'. There are numerous recipes and tips over the world wide web that you can read on, even video tutorials are available. I wished I did all of them earlier on to compensate for my numerous  mistakes. It all seems easy but then when it comes to baking it , it's a whole different story. But once you get it, you'll be jumping happily around like me and it'll appear to be more effortless, the more you bake them. A very good start to the new year for mastering picture-perfect macarons, 'Go me!'. I personally prefer the french method as I don't own a stand mixer and therefore I don't need to cope with having another person around helping to pour the sugar syrup in whilst beating the egg whites. French method is less complicated as well, which I like.

I've decided to bake a batch for Auntie L, who had selflessly helped me out a lot during the past 6 months. These little babies were happily boxed and wrapped up for her. Too bad, she didn't get them first hand when they were delivered to her house. Hope she's satisfied with what I put together for her.

Blueberry Cream Cheese Macarons

(recipe and tips adapted from Brave Tart)

Macarons
115g almond meal
230g icing sugar
144g egg whites, room temperature (You can zap fresh egg whites from the fridge in the microwave on defrost for 10 seconds)
72g caster sugar
½ tsp kosher salt (I didn't add this in)

1. Sift the almond meal and icing sugar together in a medium bowl and set them aside.

2. Using an electric mixer in a medium bowl, beat the egg whites together with the caster sugar and salt at medium speed for 3 minutes (4 on a Kitchenaid). They won't seem especially foamy at this point.

3. Increase the speed to medium-high (7 on a Kitchenaid) and whip for another 3 minutes, then increase to highest speed (8 on a Kitchenaid) and beat for another 3 minutes.

4. Turn off the mixer. Add in any colouring/flavour/extracts and whip for another 1 minute at highest speed. At the end of this minute, you should have a very stiff, dry meringue. When you remove the whisk attachment, there will be a clump of meringue in the centre, just knock the whisk against the bowl to free it. If the meringue has not become stiff enough to clump inside the whisk, continue beating for another minute, or until it does so.

5. Dump in the sifted dry ingredients all at once and fold them with a rubber spatula. Use both a folding motion (to incorporate dry ingredients) and a rubbing/smearing motion to deflate the meringue against the side of the bowl. Take care not to overmix, the mixture should flow like lava and a streak of mixture spread over the surface of the rest of the mixture should disappear after 30 seconds to a minute. Approximately around 30 strokes/folds of the batter will be just enough.

6. Place in a piping bag and pipe rounds of about 3cm diameter on lined baking sheets or silicon baking mats. Hold onto the baking sheet and tap them hard against your bench top to remove any extra bubbles from your piped shells. Preheat the oven to 150° C/130°C fan-forced. Leave shells on bench to dry for about 30 minutes to an hour, or until a shell forms around the piped macaron (I generally leave them for 20 minutes).

7. Bake for about 18 minutes, or until you can clearly peel the parchment paper away from a macaron. Cool thoroughly on the pans before peeling the cooled macarons from the parchment. Use a spatula or plastic scrape if necessary.

8. Pipe the cream cheese filling (recipe below) on a macaron shell, then sandwich it with another macaron shell. Refrigerate overnight. Can be stored in the fridge in an airtight container for several days.

Blueberry Cream Cheese Filling
(recipe adapted from ai love baking)

113g cream cheese, softened
25g icing sugar
25g blueberry jam or puree
50g unsalted butter, softened

1. Beat the cream cheese, butter and icing sugar until smooth.

2. Add blueberry jam or puree and mix until incorporated.  Chill to set.

Christmas Hat Strawberry Cupcakes

Happy Christmas everyone! May everyone have an enjoyable time with their family and friends on this festive season. For Christmas, I've always dreamt of having a special feast with my family, hanging up stockings in my bedroom, having a massive tree in my house with presents underneath and dressed up warm and cosy, drinking hot chocolate around a fireplace. Unfortunately, that is never the case for me. First of all, Christmas down in the southern hemisphere is summer and therefore hot chocolate would be out of my list and I'd rather prefer to have a cool and refreshing dessert on my christmas menu like a strawberry cupcake. Secondly, christmas is never celebrated in my family although I very very much would like to celebrate it. It would never go according to plan unless I make it come true myself and I haven't been so motivated. I guess baking christmas desserts, being a little Miss Santa and singing some christmas carols with my sisters is as christmas I can get it to be.

I love this strawberry cupcake.The best cupcake I've ever tasted. It's pink, sweet and full of pure strawberry flavour. It can't get anymore organic than this. This recipe uses fresh strawberries in the batter giving out that fresh aroma of strawberries when you bite into it. Sweet and succulent where I ask for more after the first cupcake.

 As you may have noticed, I haven't blogged for a while now. December was just jam-packed with important events for me going from weddings to conferences to preparing for my 6 month candidature review of my PhD. I was especially nervous with my preparations since I haven't done public speaking for over a year now. My heart was beating fast, I couldn't stand in one spot for long and my hands were shaking which has never happened to me before. But at the very least, I'm glad that was over and done with.

But I guess the best thing that has happened during my absence from blogging was attending my family friend's wedding. As bizarre as it sounds, I've never been through an entire wedding ceremony although I'm already in my 20's. It was a very different experience compared to just showing up to a banquet. I was right behind the scenes where I first got to watch the bride and bridesmaids getting their make-up and hair done. It was also my first time helping out before the tea ceremony began with doing last touch-up's on the food to be served to family and guests and then to the fun part where the groom comes to pick up the bride. For Singaporeans like us, we definitely will not let the groom and groomsmen off so easily to see the bride. The bridesmaids came up with a specially brewed cocktail (diluted soy sauce with wasabi) to serve the guys for each answer the groom gets wrong about his dear bride. Surprisingly, the drink didn't affect the groom as he skulled it down as manly as he could but the groomsmen sure did have a hard time drinking it.

I had to say I cried during the wedding ceremony when the bride and groom were exchanging vows. For the first time, I witnessed such a magical moment. Deep down I felt really happy for them since the bride and I have grown up together. Now that she's stepping into the next chapter of her life, I wish her a blissful marriage and in the very near future, start her next chapter into motherhood.

Christmas Hat Strawberry Cupcakes

(adapted from An Edible Mosaic)
  
2½ cups plain flour
2 ⅛ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
⅛ tsp bicarb soda
9 oz hulled fresh strawberries, coarsely chopped (about 2 cups chopped strawberries, lightly packed)
112.5g (½ cup/1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1½ cups caster sugar
2 large eggs
¼ cup milk (any kind)
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 tsp strawberry extract (if available)

1. Preheat oven to 180° C/160°C fan-forced and line cupcake tins with paper liners.

2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda in a medium bowl and set aside. Puree the strawberries in a blender or food processor (you will get about 1 1/4 cups of strawberry liquid); set aside.

3. Cream together butter and sugar, then cream in the eggs; mix in the milk, vanilla extract, strawberry extract, and pureed strawberries. Use a wooden spoon to stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients all at once, stirring just enough to combine and being careful not to over-mix.

4. Pour the batter into the prepared cupcake wells (filling each about 1/2 to 2/3 of the way full) and bake until a toothpick inserted inside comes out clean, about 20 to 24 minutes. Cool completely before frosting.

Yields about 24 to 28 cupcakes

White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting
(adapted from Citrus and Candy)

100g white chocolate (containing cocoa butter), chopped
170g cream cheese softened
25g unsalted butter
a spoonful of sour cream (approx. 2 tsps)

1. In a bowl over simmering water, melt the white chocolate. Remove and set aside to cool.

2. Beat the cream cheese, butter and sour cream until smooth. Scrape the sides down with a rubber spatula to incorporate everything. Add in the cooled white chocolate and beat until smooth. If the mixture is too soft, allow it to become firm in the fridge for 5-10mins before piping it onto the cake.

Banana Cake Mini's with White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

Here's my banana cake...so call me maybe? I think I'm going crazy with this song stuck in my head by Carly Rae Jepsen all thanks to my sister, S. Before she ate her banana she was using the banana as a phone and sung "Call me maybe?". But then her playful acts had reminded me that I was supposed to bake a banana cake. 2 weeks ago, I bought some extra ingredients home to bake some banana cake for my family and only to find out that I was missing the main ingredient...the banana. Luckily, bananas are slowly getting back in season and my mum has been bringing home heaps of ripe bananas from the market. It's funny how I started with no bananas to having more than enough bananas at home.

I've never been much of a banana cake fan as I just prefer eating bananas the way it is. But months ago, I made a deadset decision that I must bake 'that' banana cake from my recipe book one day. Everyone in my family is quite a big banana fan, especially my little sister, Pearl. She can easily eat 5 bananas at one go ever since childhood. So I was pretty positive that Pearl and everyone else in my family will definitely go bananas over this cake.

I wanted to get a little bit creative this time and make banana cake mini's with a frosting on top. But the next hurdle for me was, what frosting should I use? The classical passionfruit icing combination with the banana cake didn’t quite cut the mark for me although many people use it. First of all, I really detest passionfruit pulp. It’s not that I dislike passionfruit flavours but I can’t stand the pulp's presence in the food I eat. I would always pick it out or just avoid eating it completely if I ever see it. Secondly, there was no passionfruit available in my pantry and I’m not going to make the effort to go to the shops to buy something that I don’t like. So then I was on the search for a frosting that would be applicable to what I already have in the kitchen and most importantly the flavour must impress me (you’ve probably realised by now that I’m quite picky with frostings). Finally, I found one that I extremely liked...white chocolate cream cheese frosting! Chocolate always satisfies me and I know I can’t go wrong with this combination. Oh! Karen you've saved my day again.

My hunch was correct! The white chocolate cream cheese frosting was a beautiful combination with the banana cake and what's so good about this frosting is that no icing sugar is required. You get an ultra smooth, silky and light texture of the frosting compared to the overbearing sugar overdose from the ones containing icing sugar. For those who don't like white chocolate, you can barely taste it. It's hidden beautifully within the tangy cream cheese with a pinch of sweetness.

I can see myself making this again in a larger batch! The batter seemed rather a little bit too small for my liking and I knew that my parents would be asking why I didn't make a bigger batch because of the chuck loads of banana and flour that we've got at home if I just presented it the way it is straight from my lamington tray. There are probably a few things that I wished I could've done differently to this banana cake but I guess I'll do all that next time! Right now I'm gonna get my hands on some cake before it's all gone tonight!

Banana Cake Mini's with White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

Cake
(adapted from Women's Weekly MIX)

125g butter, softened
3/4 cup (165g) firmly packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1½ cups (225g) self-raising flour
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 cup mashed banana (I used 3½ of medium ripe bananas - 460g)
½ cup (120g) sour cream
¼ cup (60ml) milk

1. Preheat oven to 180°C/160°C fan-forced. Grease and flour a lamington tray; you may line the base with baking paper.

2. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar in a small bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. At low speed, stir in the sifted dry ingredients, banana, sour cream and milk until completely mixed. Use a spatula to scrape the sides of the batter down as well as the bottom of the mixture and mix until everything is completely incorporated.

3. Spread the mixture evenly into the lamington tray and bake for 40min. (The original recipe suggested 50min but I figured because of the low depth of the cake mixture, it'll cook much faster). Stand in cake pan for 5min then turn top-side up onto a wire rack to cool.

White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting
(adapted from Citrus and Candy)

I didn't have enough white chocolate so I've re-formulated the recipe to suit myself. So if you want the original recipe, go here.

100g white chocolate (containing cocoa butter), chopped
170g cream cheese softened
25g unsalted butter
a spoonful of sour cream (approx. 2 tsps)

1. In a bowl over simmering water, melt the chocolate. Remove and set aside to cool, without it going back to form the solid hard chocolate though.

2. Beat the cream cheese, butter and sour cream until smooth. Scrape the sides down with a rubber spatula to incorporate everything. Add in the cooled white chocolate and beat until smooth. If the mixture is too soft, allow it to become firm in the fridge for 5-10mins before piping it onto the cake.



What do you do with the remaining pieces of banana cake after when all the circles are cut out?
You chop them into smaller pieces and put them into a pretty cup. Add ice-cream to it if you like.
Voila!