In my opinion, the best so far!

First of all… sorry for the delayed post! I came home for Christmas break, and my computer’s charger has been shot. No worries now, its up and running!

Let me show you just a glimpse of what my Christmas gifts look like

This is just a portion of the baking stuff I received too!!! Maybe I should have shown you the depth of the bucket too…

Christmas is so full of baking! I made a couple of things, but I especially wanted to blog this one.

Look at this! It’s a cappuccino fudge cheesecake!I found it awhile back on Smitten Kitchen and immediately bookmarked it. I changed a couple of things from what she did, so my list below will be what I did, not SK. Mostly what I changed are things I did not have.

Oo-La-La. This is probably my prettiest cake to date. I love it. its very rich and filling. With al the calorie intake, it serves 32 people! That is insane!

Cappuccino fudge cheesecake

Crust

1/ box of oreo cookie, or 9 oz of any chocolate sandwhich cookies.
6 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup  dark brown sugar, packed
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
7 tablespoons hot melted unsalted butter

Ganache

1 1/2 cups heavy or whipping cream
20 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
Nearly 1/4 cup of cold coffee, then finish it off with a little bit of rum to the top. Dark or Light rum is fine.

Filling

3 8 ounce packages cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 1/2 tablespoons rum, dark or light
1 1/2 tablespoons instant coffee
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoons mild-flavored (light) molasses
3 large eggs

Topping

1 1/2 cups sour cream
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

For a 9 inch springform pan.

Crust:

In a food processor, add cookies, chopped chocolate, brown sugar, and nutmeg. Grind until all is broken up.

Add butter and proces until it clumbes together. Make sure to get all around the bowl.

Transfer crumbs to a 9-inch springform pan. Wrap hands in saran wrap to keep it from sticking. Use all of the crumbs, making a bottom layer, and patting it up the walls of the pan, leaving about 1-1 1/2 inches from top.

Ganache:

In a large saucepan, bring cream to a simmer. Remove from heat and add chocolate. Whisk until all is melted and smooth. Pour two cups over the crust and freeze until it is firm.

I cleaned up here and washed everything. By the time I was finished with this and the next step, it was ready. Keep the rest of the ganache covered at room temperature for decorating purposes later.

Bring cream to simmer in large saucepan. Remove from heat; add chocolate and Kahlúa. Whisk until chocolate is melted and ganache is smooth. Pour 2 cups ganache over bottom of crust. Freeze until ganache layer is firm, about 30 minutes. Reserve remaining ganache; cover and let stand at room temperature to use later for decorating.

Filling:

Place rack in middle of oven and preheat to 350. Mix cream cheese and sugar with an electric mixer. If you need to soften the cream cheese, do so. Make sure sugar isnt hiding anywhere in your bowl too!!!

In a seperate bowl, stir in rum, ground coffee, vanilla, and molasses. Truth be told, I forgot this step! I had tiny bits of coffee in my cake, but you couldnt taste them really. I still advise doing this step. It make it look nicer too. Mix together until coffee dissolves, then add to the cream cheese mixture. Beat in 1 egg at a time.

This is what mine looked like.

Grainy. So mix that coffee up!

Take your pan out of the freezer and pour mixture right ontop.

It’ll be very full, but its okay!  Put a water bath in the oven to keep it from cracking. Also, do not open the oven for the first 30 mins. You want all the moisture to stay put! Place cheesecake on a rimmed baking sheet in the oven and bake for one hour. Once finished, transfer to a cooling rack for 15 mins, meanwhile prepare the toping. Don’t turn down the oven either.

Topping:

Whisk sour cream, sugar, and vanilla in medium bowl.  Pour topping over hot cheesecake, making sure to over it entirely.

Bake until topping is set, about 10 to 15 minutes. Transfer cheesecake to rack and  refrigerate hot cheesecake on rack until cool, about three hours.

Remove from fridge and run small sharp knife between pan and crust to losen it. Release pan sides and put on platter to be served on. Fill a pastry bag with a tip, star or plain, and pipe the design above, which is diagonls first, then stars around the edge. Chill for 6 hours before serving and set out for 15 before cutting. If you have espresso beans, place them on the intersections of each line. I sure wish I had some!

This cake is best eaten a day or so after it is made, so prepare it ahead of all other desserts and get it out of the way! It truly is delicious!

Pizza in the morning, Pizza in the evening…

A simple quick dinner fix is what I had in mind for tonight. This is my first non baked goods entry. I made two different “pepperoni breads”. We wanted one with meat, and one with out

“Tomato and Feta” & “Pepperoni with Habanero Cheese”

Here’s my cast of characters. You can add some additional toppings or spices too.

Ingredients

For Pepperoni Bread

Pepperoni

Pizza Crust

Habanero Cheese 4 oz.

Garlic Powder

Basil Leaves

Barley

Sea Salt

Pepper

1 Egg **for both pizza breads

For Tomato & Feta

Pizza Crust

Feta Cheese 4 oz.

Garlic Powder

Barley

Oregano

Sea

Directions

Pre-heat oven to 375

I really had to work with pizza dough. You know when you see all those commercials of the Italian pizza guys and they are throwing the dough into the air? Yeah, well there is a reason for that. At first I laid this out and tried rolling it out with a rolling pin. It was working at first, but it was like a big rubber band. It would snap back each time. The only way I found to make it work was to act like that pizza hut commercial where they sing “Hey Mambo! Mambo Italiano!” It was fun plopping it around and working my hands through it. I never got brave enough to actually throw it though. Maybe next time. I think pastry crusts would work better, but I couldn’t find it.Make sure you have a lightly floured surface.

After all said and done, I beat an egg and then brushed it liberally all over the dough. For the Pepperoni bread, I put the spices on first. I used garlic powder, basil leaves, oregano, sea salt, and pepper.

For the veggie bread, I put the tomatoes on first

Then I seasoned it. I really wish you could smell the aroma of garlic. I hope you like it. I concentrated on putting salt and garlic on the tomatoes. Those are what I wanted the flavor to take in on this one.

Now cheese. For pepperoni it was spicy cheese. Anything will do.

For veggie, it was feta.

Since my veggie is all done, I rolled it up, and pinched it together on the ends and the bottom to make sure it stayed together. I then placed it seam-side down on a greased cookie sheet.

Since I wanted meat on the pepperoni one, I added it all over. Add more or less. It all up to your taste buds!

Then cover it in a nice layer of cheese, about 4 oz

Followed the same directions and put them both on the greased cookie sheet and baked for 40 minutes, or until the crust looked nice and golden. Oh, I brushed them both again. But the tomato one with oil, the other with egg.

Slice and Serve!

The Whoville cake.. as Angela calls it!

The WHOVILLE cake!

It’s even tie dyed on the inside!

I really wanted to try my luck with a tiered cake. It wasn’t all good, but it was mostly better than bad. I absolutely need some practice. But I really loved how my fondant turned out. I always add flavoring. =)

I don’t have too many pictures of the process, so I’ll try to just tell you a little bit of what I did.

I used any white cake mix. To get the cake to look like THIS on the inside, I divided the batter into 6 bowls, since I wanted to use 6 colors. I layered as you can see in the picture.

After I baked it and cooled it, I leveled it with my new nifty cake leveler that I bought on Black Friday for a mere 3 bucks. That was a nice price to me anyways.

After it was all level, I went ahead and colored my fondant. I went ahead and did the same method with sectioning it into 6 pieces to color it. Then I iced it in butter cream and rolled out my fondant. To get the tie dye look, I rolled them out like worms, then twisted them together, then kneaded it into a ball and rolled out to put on the cake.

And viola! Whoville cake!