Chocolate and Key Lime Cupcakes

I’ve been having a bit of a block lately.  I can’t write.  I’m still cooking and baking but nothing seems to be inspiring me to write (or “right” about it. LOL!!!). 

I keep putting it down to the season.  I know it sounds weird to all of you northerners but here in Southwest Florida in the months of August and September we are a virtual dead zone of fresh produce!  It is just too stinking hot outside for anything to grow let alone thrive…I will be planting my garden this month so hopefully that will help give me a badly needed boost!  Until then I offer you some delicious chocolate and key lime cupcakes…

Chocolate and Key Lime Cupcakes

Ingredients:

Cupcakes:
1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1 c. sugar
1/4 c. baking cocoa
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 c. water
1/3 c. vegetable oil
1 Tbs. white vinegar
1 tsp. vanilla

Filling:
1 package (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened
1/3 c. sugar
1 egg
1/8 tsp. salt
1/4 cup of fresh squeezed key lime juice
zest of one key lime

Directions:

In a bowl, beat cream cheese. Add key lime juice, zest, sugar, egg, salt. Mix well. Set aside.

For cupcakes, combine flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Add water, oil, vinegar, and vanilla. Mix well. Fill paper-lined muffin cups half full with batter. Top each with 2 Tbs. of cream cheese mixture and then top with more chocolate batter to cover the cream cheese.

Bake at 350º for 25-30 minutes. Cool 10 minutes and remove from pan. This makes 12

These were truly delicious.  I tossed around whether it should be a white cupcake or chocolate but my helpers decided it HAD to be chocolate.  Glad I listened to them.  Some of them caved in but that’s because I was a little over zealous in my filling!!!

The Daring Baker’s Do Cheesecake!!!

This is probably going to be one of the worst posts that I have EVER written but there is a very good reason behind it. At the point that I am writing this I have gone without food for about 51 hrs. And yes, this was by choice.

I am participating in a hunger challenge called NoFood4You to help raise awareness for childhood hunger. You can learn more from my post here.

Anyway on to the Daring Baker challenge…

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

Thanks Jenny for a great Challenge!!!

We were allowed huge creative license with this basic cheesecake recipe. I was going to make a margarita cheesecake. Had great plans for this but was not meant to be. T. had used up all the limes!!! But I had lemons!!! I ended up making an incredibly delicious Limoncello Cheesecake with lemon sauce. My modifications are in bold in the recipe.

Everyone loved this cheesecake! It has full of the typical cheesecake flavor. I had some trouble with the crust as I ran out of foil so it was slightly sogged. Otherwise it was great to work with and may make margarita cheesecake for a Cinco de Mayo potluck coming up…

Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake:

crust:
2 cups / 180 g graham cracker crumbs
1 stick / 4 oz butter, melted
2 tbsp. / 24 g sugar
1 tsp.vanilla extract (I used Lemon Extract)

cheesecake:
3 sticks of cream cheese, 8 oz each (total of 24 oz) room temperature
1 cup / 210 g sugar (squeezed together with zest of one lemon)
3 large eggs
1 cup / 8 oz heavy cream
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean) (I used lemon extract)
1 tbsp liqueur, optional, but choose what will work well with your cheesecake (1 Tbsp Limoncello)

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (Gas Mark 4 = 180C = Moderate heat). Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker's choice. Set crust aside.

3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.

4. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

5. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done - this can be hard to judge, but you're looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don't want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won't crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve.

Pan note: The creator of this recipe used to use a springform pan, but no matter how well she wrapped the thing in tin foil, water would always seep in and make the crust soggy. Now she uses one of those 1-use foil "casserole" shaped pans from the grocery store. They're 8 or 9 inches wide and really deep, and best of all, water-tight. When it comes time to serve, just cut the foil away.

Prep notes: While the actual making of this cheesecake is a minimal time commitment, it does need to bake for almost an hour, cool in the oven for an hour, and chill overnight before it is served. Please plan accordingly!

Lemon Sauce – About.com: Southern Food by Diane Rattray

This lemon sauce is made with lemon juice, cornstarch, sugar, and butter.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup boiling water
• 1 tablespoon finely grated lemon peel
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon butter

Preparation:

In a saucepan, combine sugar, cornstarch and salt. Add boiling water. Cook, stirring constantly, until mixture is thick and clear. Stir in lemon peel, lemon juice, and butter. Serve warm over dessert or bread pudding.

As Always…

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy

www.nofearentertaining.com

The Daring Bakers do it again! Cheesecake Lollipops!

What a wonderful and fun recipe this was. Out of all of the things that I have made for the Daring Bakers challenges this is probably one of my favorites. The only problem that I had with this one was the time frame. I really thought I had until the end of the month. Thank goodness yesterday I registered with the new Daring Baker Forum and saw that I needed to post today!!! Needless to say I got started right away!

This recipe was easy, straight forward and delicious! The only problem I had was the length of time it took to bake. But I had checked out the forum and I was prepared for this. I made mine in a 9 inch square pan and it took close to 75 minutes to be set properly. The great thing about this though is once it was set it was a breeze to work with. I was able to hand roll them into balls with virtually no trouble at all. I did not have lollipop sticks so I used 6 inch bamboo skewers.

Hosting this month’s event is Elle from Feeding My Enthusiasms and Deborah from Taste and Tell. Thank you Elle and Deborah for hosting D.B. this month.

Cheesecake Pops (Jill O'Connor's Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey: Desserts for the Serious Sweet Tooth.)

Makes 30 – 40 Pops

5 8-oz. packages cream cheese at room temperature

2 cups sugar

¼ cup all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon salt

5 large eggs

2 egg yolks

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

¼ cup heavy cream

Boiling water as needed

Thirty to forty 8-inch lollipop sticks

1 pound chocolate, finely chopped – you can use all one kind or half and half of dark, milk, or white (Alternately, you can use 1 pound of flavored coatings, also known as summer coating, confectionery coating or wafer chocolate – candy supply stores carry colors, as well as the three kinds of chocolate.)

2 tablespoons vegetable shortening

(Note: White chocolate is harder to use this way, but not impossible)


Assorted decorations such as chopped nuts, colored jimmies, crushed peppermints, mini chocolate chips, sanding sugars, dragees) - Optional

Position oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees F. Set some water to boil.

In a large bowl, beat together the cream cheese, sugar, flour, and salt until smooth. If using a mixer, mix on low speed. Add the whole eggs and the egg yolks, one at a time, beating well (but still at low speed) after each addition. Beat in the vanilla and cream.

Grease a 10-inch cake pan (not a springform pan), and pour the batter into the cake pan. Place the pan in a larger roasting pan. Fill the roasting pan with the boiling water until it reaches halfway up the sides of the cake pan. Bake until the cheesecake is firm and slightly golden on top, 35 to 45 minutes.

Remove the cheesecake from the water bath and cool to room temperature. Cover the cheesecake with plastic wrap and refrigerate until very cold, at least 3 hours or up to overnight.

When the cheesecake is cold and very firm, scoop the cheesecake into 2-ounce balls and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Carefully insert a lollipop stick into each cheesecake ball. Freeze the cheesecake pops, uncovered, until very hard, at least 1 – 2 hours.

When the cheesecake pops are frozen and ready for dipping, prepare the chocolate. In the top of a double boiler, set over simmering water, or in a heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water, heat half the chocolate and half the shortening, stirring often, until chocolate is melted and chocolate and shortening are combined. Stir until completely smooth. Do not heat the chocolate too much or your chocolate will lose it’s shine after it has dried. Save the rest of the chocolate and shortening for later dipping, or use another type of chocolate for variety.

Alternately, you can microwave the same amount of chocolate coating pieces on high at 30 second intervals, stirring until smooth.

Quickly dip a frozen cheesecake pop in the melted chocolate, swirling quickly to coat it completely. Shake off any excess into the melted chocolate. If you like, you can now roll the pops quickly in optional decorations. You can also drizzle them with a contrasting color of melted chocolate (dark chocolate drizzled over milk chocolate or white chocolate over dark chocolate, etc.) Place the pop on a clean parchment paper-lined baking sheet to set. Repeat with remaining pops, melting more chocolate and shortening (or confectionery chocolate pieces) as needed.

Refrigerate the pops for up to 24 hours, until ready to serve.

For toppings I used cinnamon graham crumbs, chopped pistachio's and assorted sprinkles.



Would I make this again?: I loved the cheesecake recipe so I would definitely make a cheesecake using this recipe but the lollipops...maybe not. It was pretty messy and I had 2 sets of little hands trying to help me and it just ended up really messy although they had a ton of fun doing it. To try and transport them somewhere would be almost impossible as well. They tasted great though and as I said I LOVED the cheesecake!

Once again thanks Daring Bakers for taking me out of my comfort zone (which right now isn't too hard)!!!

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com