Tried out this cheesecake which is made with a shortbread crust, ganache layer, cheesecake, and lightly sweetened yogurt topping. As is often the case, some trial and error with the baking temp when converting a European recipe made with a different oven with bottom and top heating elements and convection. This needs to be baked at 400° in my oven. The crust is patted into the pan and refrigerated, then the ganache is poured and the whole thing frozen for 20 minutes. Cheesecake fillings gets poured on top, and into the oven. When the cheesecake is browned and still jiggly, on goes the yogurt topping for a 10-15 minute bake. I could barely wait for this to cool, so I had a still gooey slice. The slice pictured here came later after I stuck it in the freezer for a little bit.
Even with a blonder crust than ideal, this thing is AMAZING and I can’t wait to bake it again. I only made half as I often do for a first try. Next time I’m doing a full version. It’s so delicious. Sweetness is perfect, the layers complement each other really well, and it’s really very easy.
I baked honey muffins yesterday that were a big hit with both of us in the house. Lots of honey in the batter and I topped it with a crumble mix. I put some cardamom in it and it complements the honey flavour really well.
Lemon-blueberry scones, modified from an Epicurious recipe for lemon-poppyseed scones.
In addition to omitting the eggs, I swapped the equivalent of 1 c. of dried, wild blueberries for the poppyseeds. I’m finding I much prefer dried fruit in a scone over fresh – to my taste the scone-like texture holds up better without the added moisture brought by fresh fruit.
I made a half-batch for six smallish scones, topped with a lemony glaze.
I’m not a cheesecake fan in general, but I’m intrigued that they can be cheese specific. Havarti?? I’m sure my mother (who loved cheesecake) never ate anything but Sara Lee.
It’s a Basque cheesecake that contains a small amount of semi-cured cheese to give it some extra flavor. Basque cheesecake can be a bit mild in flavor since it’s made with a fair amount of cream, vs a higher proportion of cream cheese and ingredients like sour cream.
Something like Monterrey jack or Colby would also be good. In the first post I made on it I mentioned using a semi-cured cheese that contains sheep’s milk and that worked well because it’s a small enough amount that you cannot make out that it’s sheep’s milk. Havarti is much cheaper, though, and just as effective, so I switched to that.
This time I used a little kefir cream I had as part of the cream portion, too.
I’ve seen cheesecakes with edam and cheddar and I imagine they would taste similar.
May I ask what weight you use for converting flour measurements in this cookbook (Standard Baking Co. Pastries)?
Cookbook says recipes were tested with all-purpose flour and “measure flour using the scoop and level method - scooping the flour out of the bag with a utensil into a measuring cup, leveling the excess with a straight edge.” Also says for more tender tart doughs or scones substitute up to 25% with pastry flour and use slightly less liquid.
I usually use 125g. as a standard, but since it was a scoop/level measurement, I arbitrarily decided on 130g. I did not scoop / level weigh. It could possible be a little more? For the tart crusts, I probably went with the 125g. , I use pastry flour.
So annoying to use guesswork, I read it fairly carefully to see if there were any other “clues”, so much faster to weigh as you well know.
Thank you!
I did a test scoop - it came out at 156 g. Seemingly too heavy, IMO, so this morning I went with 135, and still had to add a little liquid.
I don’t mind so much winging it when I’m working on bread (today is the chocolate babka), because it’s easy for me to gauge by the feel of the dough whether the hydration is right. With cookies and pastries, however, it’s really nerve wracking - for me at least - to determine without weights whether my ratios of flour to butter are correct for the desired result.
Will post results later this afternoon!
Excellent! That is precisely the problem with the scoop measurement…differing weights. I think DL uses 140 g. , at least on some of his recipes, and even that strikes me as high. As with bread, if the pie crust dough is too wet, you can compensate when rolling out. Too dry is a little harder to correct, at least for me, although I’ve been there! Bon courage!
I always apply 128/4.5 oz. All cookbooks I have that list cups I measure as 128 grams of flour. Now I might use a bit more but that’s because the flour here is so weird. I can typically tell if a bit more is needed.
140g/5 oz is the measure when you dip the cup into the flour rather than scoop it into the cup. It’s used by Cook’s Illustrated and David Lebovitz. And I could swear Dorie Greenspan, too, though I can’t find the source, but for years I used 5 oz as the default measurement for her recipes.
Agree on Dorie Greenspan. Seems I’ve come across at least one of her recipes where using a lesser amount wasn’t working out, and I had to add flour.
And let’s not forget that King Arthur Baking weighs in at 120g. per cup!
Alternate, thicker glaze: 1 teaspoon tangerine zest, 2 tablespoons tangerine juice, 1 cup Confectioners’ Sugar, pinch of salt, whisk well
This is the second time (lately) that I made this cake; both times I forgot to put on the damp velcro strip around the cake pan, both times got a dome. (I sliced some of it off.) Mine takes about 55 minutes instead of 45.
This time I doubled the zest, used Tangerine and Meyer Lemon. Used a thicker glaze with Confectioners’ Sugar. Do I need more glaze or maybe thicker glaze?
Haven’t tasted it yet.
According to David Lebovitz (who uses 140 grams per cup of flour), the reason King Arthur uses 120 grams is because their flour has a higher protein content than most all purpose flours.
True that, and unfortunately, people use KA for cakes and sometimes complain about less than stellar results.
In Baking With Dorie, she measures 1 cup of flour at 136g, so pretty close. In that book, she also states that her usual AP is KAF. (When I use KAF in a recipe that doesn’t provide weights, I default to their 120g/cup).
