Thee met Aimée

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Thee met Aimée

Pumpkin bread with cheesecake swirl

If you ever feel like having cheesecake, but you don’t have enough cream cheese in stock, or you just have a package of mascarpone about to hit the expiration date, this recipe will suit your needs. It combines the best of cakes and cheesecakes, and looks great when cutting through the marbled layers. I got the recipe from Peabody’s blog Culinary Concoctions (thank you), and made some alterations plus converted the ingredients to SI measures. I experimented a bit, and concluded that if you don’t have a pumpkin or can of pumpkin puree lying around, a great alternative is to grate a large carrot and mash a ripe banana. The taste, color and mushy texture of the resulting cake are fairly similar.

Pumpkin bread with cheesecake swirl by Thee met Aimee [recipe at www.theemetaimee.nl]

For the cake

– 240 g unsweetened pumpkin puree (or 1 cup) OR 1 large carrot + 1 banana
– 120 ml vegetable oil (or 0.5 cup)
– 2 eggs
– 300 g sugar (or 1.5 cup)
– 256 g plain flour (or 2 cups)
– 1 tsp baking powder
– 0.5 tsp salt
– 1 tsp cinnamon – 0.5 tsp ginger – 0.5 tsp nutmeg (or 2 tsp ready-made pumpkin pie spice, or Dutch speculaas spices)
– 120 g of your favorite nuts (or 1 cup)

For the cheesecake swirl

– 252 g mascarpone (or 9 oz)
– 75 g muscovado sugar (or 0.4 cup)
– 6 tbsp maple syrup
– 1 tbsp flour
– 1 egg

Pumpkin bread with cheesecake swirl by Thee met Aimee [recipe at www.theemetaimee.nl]Method:

For the cake batter, mix together the pumpkin puree, oil and eggs, and in a separate bowl the flour, baking powder and sugar. Then gently mix these two together and fold in the nuts. For the cheesecake swirl, mix together the mascarpone, sugar, syrup, flour and egg. Now poor about 2/3 of the cake batter in a butter or oil-greased pan, poor on the cheesecake mixture, and finish with the remaining cake batter. You could go through the concoction with a skewer to create a more marbled cake. Bat it at 160 degrees Celcius (or 325 Fahrenheit) for about 60 minutes. To bake the cake in my pictures, I used a round cake pan, just because I wasn’t in a loaf-pan-kind of mood, but you could of course pick whichever way you fancy.

Oreo cheesecake

Last year I took my first trip to the US, to California to be precise. There was one thing on top of my tourist-wish list: Visiting the Cheesecake Factory. The menu totally threw me off! Back here in the Netherlands, generally, we’re only familiar with the basic New York cheesecake, so I had a very very hard time choosing which cheesecake to try. Needless to say, I went for the Oreo cheesecake, and until this day I cannot get the mind-blowing taste out of my head. It honestly was one of the best pieces of cake I have ever tasted.

It took me a few tries, but I think this recipe approaches the sublime original, without being too hard to make yourself.


Ingredients:

–   2 packs of Oreos (2x 176 grams, or 32 cookies)

–   70 g butter, melted

–   250 g mascarpone

–   200 g crème fraîche

–   200 g cream cheese

–   200 g powdered sugar

–   4 eggs, yolks and whites separated

–   2 tbsp corn starch [or ‘maizena’ in Dutch]

–   two vanilla pods (or 2 tsp of essence)


Method:

Crush half of the Oreos, including the cream in the middle, (1 pack = 4×4 cookies = 176 grams) and mix the crumbs with 70 grams of melted unsalted butter. Press them in a springform pan lined with baking paper, and let the crust harden in the fridge while you start making your filling. You could of course use more cookies, for a thicker deliciously dark crust.

This cheesecake filling can be used to make one regular-sized cake (22-24 cm diameter) or you could make party bites: this filling is enough for 45 small ones (in a muffin/cupcake tin).

Mix the egg whites until stiff. In a separate bowl, mix together the cheeses, sugar, egg yolks, corn starch and vanilla. Make sure the mixture turns out smooth. Then gently fold in the stiff egg whites, and transfer it into the crust. Next, you can break some Oreos into large chunks and spread these over the cheesecake mixture – don’t worry, they’re meant to kind of sink in. Now bake the cheesecake for 1.5 hours at 150°C (or 25 minutes at 160°C if you’re making small ones). After baking, the cake may not look too firm, but know that it will set when cooled. Leave the cheesecake in the oven after baking for about two hours so it cools slowly. Then move it to the fridge for at least another two hours. Finish the cake of with some powdered sugar and Oreos on top.

Limoncello semifreddo [lemon ice cream cake]

Making your own ice cream can be tricky, and often requires very specific equipment. That is why I’m such a big fan of semifreddo: “Semifreddo (pronounced [semiˈfredːo], Italian: half cold) is a class of semi-frozen desserts, typically ice-cream cakes, semi-frozencustards, and certain fruit tarts. It has the texture of frozen mousse because it is usually produced by uniting two equal parts of ice cream and whipped cream” (Wikipedia).

I was looking for inspiration for a dessert incorporating limoncello when I came across my peer Caroline’s Blog. She had posted a recipe for limoncello semifreddo, which to me sounded like a win-win. In fact, the dessert turned out to be just that — even though in the end I made it without the lemon sauce/syrup.

The preparation is pretty straight forward: the semifreddo consists of a cream cheese & lemon curd mixture, layered in a cake tin between lemoncello+lemon juice+sugar-soaked lady fingers. For those of you that don’t master the Dutch language, I translated the ingredients:

– zest and juice of 1 lemon
– 2 tbsp fine sugar
– 80 ml limoncello
– 325 g lemon curd (I happened to have 1 jar of home-made lying around, which was just the right amount)
– 250 g cream cheese
– 250 g mascarpone (italian cream cheese)
– approximately 24-30 lady fingers

For the sauce/syrup
– 100 g fine sugar
– 1 lemon, the zest in long thin pieces
– juice of 1 lemon

One week later, I started experimenting, and mixed molten chocolate and sugar with the cream (in stead of lemon curd), and soaked the lady fingers in rum (in stead of limoncello). That is all it took to create another beautiful dessert, and as I’m writing this I start getting even more variation-ideas…

Cappuccino cupcakes

Two great friends of mine had recently given me a very decent coffee maker — for free! There was really only one way to say ‘thank you’, which was to have them over for coffee with a treat. For the occassion, I whipped up these cappuccino cupcakes within the hour. I believe these portrayed my gratitude appropriately!

Ingredients:

200 g flour

7 g baking powder (approximately 1 tablespoon, or you could use self-raising flour)

220 g sugar

a pinch of salt

1 egg

180 ml milk

60 ml vegetable oil (I prefer peanut or sunflower)

vanilla extract, or the contents of  1 ‘fresh’ vanilla bean

some tablespoons of extra extra extra strong coffee, to taste

mascarpone, or another type of delicious heavy cream, about 125 g

powdered sugar, amount to taste

  1.  Mix together the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt).
  2. In another bowl, mix together the wet ingredients (egg, milk, oil, coffee) and vanilla.
  3. Mix the dry and wet ingredients together, pour the mixture in baking cups lined up in a cupcake baking tray and bake for about 25 minutes at 180 degrees celsius.
  4. Mix powdered sugar into the cream until you think the taste is just sweet enough.
  5. When the cupcakes are cooled (preferably on a wire rack), just smear the cream on top, and finish with a some chocolate sprinkles or cocoa powder.

Showoff post: Chocolate mousse torte

I am starting to get kind of repetitive in my posts, but again, this one is not hard to make: a chocolate mousse torte/pie or whatever you want to call it. I’d like to call it: an awesome dessert!

All it took was a store-bought Oreo pie crust, one layer of cream cheese+vanilla+fine sugar and one layer of chocolate mousse (dark chocolate+whipped cream+gelatin), and a couple of hours of setting in the fridge.

German apple pastry: Apfelschnitten

Although the American kitchen is well known for its home baking, the baking tradition is said to have originated from the German/Austrian immigrants. Classics like Scharzwalder Kirschtorte (chocolate and cherry liquor cake), Sachertorte (chocolate cake with apricot jam) and of course apple pastries like Apfelschnitten/Apfelkuchen are famous around the globe. And what about ‘the original’ New York cheesecake? Not to offend anyone, but the Germans already had their Kasekuchen.

As a baking fanatic and foody, of course I feel drawn to trying all these classics, and today I’ll share a great recipe for Apfelschnitten. They’re not difficult to make, and really practical at a party: everyone can just grab a piece and eat it without a plate and fork.

I used a 38,5 by 26 cm square oven pan (1001 cm squared, which resulted in about 18 servings), but you could of course adjust the ingredients to fit your baking pan.

Ingredients:

For the crust

74 g raisins, soaked in 74 ml rum

370 g flour

225 g sugar

2 eggs

165 g butter

pinch of salt

zest of 1/2 lemon

74 g raspberry jam

For the pound cake layer

53 g butter

90 g butter

1 egg

zest of 1/2 lemon

144 g flour

5 g baking powder

30 g almond powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon

111 ml milk

For the topping

5 medium-sized, sweet apples

74 g apricot jam

2 tbsp water

  1. For the crust: mix together the flour, sugar, eggs, butter, salt and zest, and knead into a ball. Roll it out on a flour dusted worktop, and cover the (baking paper-covered) bottom of the pan. Poke some holes with a fork, and apply a layer of rasperry jam. Let the crust sit in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
  2. For the pound cake layer: mix together the butter, sugar, egg and zest. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, almond powder and cinnamon, and add to the butter mixture. Mix in the milk, and spread the cake mixture over the chilled crust.
  3. Sprinkle the raisins onto the cake layer.
  4. Cut the apples into wedges, and lay them onto the cake layer party covering each other, like roof tiles.
  5. Bake the Apfelschnitten (which literary translates as ‘apple wedges’) for about 40 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius.
  6. For a nice, shiny finish, heat the apricot jam with some water and cover the top of the Apfelschnitten.

 

 

Showoff post: tiramisu cake

Just a quicky showoff today. My ‘baby’ sister (she turned 21, actually) loves tiramisu, so I was pretty set on baking her a tiramisu-style birthday cake. I can’t really provide you guys with a straightforward recipe: I just combined some recipes off the internet (Pinterest, mainly) and don’t exactly remember the details. It involved regular vanilla cake, layers of buttercream with amaretto, and of course the characteristic cocoa powder on top, and lady fingers (or, as we know them in the Netherlands, lange vingers – which means ‘long fingers’) for the chic finish.