Spiced Pumpkin Cheesecake

I have finally made my very first cheesecake! Ok, I lie, I haven’t just made it, I made it around Christmas time, last year. The draft of this entry was privately published on January 2, 2013. It’s quite embarrassing that I am only now getting around to posting it… over 4 months after it was made, but ho-hum.

This is a New York style baked cheesecake, which is infused with pumpkin puree and spices. It was so simple to make, and the flavour is absolutely fantastic.  The filling is creamy, dreamy and light.  Although it’s made with full fat cream cheese, it’s not heavy whatsoever. I can’t wait to make it again!

Chocolate Meringue Buttercream Frosting

My sister used to bake cakes a lot when we were growing up.  She often decorated her cakes with buttercream, something I really didn’t like.  It was made from a simple recipe, which called for equal amounts (mass) of butter and icing (powdered) sugar. It was just so dense and cloyingly sweet!  What was worse, was that she used catering margarine instead of butter - eurgh…

It was only in the last year that I discovered meringue based buttercream, and even then the recipe did not convince me to try it.  The only reason I tried was after we sampled a few cupcakes in Portland, and they were delicious.  I was quite shocked!

This chocolate meringue based buttercream is packed full of flavour, barely sweet, light, creamy and oh so delicious!  It also doesn’t form that horrible crust as many other frostings do.

Lemon Mousse Cake

This was the second birthday cake for A (… this blog entry was delayed for 5 months). The ultimate chocolate cake was, ermm, just too chocolatey! I had to give most of it away because it was just too much. It was so rich, so dense, and it contained so much fat, so much sugar, so much everything!

This cake was completely the opposite. It was light, fluffy, lemony and we could have eaten the whole thing in one sitting (but we refrained). Any lover of lemony things will not be able to resist the light, tangy mousse sandwiched between two light sponge cakes.

Dark Chocolate and Peanut Butter Fudge

 

Peanut butter and chocolate are the two things that I love, but rarely put them together. Why? I have no idea, because they are so good together!

A few years, I would have cringed over the thought. I didn’t grow up with peanut butter cups or anything of the sort. I liked peanut butter and I liked chocolate, but I’d never had them together. The closest thing I came to that was a Snickers bar.

So why this fudge? I wanted to something different. I have made dark chocolate fudge already, so why not add a new dimension to it? Although I had thought this up for some time, I had put off making it because

The Ultimate Chocolate Cake

This is A’s xx birthday cake, and it’s truly THE ultimate chocolate cake. It consists of a dense three layer chocolate cake, sandwiched together with dark chocolate ganache. It’s the most chocolaty chocolate cake I’ve ever tasted.  The cake is dark, chocolatey, incredibly rich and dense. It is not for the faint hearted! In fact, M. said that we have hidden a mini chocolate factory in each slice… she wasn’t wrong there.

It was so damn chocolaty, it nearly made us sick. Ok, it didn’t help that we had 1/8 th each.

All-Butter Flapjacks

Over the last few days, I’ve been craving flapjacks…  British flapjacks.  The ones made with butter, oats, sugar and golden syrup.  I guess to an American, I would describe them as a chewy granola bar, but with so much more flavour!

These flapjacks can be chewy or crunchy, just by changing the cooking temperature. I prefer the chewy version, but have given instructions for both below. They are perfect for packed lunches, afternoon tea, or general snacking. I also remember people putting raisins and/or chocolate chips in them, but I prefer the plain Jane variety – simple is the best!

English Breakfast Muffins

English breakfast muffins should NOT be sour or tangy!  They should not have vinegar in them, and if they do, it should merely be a preservative and should not make your nostril hairs twitch in discomfort from the stink.  Eugh!

Since I have some muffins rings in my cupboard (from my crumpets experiment), I thought I’d whip up a batch. We were not disappointed!  The resulting muffins, were slightly crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside and when prised open, there was just the right amount of nooks and crannies to