Cheesecake in Mexico

One of my favourites - Mexican style! Sampled at the Playacar Palace {which I loved!} while away this past April. My final baking class will now be in September, but the good news is I have a new kitchen {and new home} so a lot more baking coming soon...as soon as I figure out how to use my gas stove.

Cookies & cream

I love the photography in Martha Stewart's cookbooks, so there are a few recipes I've been inspired to try. These Cookies and Cream Cheesecakes are from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes. They were very simple to make: cream cheese, sugar, salt, sour cream, eggs, vanilla & of course, crushed Oreos, are mixed and poured into cupcake liners that each have an Oreo placed in them. Baked, cooled and refrigerated until set. That's it! {and so good...}

Cinnamon twist finale

This is it: my last Breakfast Breads class! Two variations of a cinnamon coffee cake for our finale, one with a raisin filling, the other a pecan/chocolate chip combo. The dough included a yeast/water/pastry flour slurry {left to rest for 30 minutes}, flour, malt, salt, whole eggs, butter and a milk/yeast slurry {added last}. The dough is rolled out, brushed with butter, covered with filling and rolled into a log. A slit is cut down the center of the log, leaving 2 inches on either side. Then the log is picked up and twisted and placed on a baking sheet or cut to fit in a loaf pan. Proofed and baked at 350 degrees for about 30-40 minutes. It was not bad; the raisin variation was much tastier than the nut one.

Bread class starts in May. Until then, there are a few recipes I've been meaning to try...

Cherries, nuts & poppyseeds

After a break for Family Day weekend, school is back in session. Ingredient-wise, danish dough is similar to croissant dough except that eggs are included. It's moister and the easiest to work with out of the pastry doughs I've made so far. We made poppyseed {above} and nut & cherry {below}. For the poppy seed filling, sugar, honey & water are brought to a boil, poured over poppyseeds and blended with cake crumbs, eggs & cinnamon. The dough was rolled out, covered with filling and rolled into a log and sliced.

The nut filling was a one-step method which included: ground hazelnuts, cake crumbs, butter, sugar, vanilla & spices. The dough for this was rolled out and half was covered with the filling and the uncovered half was folded over it. The dough was then cut into strips and each strip was twisted and then coiled up into a circle. A dollop of cherry filling was then placed in the center of each.

Both types of danishes were proofed and baked at 390 degrees for about 15 minutes. The poppyseed ones were dusted with icing sugar and the nut ones were brushed with apricot glaze {I could have done without that - too sticky!}.

Fluffy!

So it turns out bagels are pretty easy to make. Yeast and lukewarm water are mixed to make a slurry, then bread & rye flour, vegetable oil, sugar and salt are added on top. After being mixed for 5 minutes, the dough is kneaded, rounded up and left to rest for 30 minutes. We also made a cinnamon-raisin version of the dough. Here the dough is mixed for 4 minutes, then the cinnamon & raisins are added in and everything is mixed for an additional 2 minutes.

After the resting period, the dough is divided into 100g pieces and rolled into balls. Using the end of a wooden spoon, a hole is poked through the center of each ball and stretched open to form a ring. Each ring is dropped into a pot of boiling, salted water until it floats {this only takes about 10 seconds}. To make poppyseed or sesame seed versions, the tops of the bagels are dipped into the seeds after coming out of the water. Then these go into the oven for 20-30 minutes at 375 degrees. I really liked how chewy they came out; definitely not as dense as a Montreal-style bagel.