I love cheeky cookbooks.

This is probably what first attracted me to the charming, shameless and utterly delicious cookbook Bite Me: A Stomach-Satisfying, Visually Gratifying, Fresh-Mounthed Cookbook.

I remember it well. It was a Friday night, after work. I had taken my weekly trip to the local bookstore and was cruising the cookbook section for my latest conquest, er, I mean cookbook.

My eyes were immediately attracted to Bite Me after seeing it piled high on a display table. I flipped through it, fell in immediate love with the humour and funny recipe titles and purchased it right then and there.

Not too long after, I was looking for some information about the authors, Julie Albert and Lisa Gnat, when I came across their site for the book. Pure delectable fun. I’ve rarely seen cookbook authors that approach the sale of their cookbook with the humour and gusto that these authors do.

And they’re pretty sweet too since, after I contacted them, they kindly arranged for a copy of their book to be sent along for review at The Daring Kitchen (you can read the review here).

After spending months perusing the book, it was high time to try a few recipes and my goodness were they good!

I tried the recipe for Mona Lisa’s Fontina and Arugula Pizza (except I used Asiago instead of Fontina) and loved it. Lightly dressed arugula on a hot, cheesy pizza is hard to resist.

But the recipe I really and truly loved was the Chocolate-Crusted Creamy Caramel Cheesecake. Apparently if you drench unbaked cheesecake with caramel sauce it bakes up all sugary and golden and delicious and crunchy and I should probably just come clean and tell you that I ate the entire cheese cake myself.

Don’t judge me.

Bite me.

Ciao!

You can check out some of the great recipes from Bite Me here.

I consider myself a fairly generous person, especially when it comes to baking. I love to share.

Except for Nutella. Don’t touch my Nutella.

Seriously.

I will threaten anyone, even those I love dearly, with infinite pain if I catch them even eyeing my Nutella supply.

Generally, an early warning system kicks in whereby I will give the person-in-question/potential victim the chance to escape in one piece.

“Step away from the Nutella!”

Should that warning go unheeded, I am not to be held responsible for the outcome, regardless of how ugly.

This deep devotion to Nutella extends beyond my complete unwillingness to share it with anyone. My love also manifests itself in the desire to mark World Nutella Day.

As far as I’m concerned it ranks almost right up there with Christmas.

For those of you that don’t know, February 5th marks the day that Sara from Ms. Adventures in Italy, Michelle from Bleeding Espresso and Shelley from At Home in Rome have annointed as the day to celebrate the most glorious of chocolate spreads.

I went Nutella-crazy this year because I’m already going through a fairly stressful period at work. And everyone knows the best cure for stress is lots of Nutella. I made a Nutella Ripple Cheesecake that I covered in ridiculous amounts of Nutella and crushed hazelnuts so as to add some nutritional value.

See. I’m as health conscious as the next person.

I used a past Daring Baker’s challenge as the base recipe for my cheesecake. With a few adjustments and lots of Nutella and frangelico, I think I did a valiant job in paying homage to one of the best days of the year.

Happy Nutella Day! Just remember, stay away from my Nutella!

Ciao!

For details on how to participate in World Nutella Day, click here.

Nutella Ripple Cheesecake
Based on Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake.

Note: You’ll need a 9-inch cheesecake pan for this recipe. You’ll also need some heavy duty aluminum foil to wrap the pan in. Because the cheesecake is baked in a water bath, you don’t want any of the water to seep into the bottom of your cheesecake. Wrapping the pan in foil prevents that. You will also need a larger pan that you can fit the cheesecake pan into for the water bath.

For the Crust:
2 cups chocolate crumbs (you can use Oreo crumbs or chocolate wafer crumbs)
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 tbsp. sugar

For the Filling:
3 8-ounce packages of cream cheese, at room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup heavy cream, at room temperature
1 tbsp. pure vanilla extract
3 tbsps. Frangelico
1/2 cup Nutella (the Nutella has to be fairly liquidy so I recommend warming it in a double boiler so you can drizzle it easily)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place a kettle full of water to boil for the water bath.

2. Combine all the crust ingredients and pour into your cheesecake pan. Press the crumbs firmly so that they cover the entire bottom of the pan (no need to push crumbs up the side of the pan).

3. In a stand mixer, combine the cream cheese and sugar at medium speed until smooth. There should be no cream cheese lumps.

4. Add the eggs, one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl in between each addition.

5. Add the vanilla extract, the heavy cream and the Frangelico and mix until smooth. Be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

6. Pour half the cheesecake batter over the prepared crust. Drizzle the Nutella over the batter and then top with the remaining cheesecake batter. Fit the pan into a larger pan and pour in the boiling water until it reaches halfway up the sides of the cheesecake pan. Be careful not to spill any water in your cheesecake.

7. Carefully transfer the cheesecake to the oven. Bake for at least 45 minutes. The cheesecake should be set around the edges but still fairly wobbly in the middle. If not, continue baking for another 5 minutes and check again.

8. When the cheesecake is done, turn off the oven but leave the cheesecake in there for an hour to set up.

9. After an hour, remove the cheesecake from the water bath and discard the foil. Place the cheesecake on a wire rack to cool to room temperature.

10. Once the cheesecake is cool, place in the refrigerator until it is very cold (at least 6 hours). If you can leave it in overnight, that’s even better.

I love Cath of A Blithe Palate for many, many reasons, not the least of which being that every now and then, unto my life, she will bring joy in the form of a cookbook.

That’s what I call a fabulous virtual friend. Were I ever to meet her in person, I just might smother her with hugs. (Be forewarned, Cath. Be forewarned.)

Late in July, she contacted me to let me know that she, Stephanie of Dispensing Happiness (I’ll say!) and the fabulous folks at Cook the Books would be hosting another edition of The Edible Word, an event that celebrates delicious cookbooks.

The selection for this edition is a book called Confections of a Closet Master Baker: One Woman’s Sweet Journey from Unhappy Hollywood Executive to Contented Country Bakerby Gesine Bullock-Prado.

Now if there something about that name that seems slightly familiar, it should. The Bullock part is Bullock as in Sandra Bullock. As it turns out, her younger sister Gesine, a lawyer and Hollywood executive, nursed a secret passion for baking until one day, tired of her L.A. life, she decides it’s time to downsize in the truest sense of the word. She downsizes all the way to Vermont where she opens her own bakery.

I know. You think you’ve heard it all before. Sounds like the script for a Hollywood movie starring some starlet who hasn’t eaten in 11 years much less baked.

People, trust the Cream Puff.

This is a good book. It’s a good book because Ms. Bullock-Prado is honest, often brutally so. She doesn’t sugarcoat (pardon the pun) her old life, or her new one for that matter. She offers full disclosure when it comes to the rigours of operating your own bakery, and believe me there are rigours.

Yes, there is the pleasure of being your own boss. Yes, there is the pleasure of spending ridiculous hours doing something you love.

But it’s still damn hard.

Ms. Bullock-Prado is honest, funny and real, as in sometimes, her cakes come out lopsided too.

And the recipes, tucked in between each chapter like chocolate tucked into a croissant, are delicous to read so imagine how they taste.

I don’t have to imagine because I made two of them: Espresso Cheesecake and Apple Pie (made with a puff pastry crust).

Verdict: Even more delicious than Alexander Skarsgard.

When Cath explained the goal of this event, she indicated that we should talk about how the book inspired us.

I will be very blunt: this book just makes you wonder. Can I do it, too? Can I give up the fear and the worry and “buts” and “what ifs” and just go out there and do what I really really want to do?

Yes, I can. Yes, we all can!

Ciao!

I’m a bit late posting my piece for this event. You can read the round-ups on Cath’s blog here, here and here.

You can also read a review of the book at The Daring Kitchen.

I recently tried two desserts that I’d previously made for a second time and I wanted to blog about it, because they were both, if possible, even better the second time around.

The first dessert in quesion is Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake, which was the April 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge. I made the cheesecake but didn’t get to try it because I gifted it to some coworkers that helped me through a particularly busy period at work. After reading about how everyone loved the cheesecake, and loving it myself, I decided to try it again so that I could taste it.

In one word, this cheesecake is sublime.

It really and truly is the best cheesecake I have ever made. I followed the recipe without making any alterations (recipe below), and I made a very quick strawberry sauce using fresh strawberries, lemon juice, lemon zest, sugar and water.

I am not ashamed to say that I ate 97.6 per cent of the cheesecake on my own. The other 2.4 per cent is unaccounted for.

I suspect Mama Cream Puff.

The second dessert that I recently tried again is the Triple-Layer Lemon Cake that I made for my Zia Don’s 50th birthday late last year. When I made it for the birthday party, I had to increase the cake size and make other variations to the recipe so that it would feed a much larger group of people. This time around I made the cake as per the recipe and it was just delicious. The recipe is from Issue #63 of Fine Cooking, unfortunately, it’s no longer available free on the Fine Cooking site. However, you can sign up for a free trial and print a copy of the recipe.

I sometimes find that recipes don’t stand up to second and third attempts. In this case, these are two recipes that will likely stand up to the test of time.

Ciao!

Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake

For the crust:

2 cups / 180 g graham cracker crumbs
1 stick / 4 oz butter, melted
2 tbsp. / 24 g sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

For the cheesecake:

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

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!

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

What is it about cheesecake that is so enthralling? Is it the creamy texture? The fascinating base? The endless ways to top it?

I don’t know. I just know it’s good.

And yet, even though it’s one of my most favourite desserts, I hardly ever make it.

Perhaps that’s because I can very easily eat an entire cheesecake myself. Oh, yes.

Been there. Done that. Have the t-shirt. (Speaking of t-shirts … have you bought your DK t-shirts yet???)

But I’m always happy to try a new recipe for cheesecake so I was pleased to see that Jenny of Jenny Bakes, our lovely hostess for the April 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge, chose a cheesecake recipe as this month’s test.

While the recipe itself is straightforward, the challenge for Daring Bakers was to find new and interesting ways to interpret and flavour the cheesecake.

I’ll be honest. I didn’t have a lot of time to execute some of the more fanciful ideas that came to mind (let’s just say one involved silicone and cherry blossoms). Thankfully a lack of time and some timely prudence both conspired to prevent such plans.

In the end, I made your standard nine-inch cheesecake but I challenged myself by trying some flavours in a cheesecake that I’d never tried before.

For starters, I flavoured both the crust and the cheesecake with a healthy dose of rose water, which I have come to love.

Secondly, I added the flavour of Meyer lemons. While I know what Meyer lemons are, I’d never actually tasted one before April of this year. I found them in a local supermarket and bought two sacs because I was so excited. So I used some of the Meyer lemon juice and zest in the cheesecake as well.

I then made candied lemon slices with more of the Meyer lemons and used that as a topping to the cheesecake, spooning the candied lemon juice over the top to add shine and some sweetness.

While I did not taste the cheesecake myself (I brought it to a group of people that I work with who were particularly helpful to me during a big project earlier this year), from what I understand it was a creamy, luscious cheesecake that disappeared very quickly. And it was a pretty cheesecake too.

I can’t wait for Ontario strawberries to come in. I’m going to be making this again topped with a fresh strawberry sauce.

And I will call it, Le Cheesecake.

Ciao!

For the cheesecake recipe, please visit Jenny’s blog.

Unto the life of every Daring Baker, there must be some fun.

We can’t always be about puff pastry, meringue and caramel. Not to say that those elements of previous challenges haven’t been “fun”, it’s just that every once and awhile I want to channel my childhood days when there were no rules and it was all about playtime!

As though they had read my mind, Deborah of Taste and Tell and Elle of Feeding My Enthusiasms brought the perfect challenge to the April table: Cheesecake Pops from the cookbook Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey: Desserts for the Serious Sweet Tooth by Jill O’Connor.

Now I could go on and on about all the steps involved and give you an indepth look at the world of lollipop sticks. We could debate the merits of using real chocolate or candy coating to cover the pops and we could argue endlessly about decorations.

But that would spoil the fun.

Here’s what you need to know:

Bake a cheesecake.
Let it get very cold in the refrigerator.
Stick your hands into the cheesecake and scoop out mounds of it.
Turn the mounds into balls.
Stick a lollipop stick in each one.
Freeze them.
Dip them in chocolate.
Make them pretty.
Eat them.

NOW GO HAVE SOME FUN!!!

Ciao!

For the Cheesecake Pops recipe, please visit Deborah’s site or Elle’s site.

To see what all the other Daring Bakers created, please visit The Daring Bakers’ Blogroll.

Technorati tags: daring bakers, cheesecake

For this third edition of Magazine Mondays, I bring you what is quite possibly one of the most sinfully delicious things I have ever made.

Why I waited so long to try this recipe from the October 2004 issue of Food & Wine magazine is beyond me.

Beyond me.

Cream cheese. Caramel. And a hint of salt.

Dip your spoon through the caramel, sink into the cream cheese and taste the salty sweetness of it. And all the while, you watch as caramel oozes into the indentation you created with your spoon.

Don’t faint. Don’t wait. Just go and make this.

Oh yeah … and have a great week!

Ciao!

Magazine Monday #3: Salted Caramel Cheesecake.

Technorati tags: magazine mondays, cheesecake, caramel

Another year, another birthday!

I don’t care how old you are, your birthday is a day to celebrate. It’s a day to feel special and to count your blessings.

I am thankful for my family and my friends, all of whom make my birthday such a special day. Of course, as I get older, I can’t help but also be even more thankful and feel even more blessed for those who have had such a huge influence on me but who are also no longer with me.

I am thankful for Nonna Teresa and Nonna Pia. I am thankful for Nonno Domenico (Papu’) and Nonno Antonio.

I am thankful for my papa’.

This year I’m celebrating in grand style with this luscious Brownie Latte Cheesecake from Tish Boyle’s The Cake Book.

It was made especially for me by Mama Cream Puff, the best baker I know!

Won’t you all come and celebrate with me?

Ciao!

Today is Thanksgiving Day in Canada and it is without question, one of my favourite holidays. In fact, sometimes I will have little debates with myself (usually while baking) about which holiday I prefer: Christmas or Thanksgiving.

Nothing can match the light and magic of Christmas. However, Thanksgiving brings such joy and ease. It’s almost like Christmas without the pressure of buying gifts.

Mostly I love Thanksgiving for the turkey and the trimmings. I’m not complaining about my Italian background, I mean the food that I grew up with has been the basis for my love of food. But there has always been something so intriguing about turkey and cranberry sauce and gravy and squash. Yes. Even brussel sprouts fascinate me!

Happily, there is a huge chestnut-stuffed turkey in our oven right now! My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

To celebrate the breadth of the harvest, I like to make a variety of small desserts so that people can sample a little bit of everything. One of the items I’ve made are these mini pumpkin cheesecakes. A few years ago I came across the best pumpkin cheesecake recipe (ever!) in The King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion.

The feast is going to begin soon so I want to wish all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Ciao!

Technorati tags: thanksgiving, pumpkin, cheesecake

My apologies for the lack of posts around here.

It’s not that the Cream Puff has abandoned you or anything. It’s just that in all the recent heat and steam we’ve been experiencing lately, I’ve barely been able to muster the energy to lift a glass of iced tea to my lips.

Yes, it’s been that hot. Yes, it’s been that steamy. So much so that I suspect I may lose my title as honourary Southern Belle based on my inability to deal with it all.

What can I say? I’m a Northern girl at heart. I needs me my ice and snow!

But more than the steamy summer, I haven’t posted of late because, to be quite honest, I’ve had a bit of trouble letting go.

It was hard to let go of July and Lori Longbotham’s Luscious Berry Desserts (my Flavour of the Month for July).

It was hard to let go of sitting under the canopy in the yard as opposed to sitting in the basement in front of a computer.

It was just hard to let go.

And yet, in so many ways, July was about letting go. I hate to be the bearer of bad news to all you summer-lovers, but July’s end means that we’ve let go of the heart of summer. Sure most of August stretches before us and yes summer isn’t technically over until September. But you know once those school bells start ringing, it’s au revoir summer!

On a more personal level, July was the month that I let go of a lot of deadweight in the form of paper. I am embarrassed by the sheaves and sheaves of paper that I have been hoarding away in virtually every corner of my house. In the form of magazines, books, loose papers, they were everywhere! The arrival of my uncle from Italy and the impending arrival of two houseguests in the form of my Aunt D and my sweet cousin A from San Jose meant that it was time to take a serious look in all the cupboards and spooky places that I normally prefer not to look.

Food magazines galore.

Recipes galore.

Newspaper clippings of recipes galore.

All of it over every inch of this house. In every drawer, in every closet, in every cupboard, in every corner.

And the shame of it all is that in most cases, I’d barely even looked at any of these items in years. Case-in-point: last summer when we had the house painted, I packed away a stack of magazines and recipes in a large storage bin and shoehorned it into the closet.

“I’ll go through those as soon as the painting is done.”

Uh huh.

More than a year later, those very magazines and recipes in that very large storage bin remained buried at the bottom of the closet under a million other things.

Unlike other times, where I’ve merely paid lipservice to the act of truly cleaning and simply shuffled some papers here and stacked some more magazines there, it was time to truly take stock.

Why do I keep all these magazines? And why do I have all these loose bits of paper with recipes printed on them flying around my house? What is this all about?

As I sifted through the endless pile, I kept thinking to myself that I couldn’t possibly throw this recipe out or recycle that magazine. This is the 2002 issue of so-and-so that has that perfect recipe for watchamacallit that when I finally get around to making it will be the best thing ever.

And this faded piece of newsprint from 1992 has a recipe for baked you-knows that I’m going to make for whatshername’s party and wow everyone.

Oh, yes and there’s that post-it note with the recipe for that dish on it. It’s written in that horribly faded red ink and I’m probably going to have to hire an Egyptologist to decipher the hieroglyphics otherwise known as the instructions but that’s okay. When I finally do I’m going to cook up the dish of the century!

And so on. And so on. And so on.

A hundred best-chocolate-cakes ever. A thousand mouth-watering sugar cookies. A million mind-blowing apple pies. They were all there. Spread across my house like a trail of breadcrumbs.

And without thinking about it, I picked up all the bits of paper and put them in the recycling bin. I gathered all the magazines and brought them to work for my coworkers.

In one massive act of cleansing, I bid adieu to years worth of printed recipes and magazines.

Just like that. I let them all go.

Crazy of me? Perhaps.

But I think it’s more to do with the fact that it finally occurred to me that the best chocolate cake I will ever make is the one that I actually make. The imagination is delicious, but reality is even moreso.

It occurred to me that it was time to squelch the insecure little baker in me that keeps telling me I can bake a better this or a better that and just get down to the act of baking.

I let it all go.

I just let it all go. And I don’t regret it one bit.

Ciao!

Blueberry Cheesecake
From Luscious Berry Desserts by Lori Longbotham.

Note: My Flavour of the Month for August 2007 is Viana La Place’s lovely My Italian Garden. But before I get to that pretty little book, I had to say one last goodbye to Luscious Berry Desserts. Glory in the season’s most beautiful blueberries with this incredible cheesecake!

For the crust:

2 cups shortbread crumbs (about 20 to 25 shortbread cookies finely crushed)
6 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

Generously butter a 9-inch springform pan.

Combine the shortbread crumbs and the butter in a bowl and mix well.

Pack the crumbs into the pan, making sure to spread them about a quarter of the way up the sides of the pan. Place the crust in the refrigerator while you prepare the filling.

For the filling:

3 8-ounce packages cream cheese, at room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tbsp. finely grated lemon zest
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
2 tbsp. all-purpose flour
2 tbsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups ripe blueberries

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Combine the cream cheese and the sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix at medium speed until smooth and fluffy (4 to 5 minutes).

Beat the eggs and the yolk in one at a time making sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl occasionally.

Add the heavy cream, the lemon zest and juice, the flour, vanilla and the salt. Mix well.

Using a rubber spatula, carefully mix in the blueberries.

Pour the filling into the prepared pan. Place the pan in the oven for 15 minutes.

Lower the oven temperature to 200 degrees F. and bake for an hour. Once done, turn off the oven and open the door slightly. Leave the cheesecake in the oven for 45 minutes.

Remove the cheesecake and let it cool completely on a wire rack. Once cool, refrigerate the cheesecake overnight (or for about 8 hours) before serving.

Serve the cheesecake with a fruit sauce like raspberry curd.

Enjoy!

Technorati tags: cheesecake, blueberries