Easy peasy cream cheese frosting

I use this a lot, so I figured I'd give it it's own post so I don't just keep repeating myself over and over and boring you into a stupor!

This is what you need:

150 – 160 grams Philadelphia cream cheese

40 – 50 grams butter (softened)

120 grams (1 packet – 1 cup) confectioner’s sugar

Depending on what you're frosting you can also add powdered cinnamon or pure vanilla extract, or almond extract. It is also a good base for flavored frostings like chocolate cream cheese frosting.

This is what you do:

Beat together cream cheese and butter until well combined and fluffy (smitten kitchen says to soften cream cheese too, but I find that cold cream cheese makes for a thicker frosting – as suggested by the Joy of Cooking) add vanilla if using.

Sift in sugar (and cinnamon, if using) and beat until well mixed, but don’t over beat cause it’ll get runny.

Try and wait for your cake to cool before frosting….

Healthy Carrot Cake

Sunday the husband wasn’t feeling well so I decided to bake him a carrot cake to cheer him up. This version is loosely adapted from the Joy of Cooking, though I modified it to make it a little healthier and more kid friendly. Luckily for me, my toddler doesn’t like overly sweet cakes so I substituted part of the sugar and part of the oil with applesauce (this also makes it more diet friendly for me!) Carrot cake is so easy to make and so satisfying there’s really no reason not to bake it every week… well, you know, if you’re naturally skinny or have a lot of self-control or can stand to eat it with no icing… I can only get away with it once a month or so but it’s so worth it!

This is what you need:

200 grams (1 ½ cup - 7oz) whole wheat flour (this’ll make it slightly denser than all purpose flour, but it’s still moist thanks to the applesauce)

100 grams (½ cup – 3.5oz) sugar                             

10 grams (1 ½ tsp – 0.35oz.) baking soda     

5grams (1 tsp – 0.2oz.) baking powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground cloves; ½ tsp ground nutmeg; ½ tsp ground allspice

½ tsp salt

½ cup vegetable oil

3 large eggs

200 grams (1 cup – 2oz.) spiced apple sauce

200 grams (2 cups – 4oz.) freshly grated carrots

55 grams (1 cup - 2oz) finely chopped walnuts or pecans (I used the latter) - optional

1 handful golden raisins (if they’re the largish kind chop them up a little bit) - optional

This is what you do:

Preheat your oven to 180°C – 350°F

Mix together all your dry ingredients (follow the list down from flour to salt) in a big bowl.

Add in your wet ingredients (oil, eggs and applesauce) and mix by hand or beat on low speed.

Add in carrots, nuts and raisins and mix by hand.

Butter and flour your round spring-form pan, pour in the mixture right away and spread evenly.

Bake 25 – 30 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool for 15 minutes then take out of pan. Frost when completely cooled!

Spiced Applesauce Cake

I got this recipe of the Smitten Kitchen website (surprise, surprise) and as usual it came out fantastic, so had to share. Plus I had promised many posts featuring apples and pears, right? You may be relieved to hear that I’m halfway through the three crates of apples and pears I got from my friend (mostly cause I’m cooking and pureeing for the baby like Gerber’s is going out of business) so I’ll hopefully be changing subject matter in the near future. For now, this lovely, easy cake.

This is what you need:     

A square non-stick cake pan  - I used a heart-shaped one cause I was feeling whimsical today!      

365 grams (1 ½ cup – 13oz) applesauce (I made a mix of spiced apple and pear sauce, will be posting the recipe for this asap on Moomser Baby)

½ cup crushed pecans (the original says walnuts, but I had pecans…)

250 grams (2cups – 8 ¾ oz.) all purpose flour         

10 grams (2tsp) baking powder

3 grams ( ½ tsp) baking soda

3 grams ( ½ tsp) salt

2 grams ( ¾ tsp) cinnamon

1 gram ( ½ tsp) ground ginger (I also added the same amount of ground nutmeg, ground cloves, and allspice)

115 grams (1 stick – 4oz) unsalted butter – softened

215 grams (1 cup – 7 ¾ oz) light brown sugar (as usual I would put less sugar cause it was too sweet for my palate, next time I’ll stick to no more than 180grams)

5ml (1 tsp) pure vanilla extract

2 eggs – room temperature

This is what you do:

Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F)

Beat together butter and sugar until soft and fluffy (took me at least 10 minutes, but my sugar was quite coarse, keep an eye on it).

While that’s beating, measure out your dry ingredients. And butter your cake dish.

Then add eggs to wet ingredients one at a time and beat well in between. Add applesauce.

Put your mixer on low and add in the dry ingredients and nuts and mix until just combined.

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes until tester inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean – it took me 30 minutes, so check on your cake often!

 

Let it cool for 15 – 20 minutes and take out of your pan to let it cool completely. You’ll notice that my cake is cracked… I took it out too soon, so be patient!

You can serve this with cream cheese frosting:

This is what you need:

150 – 160 grams Philadelphia cream cheese

40 – 50 grams butter (softened)

120 grams (1 packet – 1 cup) confectioner’s sugar

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1 tsp cinnamon

This is what you do:

Beat together cream cheese and butter until well combined and fluffy (smitten kitchen says to soften cream cheese too, but I find that cold cream cheese makes for a thicker frosting – as suggested by the Joy of Cooking) add vanilla.

Sift in sugar and cinnamon and beat until well mixed, but don’t over beat cause it’ll get runny.

Try and wait for your cake to cool before frosting, I obviously didn't….

Apple Strudel

I got a whole lot of apples from a friend who has apple trees and doesn’t know what to do with all the damn apples that all come in at the same time (lucky me!) so… you’ll be seeing apples heavily featured in the next few posts (pears too, got lots of pears as well). I do, of course, cook and purée most of these totally organic, free fruits that I occasionally get (one of the pleasures of living in the country!) for the Girl and Boy but there’s only so many fruit jars you can stick in your fridge, freezer and cupboard before you start looking insane, so the excess fruit gets eaten by the adults. Not a bad compromise.

This is what you need:

4 large apples whatever you think cooks well, mine came from a friends’ apple tree and neither of us know what they are called (and am too lazy right now to do an internet search, sorry…)

Puff pastry sheet – in Italy I use the ready-made, refrigerated not frozen, Buitoni pasta sfoglia rotonda. It’s a round sheet of puff pastry approximately 25cm (10in.) in diameter. Use whatever you like, frozen is fine too (defrost it!) you can even make it yourself, but I can’t help you there yet… maybe in a few years!

½ cup brown sugar – the recipe I followed called for 1 cup sugar, which is what I used, WAY, WAY too sweet!

1cup raisins (ideally, golden raisins, but I had sun-maid so that’s why mine are so dark)

1tbs cinnamon - 1tsp vanilla extract -  1 lemon - 1 egg yolk

The husband would have like some pine nuts, or almond slivers too, but there was nary a one to be found in our house so can't tell you how that would have done, but I think it would have done quite well...

This is what you do:

1.       Peel, core, pit and slice 3 apples, then grate the 4^th apple. If you’re going to peel and cut the apples and then get distracted, like I tend to do, I suggest you stick them in a bowl of water with a little lemon juice as you go so they don’t get all dark and ugly, though it is just an aesthetic concern as the darkness and ugliness of your apples in no way affects the final product.

Buuuuut, don’t put the grated apple in the water, just drizzle it with some lemon juice, it’ll still get dark, but it gives it a nice tangy note.

2.       If you’re using nice plump golden raisins, you’re good to go, but if your raisins are a little dry and sad looking (like they’ve been sitting in your cupboard, ignored, for years) soak them in a some water for a few minutes and they’ll plump right up, I like me a plump raisin.

3.       Drain your cut apples (NOT the grated apple!) and your raisins and mix in a bowl with sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and any lemon juice you’ve got left (just a few drops are fine)

4.       Now spread your puff pastry on a sheet of parchment paper on a shallow baking pan, I prefer metal ones to glass or ceramic because I feel that they heat better on the bottom and the puff pastry cooks more evenly.

5.       NOW get your grated apple (finally) and spread it down the center of your pastry, and then arrange the rest of your apple concoction on top. If you’re using a round pastry you want to make a rectangle with your filling down the center, so you’ve got two larger semicircles on the sides and smaller ones on the ends.

6.       Delicately close the pastry on top of the filling and wet the top edge with your fingertips so that it sticks to the bottom flap. And then close the two ends.

7.       Paint on your egg yolk, I actually forgot to, it doesn’t change the taste at all but it’s just not as pretty. Finally, cut steam vents on top.

8.       Stick in oven for 30 - 35 minutes*

*About cooking times: When I’m baking I tend to always set my timer a few minutes earlier than the cooking time indicated (in this case, I set it at 25 minutes) so that I can check on whatever I’m baking, as I’ve learned that you can always keep baking something, but you can’t unbake once you’ve burned it… imagine that… in this case I baked it for the full 35 minutes.

*I have a ventilated or convection oven, so it tends to cook faster than unventilated ovens. Just so you know.

New York Cheesecake with Cherry topping

I’m not a very good baker, and I’m not a big cake person, but I do have my favorites, and cheesecake is right at the top of the list. Unfortunately (or fortunately for my waistline), you can’t readily find New York Cheesecake in Italy, possibly in Rome or Milan, but I’ve never had the pleasure of eating it here. There are lots of cakes with cheese… but nothing that satisfied my palate. I haven’t managed to make it back to the US for two years, that’s the absolute longest I’ve been away, but what with the pregnancy, having the baby and the husband’s illness, we just haven’t made it out, so for my 35^th birthday I decided to overcome my fear of the oven and bake myself one, or give myself a nervous breakdown trying.

The results were surprisingly good for a newbie, a little undercooked, just a little too big for my household, but overall I was satisfied and, most importantly, I satisfied my cheesecake craving for a good long while!

Following is the recipe I used, for the original click on over to Deb's New York Cheesecake or check it out in the Joy of Cooking, though credit for the Cherry topping goes fully to Deb at Smitten Kitchen (one of my all time favorite food blogs).