The Better Cheesecake

Welcome 2022! I’ve seen a lot of complaining and griping about 2021, but honestly for me it’s been one of the best years of my life. My granola business seems to be a good fit for me in so many ways. I’ve learned so much in the past 8 months about bringing a product to market, and I’ve met so many wonderful people. It’s been an incredibly positive experience. Not that I wasn’t complaining, last fall when the Delta variant hit Oregon hard we had to wear masks outside at the markets! That was a bit much! But we got through it. So…cheesecake!

The Better Cheesecake. I named it as such because it is remarkably better than my other cheesecake recipe. I made this for the new year and we were absolutely blown away by the flavor and texture. I think it’s the added heavy cream. And the way it’s baked. The recipe below is adapted from an adapted version of a Dorie Greenspan recipe on NYTimes Cooking. 

I changed a few things but not much. I used salted butter (and added more for the graham cracker crust) I think it tastes much better. Also I used a combination of sour cream and heavy cream, rather than just sour cream, and lastly I kept the pan of water separate in oven rather than placing cheesecake in pan of water. This was a tip that was in the comments section. The original recipe has you double foiling the pan and then placing it in boiling hot water while it’s baking. But it’s so much easier to just put a pan of hot water in the base of the oven. I think the hot water helps with the cracking problem. Because this time I had only one not-so-big crack on the top of the cheesecake. My other one cracked all over the place! 

I still had blueberries and cherries in the freezer from last summer’s yard harvest. They held up well and tasted great. I still have more blueberries to cook with so maybe there’s a pie coming up next week.

I hope your new year is off to a good start! And you can’t go wrong with this cheesecake, it’s so good!

The Better Cheesecake

For the crust:

• 1 3/4 cups graham cracker crumbs

• 3 tablespoons sugar

• Pinch of salt

• 1 stick (8 tablespoons) salted butter, melted

For the cheesecake:

• 2 pounds (four 8-ounce boxes) cream cheese, at room temperature

• 1 1/3 cups sugar

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

• 4 large eggs, at room temperature

• 3/4 cup sour cream

• 3/4 cup heavy cream

For the berry sauce:

• 2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries and/or cherries

• 1/2 cup water

• 1 tablespoon sugar

Make the crust: Butter a 9-inch springform pan — choose one that has sides that are 2 3/4 inches high (if the sides are lower, you will have cheesecake batter left over.)

Melt the butter. Stir the crumbs, sugar and salt together in a medium bowl. Pour over the melted butter and stir until all of the dry ingredients are uniformly moist. (You can do this with your fingers.) Turn the ingredients into the springform pan and use your fingers to pat an even layer of crumbs along the bottom of the pan and about halfway up the sides. Don’t worry if the sides are not perfectly even or if the crumbs reach above or below the midway point on the sides. Put the pan in the freezer while you heat the oven. 

Center a rack in the oven, and have a rack on the bottom for a pan of water. Heat the oven to 350° F and place the springform on a baking sheet. Bake the crust for 10 minutes. Set aside to cool. Reduce the oven temperature to 325° F.

To make the cheesecake: Put a kettle of water on to boil. Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with the paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the cream cheese at medium speed until it is soft and creamy, about 4 minutes. With the mixer running, add the sugar and salt and continue to beat for another 4 minutes or so, until the cream cheese is light. Beat in the vanilla. Add the eggs, one by one, beating for 1 full minute after each addition — you want a well-aerated batter. Scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl as needed. Reduce the mixer speed to low and stir in the sour cream and heavy cream.

Give the batter a few stirs with a rubber spatula, just to make sure that nothing has been left unmixed at the bottom of the bowl, and scrape the batter into the springform pan. The batter will reach the rim of the pan. (If you have a pan with lower sides and have leftover batter, you can bake the batter in a buttered ramekin or small soufflé mold.) Fill a roasting pan with hot water and place in the bottom rack of the oven.

Place the cheesecake on a sheet pan and place on the middle rack and bake the cheesecake for 1 hour 30 minutes, at which point the top will be browned (and perhaps cracked) and may have risen just a little above the rim of the pan. Turn off the oven’s heat and prop the oven door open with a wooden spoon. Allow the cheesecake to cool down for another hour.

After 1 hour remove from oven and let the cheesecake come to room temperature on a cooling rack.

When the cake is cool, cover the top lightly and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, although overnight is better. At serving time, remove the sides of the springform pan.

Make the berry sauce: In a small saucepan add the berries, water and sugar. Bring to a boil then reduce heat to a simmer, cook for about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool a bit before serving.

Blueberry Granola Loaf Cake

Hi there. I’m excited to share some news with you! I’ve been making granola on repeat all through the pandemic. It tastes really good so I had an idea a few months back to package and sell it (locally, at least for now). I set up a page here on Pixels + Crumbs with more info on Good Day Granola. I’m looking to be a vendor at some of Portland farmer’s markets over the next few months and I’ll be updating that page as things progress. I was at a Maker’s market last weekend and I managed to sell quite a few bags of granola. I had a lot of fun and I’ve enjoyed the whole process from recipe development, branding and packaging to being a vendor. It was also great to be around people. I’m fully vaccinated at this point and it feels so liberating! I know it’s not 100% guarantee but it gives me peace of mind. Once I can bake in a commercial kitchen I’ll be able to sell online and I’ll be sure to let you know.

So moving on to this Blueberry Granola Loaf Cake. It’s similar to the Blueberry Lemon Yogurt Cake I made way back in the beginning of this blog. Here I used sour cream because I accidentally bought too much and had to use it. But you could use yogurt if that’s what you prefer. And the topping is granola! It works great on top of the cake and makes it a little more breakfasty.

One more thing, my cake took 1 hour and 20 minutes to thoroughly bake! Not sure why it took that long, it may have been the loaf pan I used, it’s cast-iron and really not the best for baking cakes like this, but I think it looks cute for the photos, lol, so I would recommend testing the center of the cake 50-60 minutes and take it from there. It might need to go longer. Enjoy!

Blueberry Granola Loaf Cake 

• 1 1/2 Cups all-purpose flour

• 2 teaspoons baking powder

• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

• 1 cup sour cream

• 1 cup sugar

• 3 large eggs

• 2 teaspoons lemon zest (about 2 lemons)

• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 1/2 cup canola oil

• 1 cup blueberries

• 1 cup granola

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease loaf pan, line the bottom and longer sides with parchment paper and grease the paper with butter.

Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl.

In a large bowl whisk the yogurt, sugar eggs, lemon zest and vanilla until well combined. 

Mix the flour mixture into the liquid mixture.

Fold in the oil with a rubber spatula until thoroughly mixed then fold in the blueberries.

Pour the batter in the the pan, top with granola and bake for 1 hour, checking at the 50 minute mark until toothpick comes out clean in center.

Remove from oven to baking rack and cool for about 10 minutes leaving it in the pan, remove cake from pan with the parchment handles and let cool another 10 minutes or so until just warm.

Black Forest Cake

Black Forest Cake. or rather a Black Forest Gateau. Gateau just means cake with cream and fruit filling. I didn’t know that so thought to pass that along. I asked Jeff what kind of cake he would like for his birthday and he showed me this Black Forest Gateau on BBC good food. It looked amazing! I searched around for other recipes online and came up with the one I’m posting here. I’m really happy with the results so decided to take some photos and do a blog post. The cake part of the recipe is from Call Me Cupcake and the rest, the filling and topping, is from my previous cake recipes, with the exception of the brandied cherries which I sort of made up, there are so many different ways to make them, but they came out really good! It’s not cherry season so I used frozen cherries. I couldn’t find any Bada Bing cherries in a jar (I didn’t need 6 jars!), which would have looked nice on top of the cake, but I just worked with what I could find. It’s weird these days why it’s hard to find certain things, not just toilet paper but jalapeños at Whole Foods? None? Really? oh well. We just have to make do with what we have and appreciate what we do have. 

I’d like to think of this as a beautiful mess. It came out much messier than I expected, I wanted a few drips of ganache down the sides and it proceeded to pour over like a waterfall out of control. But hey that’s ok. Jeff sort of marveled at all the layers and things going on. Puddles of chocolate? Who can complain about that. This cake will make you smile, I promise. Most of this is make-ahead-recipes so it’s quick to assemble on the day your serving it. You really could make everything the day before, then just warm the ganache, assemble and chill before serving.

Oh, I just remembered, another thing I couldn’t get with my grocery delivery was Mascarpone for the frosting. So I ordered an extra pint of whipping cream and made it myself, you can find the recipe here, it’s very easy to make. It needs to strain for at least 12 hours so it’s best to do it at night and it will be ready the next day. I’m finding all these weird things I’ve made over the years coming in very handy lately!

The Cake

• 4 ounces butter, 1 stick

• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

• 3/4 cup cocoa powder

• 2 teaspoons baking powder

• 2 teaspoons baking soda

• pinch of salt

• 2 cup granulated sugar

• 2 large egg

• 1 1/3 cup sour cream

• 3/4 cup hot water

Heat oven to 350°F (175°C). Butter and flour three parchment-lined 9-inch cake pans. Cut the butter into chunks and melt in the microwave or stove top and set aside to cool.

Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and baking soda in a large bowl, stir to combine. Add the salt, sugar, eggs and sour cream, whisk together, then slowly whisk in the melted butter and hot water (so you don’t cook the eggs!) Stir until completely smooth. Divide the batter between the three prepared cake pans.

Bake for 25-30 minutes until the center is set and a test knife comes out clean. Let the cakes cool for 10 minutes in their pans before inverting them onto a cooling rack. Let cakes cool completely, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour before assembling. Cakes can be made ahead and refrigerated.

The Cherries

You could buy brandied cherries and use straight from the jar but I couldn’t find any. I had frozen cherries so this is how to prepare either frozen or fresh cherries.

• 1 pound frozen cherries (defrosted in refrigerator)

• 1 cup brandy

• 1/2 cup water

• 1/4 cup sugar

Add the cherries, brandy, water, and sugar to a small saucepan and heat over medium until the sugar has dissolved. Simmer for 15 minutes and remove from stove, allow to cool and refrigerate in sealed container. 

The Mascarpone Whipped Cream Frosting

• 1 cup mascarpone

• 1 cup heavy whipping cream

• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar

• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Beat together the mascarpone, whipping cream, sugar, and vanilla extract in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment at medium high speed until fluffy, about 1 to 2 minutes. Refrigerate until ready to use.

The Ganache

• 2 ounces dark chocolate, chopped finely (or semi-sweet chocolate chips)

• 1/4 cup heavy cream

• Plus more dark chocolate for shaving on top of cake later

Place the chopped chocolate in a bowl. Heat the cream over a medium heat until just simmering, then pour over the chocolate, allow the chocolate to melt for a bit then whisk briskly until well combined. Set aside. (this should be your last step in cooking before assembling the cake)

Assemble!

Place your first layer of cake on a cake stand or plate. Spread a good amount, about 1/2” thick with the mascarpone frosting. Top that with almost half the brandied cherries. Place your second layer of cake and repeat with mascarpone frosting and cherries, but leaving a few cherries aside for the final top, unless you have extra fresh or jarred cherries to use. Place your final cake layer on top of that, then pour on the ganache, let it dribble down the sides of the cake. Add some chocolate shavings on top (a vegetable peeler works great for shavings) and add the remaining cherries. Chill well, at least an hour, before slicing. It’s kind of a mess, but a good mess!

Photo by Jeff McDonald

Pumpkin Cake with Salted Caramel Buttercream

Last week at New Seasons Market I picked up some pumpkin cupcakes with a salted caramel frosting which were good but way way too much frosting, tons on the top and more inside. But the flavor was great. With that I wanted to make my own Pumpkin Cake with Salted Caramel Buttercream. So here we are.

Both the recipes below are half-recipes of the original versions. You can easily double the ingredients and make a layered cake if you like. As much as I like (love!) a big layered cake, it’s just so much cake for Jeff and I. Usually I’ll freeze leftover cake but even then it can be a bit much, we still have coconut cake in the freezer from July! So figured this smaller cake might work, it’s not as sexy as the layered cakes but it tastes just as good and is more manageable for the two of us.

Originally I wanted to maybe do a buttercream frosting with caramel drizzled over that, or just drizzle caramel sauce over the cake, so I set out to make my own caramel sauce, which I’ve made before. The only thing different than the last time I made it was that I used a different pot. It was a bit bigger but has a heavier base that seemed suitable. Well, when the sugar started to brown it was only browning on one side of the pan, I moved it slightly off the burner so that it would cook more evenly, but that just wasn’t happening and I ended up with burnt caramel sauce. Not having time to run out to the store to buy more cream, I decided to just make the buttercream frosting and add some store-bought caramel sauce I had in the fridge (which I’m not crazy about because it’s kind of gritty in texture). Even though the cake didn’t come out exactly how I planned it, I have no complaints with the finished product and I think you will love it too.

One more thing, the texture of the cake is somewhat light, so if you want to double up this recipe and do a layer cake, I’d recommend baking in 2-3 cake pans and layering those cakes, I don’t think this cake would hold up well to a horizontal cut across. Recipes below, enjoy!

Pumpkin Cake with Salted Caramel Buttercream

• 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 teaspoons baking soda

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• 1 tsp cinnamon

• 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

• 1/2 tsp cardamom

• 1/2 cup Olive oil

• 2 large eggs

• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar

• 1/3 cup granulated sugar

• 1 cup pumpkin puree, about 1/2 can pumpkin puree

• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

• Salted Caramel Buttercream Frosting (recipe below)

• Crushed toasted hazelnuts (or nuts of choice)

Preheat the oven to 350°F, grease a 9” round springform cake pan with butter, add a parchment round to the bottom and butter that as well.

Whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice and cardamom together in a large bowl. Set aside. Whisk the eggs in medium sized bowls, then whisk in the oil, brown sugar, granulated sugar, pumpkin puree, and vanilla extract until combined. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and whisk until completely combined.

Pour the batter into the cake pan and tap it on the counter until evenly distributed, it will be somewhat thick.

Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Once done, remove from the oven and allow to cool on rack. Remove springform (if using) and slide onto serving dish. Once completely cool top with icing (recipe below) and crushed nuts.

Cover leftover cake tightly and store at room temperature for a couple days or in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.

Adapted from Sally’s Baking Addiction

Salted Caramel Buttercream

• 1/2 cup salted butter (1 stick)

• 2 cups powdered sugar

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 1/4 cup salted caramel

• 1/8 tsp kosher salt

In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, whip the butter on high until it’s fluffy and light, about 5-6 minutes, scraping down the bowl and paddle a few times in between. Turn the mixer to low and add the powdered sugar a little bit at a time, scraping down the bowl and paddle after each interval. With the mixer still on low, add the salted caramel, the vanilla and salt, set the speed to medium and mix for 2 full minutes, scraping down the sides as needed.

Strawberry, Thyme + Peach Buttermilk Cake

It was Jeff’s birthday last week and I wanted to make him a special cake. I’ve never made a layer cake before and felt it long overdue. So I picked up some cake pans and cake stand and made it happen. I remembered that Eva from Adventures in Cooking has a lot of nice cake recipes and this one caught my eye. Oh boy is this good! The mascarpone whipped cream frosting is just about perfect. It’s creamy, holds up really well and it’s not overly sweet. I have to say that’s one thing I’m not crazy about when it comes to cakes. That insanely sweet frosting that overshadows any other flavor. But with this cake you can appreciate all the flavors together, a bit of ginger and thyme in the cake, layered with fresh peaches, strawberries and the perfectly creamy not-to-sweet frosting. Since this was my first time cutting cakes into layers it was a bit lopsided but not too bad. One thing, I would double the frosting recipe, I only had enough for three layers and this should be a four layer cake. Overall it inspired me to make more cakes. There is something happy and fun about a layered cake, and I find myself dreaming up new ideas which are sure to be posted on this blog. Enjoy!

Strawberry + Peach Buttermilk Cake With Mascarpone Whipped Cream

• 3 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 large peach, pitted and chopped
• 3 large strawberries, diced
• 1 tablespoon diced fresh thyme leaves

Mascarpone Whipped Cream Frosting

(you might want to double this frosting for a 4-layer cake)

• 1 cup mascarpone
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 12 strawberries, thinly sliced
• 2 peaches, cut into eighths
• fresh fruit or flowers for garnishing on top

For the cake mix together the flour, baking soda, ginger and salt in a medium bowl until combined. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350°F and grease 2 (8-inch) cake pans and line the bottoms with parchment paper, set aside.

Cream together the butter and sugars in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment at medium speed until smooth and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Lower the speed and add the buttermilk and vanilla extract, mixing until combined. Add the flour mixture and mix until a batter forms, then stir in the strawberries, peaches, and thyme until just incorporated.

Evenly distribute the batter between the 2 (8-inch) cake pans and bake until lightly golden and a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake coms out relatively clean (unless you poked throughfruit bit), about 35 to 40 minutes. Remove and allow to cool for 15 minutes before running a spatula around the edge of the pan and flipping the pan over onto a wire rack, removing the pan and allowing the cakes to cool completely on the racks.

For the mascarpone whipped cream, beat together the mascarpone, whipping cream, sugar, and vanilla extract in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment at medium high speed until fluffy, about 1 to 2 minutes.

Trim the top of the cakes so that you have a fairly flat surface. Then cut each of the cake layers in half horizontally using a sharp bread knife, you should now have 4 layers. Divide the mascarpone whipped cream into 4 parts and spread out 3 parts between the layers of cake along with the fresh strawberry and peach slices. Place the remaining fourth of the mascarpone whipped cream on top of the cake in a dollop and arrange fresh fruit or flowers around it, serve immediately. Will last a few days refrigerated.

Adapted from Adventures in Cooking