Cheese Cake

Cheese Cake used to intimidate me. I stayed away from making this,  thinking it is complicated.  But cheese cake is my husband's favorite.  And I thought to myself, how can I say something is complicated until I try it? So began my search for the perfect cheese cake recipe. And as they say, if you desire for something with all your heart, you get it.

This almond crust cheese cake is the ultimate.    I don't remember, from where I got this recipe. But what is  the big deal,  right? Result is all that matters. I am sure you will love it and will thank me later for this recipe.  So Cheese Cake for desert today? What do you think?

Ingredients:

2/3 cup Graham Crackers                  
1/2 cup Toasted halved almonds       
3 tbsp Sugar + 3/4 cup extra for the filling                                     
1 tbsp Melted butter                          
8 oz Cream cheese                         
8 oz Mascarpone cheese                 
Lemon juice, 1/2 of a lemon
2 Eggs                                        
1 tsp Vanila Extract

(All the above ingredients should be at room temperature)

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 350 deg.F
Butter the baking pans and keep it ready.

In a blender add the graham crackers, 3 tbsp sugar and almonds and pulse.

Add the melted butter. Pulse again.
Transfer to a buttered baking pan. Press with your finger tips. This is the base of your cheese cake.

Cover bottom and sides of the pan with aluminium foil. Bake the crust at 350 deg. F until the top is brown,  not more than 10 min. Cool.

Now reduce the temperature to 325 deg.F. In the same blender add the cream cheese and mascarpone, lemon juice, vanilla and rest of the sugar. Blend.

Now add the eggs one at a time. Blend thoroughly after adding each egg.

Transfer this to the cooled crust.

Place the pan in a roasting pan and fill hot water into the roasting pan until it reaches halfway up the sides of the baking pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool and refrigerate overnight.

To make it extra special, drizzle some chocolate sauce over and hmm..sit back, relax and enjoy every bit of heaven :)

Butter Cookies

Cookies are a must in my kitchen. If they are butter cookies, nothing like it. Not the store brought ones though. I don’t understand why people run to the store to buy stuff like this when they are so very easy to make.   The ingredients that we need are the basic stuff  we already have in our kitchen. And for those who says,  ‘where is the time?’ Let me tell you,  it takes less than half an hour and the end result…extremely gratifying.

I made two batches, in one batch I used orange zest and the other just plain and they both came out crunchy & delicious. One more thing you can do to make it extra special, is to dip them in melted cholocate. Hmmm..now who doesn’t like chocolate.. I will do that another day. For now, I am happy with my plain butter cookies.

Here is the recipe..

Ingredients:

Butter:   2 sticks (room temperature)
Sugar:  2/3 cup
Salt:  1/4 tsp
Pure Vanilla Extract:   1 tsp (I use Nielsen-Massey)
Cake Flour :  2  1/3 cup (or All Purpose Flour or else you can use 2 cup APF & 1/3 cup Corn Starch)
Ornage zest (optional) : ½ of an orange

How to:

In a food processor (or by hand..take a little longer), cream the butter. Now add the sugar, salt and vanilla. If you want to add orange zest or lemon zest, add this at this point. Blend.

Now add the flour slowly. Mix till a dough is formed. Take out the dough and cover it with a plastic wrap and refrigerate for atleast one hour.

Preheat the oven to 350 deg.F.

Take out the dough from refrigerator, roll it and cut it into desired shape with a cookie cutter. Arrange them on a baking sheet.

Bake for 12-14 min.  Take them out when the edges starts to brown.

When the cookies comes out of the oven, they are soft and looks as if it is not done. But don’t worry.  Allow them to cool on a rack and it will harden.

Note:  you can add some nuts like pistachios to make them extra special. If you are adding nuts add it after you add flour and with a spatula gently fold them into the dough.

Enjoy with a glass of cold milk, the way I do or if you are lactose intolerant, have it with your coffee/tea :)