Peanut Butter Chocolate Mini Cheesecakes

I must admit I wasn't going to blog about this recipe. But I posted photos on instagram and received so many recipe requests... so here we are! This cheesecake is insanely rich. It's decadence is almost obscene, and yet there is a homeiness to peanut butter that makes this dessert seem appropriate for quarantine, particularly when made in mini form. You can freeze them and pop them out whenever you need an isolation pick me up!

Cheesecake seems hard to make but in actuality it is one of the easiest desserts to make. All you need is a scale and a food processor! This particular recipe comes from the British baking goddess Nigella Lawson's cookbook "Kitchen." I highly recommend getting one of her cookbooks not only for the excellent and easy recipes but for the entertaining and acerbicly funny prologues to each recipe. (Part of her intro for this recipe states: "Unashamed indulgence, wallowingly so, is what this recipe is all about.") She recommends not cooking this cheesecake in a water bath (or "bain marie")  but I much prefer the silky texture a bain marie produces. I also made some variations to her suggested topping, as well as baking them in muffin tins to produce mini cakes.

I used Jiffy peanut butter for this recipe. In baking with peanut butter I almost always find that the commercialized junk is better, but in the name of science I will follow up with making this again with a natural peanut butter. If you use natural let me know how it goes!

Happy baking, stay safe friends.


Peanut Butter Chocolate Mini Cheesecakes

The measurements are listed in grams. If you do not have a scale but like to bake I highly recommend purchasing one so your baking can become instantly both easier and better. Measurements by weight are much more accurate and accuracy in baking is key. I did list cup measurement for the sour cream because I find scooping sour cream into a measuring cup immensely satisfying, and also I modified Nigella's topping and need to make it again in order to measure the topping ingredients by mL.

If you do not have silicone muffins liners then you can either bake a full cheesecake in an 11-inch springform pan for about 50 minutes, making sure to wrap the outside of the pan in tinfoil before pouring in the boiling water so that water cannot seep into the crack in the springform pan. Or you can use regular muffin tins and ditch the bain marie; your texture will not be as silky. Also I cannot guarantee that they will be easy to remove from the tins as I have not used this technique. They are incredibly easy to remove from the silicone liners - I highly recommend getting a set! 

Also it's extremely important that your ingredients be at full room temperature! If you try to make this with cold cream cheese.... just please don't. Plan ahead.

for the base:
200g graham crackers, gluten-free graham crackers, or digestive biscuits
50g salted peanuts or almonds
100g dark chocolate chips
50g unsalted butter, at room temperature

for the filling:
500g cream cheese, at room temperature
3 eggs, at room temperature
3 egg yolks (whites can be frozen to make meringues at a later date)
200g sugar
125ml (1/2 cup) sour cream, at room temperature
250g smooth peanut butter

for the topping: 
2/3 cup cup sour cream
2/3 cup heavy cream
100g semi-sweet chocolate chips
30g dark brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 and set a kettle of water on to boil.

Measure the base ingredients into a bowl set atop your scale. Dump the ingredients into your food processor then process until it starts to come together. (Use the pulse button and you will see the base start to clump.) Scrap the mixture back into the bowl you used to measure and set aside.

Wipe out the food processor with a paper towel and set the bowl of the food processor atop your scale. Measure out all the filling ingredients and add in the eggs. Process until completely smooth.

Measure out one tablespoon full of base mixture into each silicone liner, pressing down to make sure the mixture is packed down. Then measure out the filling mixture into each muffin liner, about two tablespoons worth for each one. Put the muffin liners into a large roasting pan then place in the preheated oven. Then very carefully pour in the boiling water into the roasting pan so that the water comes halfway up each muffin liner. Bake for anywhere from 12-20 minutes, until the filling is just set. (Baking times will depend on your oven.)

While the cheesecakes bake, make the topping. In a metal bowl combine the topping ingredients then place over a small pot of simmering water. Stir until all the chocolate chips have melted and you have a beautiful silky sauce.

Take the cheesecakes out of the water bath as soon as they come out of the oven. Pour a tablespoon of  the warm topping over each cheesecake. For aesthetic reasons, do not touch the topping after you pour it on, as it will mar the surface of the chocolate; pour carefully.

Place the cheesecakes in the fridge overnight then unmold before serving or freezing for later consumption.

Yum!

Quarantine Cooking

Recently there seems to have been a resurgence of 90s style email chains. But the only kind of chain email I would ever participate in would have to be food related. The text of one I received recently states the recipe you need to send to person in "spot #2" should be "something quick, easy and without rare ingredients.  Actually, the best one is the one you know in your head and can type right now or something you made this week." So naturally I took that advice as my central tenant and typed out the one dinner recipe I know from heart. It was something my mom cooked often when I was little, usually for times when another family came over for dinner and she needed to make something that would please both kids and adults. I remember calling my mom and asking for the recipe when I was a newly-wed and wanted to make it to serve to my cousins and their wives. (I made a double batch and there were no leftovers.) I've made it countless times since for my family. It is comforting, delicious, super easy, and super adaptable. 

The second recipe in my response email to the quarantine cooking exchange is one I've only just discovered. It comes via one of my favorite comfort-food bloggers of all time, Deb Pearlman at Smitten Kitchen, and she got it from Goop. It was a night when I didn't have much except rice and a few stray veggies in the frig, and I didn't expect much. But wow was I surprised! The sauce is beyond amazing. It turned a lack-luster, what-the-heck-can-we-eat night into one of the best meals of the month. 

So here are the two recipes I sent for the quarantine cooking exchange. I hope you and your families can enjoy them as well. Stay safe. Eat well. 

Bowties with Sausage and Cream

This is my go-to for a quick yet filling meal for the whole family. If you have picky eaters who don’t like spice you can omit the red chili pepper. If you don’t have heavy cream - don’t fret! It will taste good without it, but add in a little extra butter and/or a few teaspoons of sugar to taste. If you don’t have sweet italian sausage, any un-cooked sausage will work, and pre-cooked sausage could work in a pinch but you’d have to heat it up separately and add it in at the end. It’s easiest to use the kind of sausage meat that isn’t in actual sausage form, so that you don’t have to slit the sausages from their casings.

Pasta, any kind will work but bowties work best

1 lb sweet Italian sausage, uncooked (casings removed) 

1 28-oz jar crushed or whole tomatoes (if using whole, drain then chop)

¼ tsp red chili flakes (optional)

1 garlic clove, crushed or finely chopped (optional)

½ cup heavy whipping cream (or more if you want a creamier sauce)

Chopped parsley (optional)

Grated parmesan (optional)

Bring a large pot of water to boil and cook the pasta according to the package instructions.

While the pasta is cooking, make the sauce. Add a lug of oilive oil to a large saucepan over medium-high heat, and cook the sausage meat until lightly browned and cooked through, using a wooden spoon to break up the meat into little bits as it cooks. Add the garlic and red chili flakes and cook for 30 seconds, or until the garlic is fragrant. Add the tomatoes and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer gently for 10 minutes. Stir in the heavy cream and cook for an additional minute, or until heated through. Toss with the pasta and serve topped with the chopped parsley and parmesan.

Miso Sesame Dressing for Grain & Veggie Bowls
from: Smitten Kitchen

Roast any vegetables you have on hand, and layer them on top of greens and/or grains and top with this AMAZING sauce. Literally, SO GOOD. If you aren’t the kind of person who has white miso in their fridge at all times, well, now is a good time to become one, if only for this particular sauce! Trust me, you'll want to make it all the time.

1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger

1 small garlic clove, minced or pressed

2 tablespoons white miso

2 tablespoons tahini (other nut butters can work in a pinch)

1 tablespoon honey

1/4 cup rice vinegar

2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil

2 tablespoons olive oil

Put all ingredients in a blender or food processor and blitz till smooth. Throw sauce on top of your roast veg & green & grain bowl!

Peanut Butter Frosting

This is a time of intense dualities.

We feel elated to have one-on-one time with our children all day, and we feel overwhelmed by the responsibility of being parents and teachers. We feel grateful we are safe and comfortable at home, and we grieve for all those who are dying and those who will die.We feel relieved that we have no social obligations, and we feel the absence of our daily social interactions acutely, viscerally.

Here's a recipe and an activity idea that embraces duality. It is a drastic break from my baking ethos (which is - and has always been - baking from scratch). It combines time-saving convenience with a homemade frosting so good it tastes impossibly luxurious given it's simplicity.

So here goes. Take your favorite cake mix and bake some cupcakes. Then have your kids (or your spouse, or a zoom date) help you make this delicious frosting and decorate the cupcakes with sprinkles and love. If you want to get fancy like I did, pipe the frosting in fun designs, using either a pastry bag or simply a plastic bag with a teeny hole cut in the end. If elegant pipe-work coming out of the end of a ziploc bag isn't a gorgeous illustration of dualities.... well then I'll eat my homemade no-sew t-shirt mask.

Peanut Butter Frosting

This is an occasion where commercial peanut butter is the best choice. 
You can make your own confectioners sugar if you have regular sugar and cornstarch. 


10 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature*
1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
5 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted**
2/3 cup smooth peanut butter (Jiffy brand or similar)

Beat the cream cheese and butter together with a hand-held mixer or by hand (the cream cheese and the butter should be soft enough that you can easily do this with a wooden spoon). Slowly mix in the confectioners' sugar cup by cup. Stir in the peanut butter. Spread on cupcakes, or eat by the spoonful.

*Make sure your butter and cream cheese are soft enough to poke a finger through.
**If your confectioners' sugar is not chunky you don't need to sift it.