Vanilla Bean Cheesecake

Isn't it funny how sometimes the simplest recipes are really the best? No unnecessary ingredients, no weird techniques, just basic flavors that compliment one another and make sense together. I love that. This is what happened with the perfect cheesecake recipe that was shared with me a couple weeks ago. I finally had a good opportunity to make it- Erin and Reed joined us for the holiday weekend. This is going to be my favorite cheesecake recipe going forward, I just know it. I think it will be easily changed, if you get the craving for a flavored cheesecake. However, the original was definitely the best this weekend.





Here are the graham crackers in my tiny food processor... I had to do them in batches, but it worked!


Once finely ground, you add some cinnamon and sugar to the crackers.
Then you mix in some melted butter until you have a crumbly mixture. This goes in the bottom of the pie plate. I packed it down quite firmly. Bake for about 8-10 minutes.Next for the filling. Here are those vanilla beans I mentioned- they were great. Slice down the middle and scrape out the vanilla. You can get quite a bit out of them so go back a few times with your sharp knife. Also try the dull edge to see if there is any left in there. Once you have scraped everything you can out of the bean, don't throw away that pod!! Fill a small canister with sugar and leave it in there- voila, vanilla sugar! I used it later in the weekend in a recipe and omitted the vanilla and you never would have known!
Another kitchen relic- I brought out the hand mixer. Worked like a charm as well! This layer has cream cheese, eggs, sugar, vanilla, lemon juice and lemon zest.
Finally I topped the cake off with a cream layer, which was tangy and sweet. It was so good that I don't have any pictures of it after this! It is best made a day ahead so that it can fully chill. It was a little hard getting the first few pieces out of the pan, I would recommend letting it come to room temperature a bit first. A springform pan would probably be preferable, but once the first quarter of the cake was out of the pan, the rest went perfectly.After our cheesecake on Friday night, we bundled up and headed down to La Jolla to watch the fireworks. They were perfect, as always. We watched from the beach where Chris and I got married. It was fun to have visitors for the first time for the fourth of July, we really enjoyed our weekend. Hope you had a wonderful holiday as well!

Blurry!!! Oh well...

Baking kick-off

Look what arrived in the mail two Thursdays ago! My first order from the King Arthur Flour Baker's catalogue. I ordered Italian flour, instant yeast, Vital Wheat Gluten, and sparkling sugar.

I had been looking for instant yeast here in San Diego and I couldn't find it. It seemed kind of silly to order it online, but I really couldn't find it anywhere. I have been a fan of King Arthur flours for a few years, and had heard that they were the best place to find special things for baking. Indeed they are! Unfortunately, with my order, also came a printed catalogue, as if I needed more encouragement to fuel this hobby! I have at least two more orders worth of items flagged. First thing to try was getting some rolls to rise. I have tried making sandwich rolls or hamburger buns before, but I just couldn't get them to rise enough. They were tasty little hockey-puck type rolls- the flavor was perfect, but they were super dense. Chris choked one down without complaining, but I know that he was internally wondering- I hope she gets this out of her system soon! Well, since that wasn't going to happen, I decided that something was wrong with my yeast, and I was ready to trade up and try the stuff that supposedly the professionals use.

So with this yeast, you just throw it into the mix dry with the other ingredients. Here is the start to my dough.

Add the other ingredients and let the mixer combine and continue to knead. Knead for about 10 minutes until the dough is soft and smooth. It won't be sticky.

Place the dough, once kneaded into an oiled bowl, turn a couple times so that the top is oiled also, then cover with plastic wrap and let rise. (Sorry this photo is dark.)

I let mine rise in the oven, heated to 150 degrees and then turned off. This was the dough after about an hour. Another good way to check for proper rising is to insert a couple fingers and see if the dough bounces back. If the indentation stays, then it's ready to go. I decided that I was going to use half of my dough to make cinnamon rolls. Since this was a lean dough, I brushed melted sugar over the rolled out dough and then sprinkled it with a sugar, cinnamon, and flour mix. Just mix whatever quantities of the three you want, this is a good place to 'wing it' while you are baking. The small amount of flour mixed in with the sugar and cinnamon keeps the spiral from opening up while it is baking. Kind of acts like glue between the layers.

I made the rolls at night and then let them rise in the morning while I got the rest of breakfast ready. Here they are after another 20 minutes in a 150 degree-heated oven. After that, it was time to make the glaze. Just a mixture of powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla. Whisk until smooth.The rolls baked at 350 for about 20 minutes. And the other part of breakfast- the healthy part! A fritatta with Canadian bacon, broccoli, and cheddar. I can already tell I will be ordering from KAF again soon!!

Here is the link to the roll dough. The other half were for sandwich rolls, but I didn't do the onion thing, although I am sure it was good. I just knew that Chris and I didn't need all those sandwich buns, but the cinnamon rolls ended up being great. There is another recipe on the site for cinnamon rolls as well, but this worked great.

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2008/06/20/onion-buns/

Rainier Cherry Pie

I've been bitten by the pie making bug...

These cherries were just too pretty to not be made into dessert. I am short on time at the moment, so hopefully the pictures will suffice until I can add in the dialouge. I didn't want to keep this from you though!

Edited to add:

Okay, first things first, I guess. Well, I was dying to know if I could make the crust with only butter and have any sort of success. Also, I had always only known of pie dough recipes that you could use your food processor to start. I hadn't really heard of using a stand mixer. Well, I went on King Arthur Flour's website and they did both. PERFECT. Exactly what I was looking for. I simply swapped out an equal amount of pure butter in my pie dough recipe and mixed it in the stand mixer. Easy as, well, I guess, PIE. Yikes.
The trick to a flaky crust, so they say, is to leave some decent sized pieces of butter in the dough not fully incorporated. Also, the chilling for a day or two helps, because you mellow out all the gluten in the flour. That's the stuff that makes the flour have 'get-up-and-go' power when you are trying to get dough to rise. Good for breads, not for pies. After mixing the dough, I separated it into two halves and shaped each into these hockey-puck shaped balls. Those went into plastic bread bags and then into the fridge.

Then it was on to filling. I went for 2 lbs of rainier cherries. They were delicious on their own, so I had a feeling that the pie would be good.
Little shower...
Pitting process
Beautiful new pie plate. I almost got this the day I made the strawberry peach pie. I should have taken the plunge, becuase it haunted my dreams for days afterwards. It needed me to take it home....
After letting the dough come to room temperature for about 10 minutes, it was time to roll. On a floured countertop, this dough was a D-R-E-A-M. I loved the butter so much more than the shortening. So much more mangeable!
Folded it in quarters for easy transfer to the buttered pie plate. (Are you sensing a trend here? Yes, this dessert requires a lot of butter! Not for the faint of heart, but your trip to the gym afterwards is worth it! I promise!)

In goes the filling.

I baked at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes. It said to start it at 400, but I found that was just too hot for all that butter. Shortening has a much higher flashpoint (or it might not even have a flashpoint, I am not sure if you can even really melt that stuff...) but anyways, 350 worked perfectly.


Chris even asked if he could take a cherry out of the middle while it cooled. I said no, of course! Haha, poor guy. However, his patience was rewarded, and mine was broken once we decided it had cooled enough after about 50 minutes. It was worth the wait. Recipe can be found here: http://smittenkitchen.com/2008/06/sweet-cherry-pie/

Pizza Dough

I promised that I would post the long-awaited pizza dough recipe. I have delayed, because I have tried many, and have yet to settle on my 'perfect' recipe. This is the best one that I have been using a lot lately, so I figured it is high time to share it. However, I will add this caveat: I placed an order on King Arthur Flour's bakers catalogue and it hasn't arrived yet. I might have to update my recipe here once I get my items and start experimenting with them. I am excited to see how that goes, but this works every time.

Pizza Dough

3/4 cup of white wine (I usually use pinot grigio, and it doesn't have to be a freshly opened bottle. NEVER buy cooking wine! Keep any leftover wine in your fridge to use in cooking. Especially in baking, it doesn't matter if it isn't brand new.)

1/4 water

2 & 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast

1 -2 teaspoons of sugar

1 tablespoon of olive oil

2 & 1/2 cups t0 3 cups of flour

1 teaspoon of salt

Heat the wine and water for about 25 seconds in the microwave until around 100-110 degrees Fahrenheit. I recently read on the King Arthur website that yeast is kind of like you. If you don't have a thermometer, test the water on the inside of your wrist to see if it is warm enough. If it feels hot to you, it's probably too hot for the yeast. Once you determine that the water is the right temperature, sprinkle the yeast on the surface of the water and let stand for 5 minutes. (I have found that it helps to walk away at this point- you can leave the yeast for longer than 5 minutes, it is probably pretty happy at this point. The water should be foamy and fragrant before you do anything else to it.)

Add the sugar, olive oil, and 1 cup of flour to the mixture. It's important to never add the salt until you have at least added one cup of flour. Salt and yeast are not friends, and the flour acts as a buffer between them.

Another interesting thing that I have recently learned- Most of us are using WAY too much flour in our recipes. Unless you are sifting before you measure, you are probably scooping up to 6 ounces per cup of flour. Most recipes in cookbooks are tested with a 4 ounce cup of flour. Sounds minimal, but I have noticed that this makes a HUGE difference. If you don't want to sift, fluff up your flour with a spoon and spoon it into your measuring cup then tap and level off the top. Also, sometimes it helps to use the half-cup measure throughout the process. This prevents you from dumping in too much flour all at once and then you are past the point of no return.

So you now have 1 cup of flour mixed in. Go ahead and add the salt and 1 additional cup of flour. Mix all of the ingredients together to form a rough ball of dough. Add the remaining 1/2 to 1 cup of flour gradually just until the dough is not sticky. Then stop. Knead for about 15 minutes. If kneading by hand, sprinkle flour on the work surface only to prevent sticking. After 15 minutes, let the dough rest for 5 minutes, then check for elasticity. If the dough doesn't feel elastic (windowpane test- Tear off a piece of dough and see if you can see a membrane when stretched.) knead for about 10 more minutes. Oil a bowl and place the dough inside and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 12 hours.

Remove from the fridge and let come to room temperature. Also, you can heat your oven up to 150 degrees, place the bowl (keep the plastic on) inside, and then turn off the oven to speed up this process. After doing either step, remove the dough and gently deflate all of the gas. You are now ready to roll out your pizza!

I use a baking sheet covered with foil. I usually heat my oven to 415 degrees and place the rack in the lowest setting. I mist the foil with cooking spray and sprinkle it with kosher salt. Top your pizza and slide into the oven. I don't usually set a timer, but I think it takes about 15 minutes to bake. If your crust is brown on the bottom, but you want to brown your toppings a bit more, place it under the broiler for 2-3 minutes. Remove promptly, slice, and serve! You are going to love it!

Books

Has anyone read these cookbooks and do you have an opinion on either?

http://www.amazon.com/Sky-High-Irresistible-Triple-Layer-Cakes/dp/0811854485/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214418781&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Bread-Bakers-Apprentice-Mastering-Extraordinary/dp/1580082688/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214418812&sr=1-2

Soo excited!

I got a letter in the mail today. It was from one of the guests at Dan's wedding. We sat with the Ramakers at the rehearsal dinner on Friday night. We had a great time discussing Tucson, where they live now, and hearing about their lives which had taken them from Washington state to Wisconsin, and finally now to Tucson. We had a lovely time and really got to know these special people. Kathy and I discussed our love of baking, and she told me that she had a foolproof recipe for cheesecake. I told her that I would love to try it and that I didn't have a go-to cheesecake recipe. She said that she would send it to me.

After we got back, our fridge decided to stop working. So after purging everything from the fridge, I had done a costco run a couple weeks ago. I came across these vanilla beans, not knowing exactly what I would use them for, but knowing that I had wanted to try something with real vanilla beans for a while. I had forgotten about the cheesecake recipe, not realizing that this is the perfect kind of thing for real vanilla beans.

It's funny when happy accidents like this happen. I can't wait to make my cheesecake, but since it serves 10 easily, we will need some help eating it. Any takers??

More from Milwaukee

The beautiful cake- it was white cake with a raspberry layer and a cream cheese layer. Fitting with the dairy theme, the cream cheese layer was incredible. K for Kinsfogel...

The wedding, reception, rehersal, rehearsal dinner, all events were pretty much within walking distance in downtown Milwaukee. We hadn't gotten a car, we took a couple cabs, but mostly we were walking wherever we went. One of my favorite ways to vacation!
The MAC- Milwaukee Athletic Club. The reception was here in a huge ballroom.
I didn't bring a lens with a zoom, so this turned out pretty blurry. The room had huge crystal chandelliers and a white ornate ceiling with pink and green hues.

The top of the room had these pretty iron faux balconies from the windows above. If you went up to the 4th floor, you could actually look down into the room from these windows. The photographer actually went up there and took some pictures of everyone dancing.

After a lot of dancing!

Such a fun party! It's always funny to see what songs really get the crowd going and up on the dance floor. The funniest song to me was actually a New Kids on the Block song... haha, when was the last time you heard one of those?! The even funnier thing, was that the bride and one of her friends are going to the concert in Portland when they come there. It was cute to see them totally rocking out to NKOTB. Of course, those of us girls of a certain age were then prompted to share stories of our favorite NKOTB member from 'back in the day'. Hilarious.

The group went out to a couple different places after the wedding. We made it to the first one for about a half-hour, and then we called it a night around 12:30am. We had an 8:00am flight back to San Diego, which was way too long and cramped, so we didn't want to be too miserable on it. All in all, it was a fantastic weekend.