Neapolitan Yogurt Cheesecake ?? ??????

Had this idea of making a chilled neapolitan cheesecake. Tried searching online for one, but couldn't find one. I can only find baked ones.. So, I created this for my mom.

I used yogurt for the top layer, so that the cake would be lighter on the tummy.

After tasting this (after my mom cut the cake, of course), I can say, I'm satisfied with it. Recieved good comments on it. Saying it was light and refreshing, not too filling and overpowering. I like the slightly bitter chocolate sponge (bitter like dark choc), it's a good contrast to the sweet fillings.

So, if u are looking for a light cheesecake, try this. If u want a very strong cheese smell cake or prefer a denser one... skip this.

Chocolate Sponge
4 eggs
100gm sugar
70gm flour
20gm cocoa powder
50gm corn oil

1. Preheat oven at 180C. Line a 10� x 10� shallow square pan with paper.
2. Beat eggs and sugar until light and fluffy, about triple in volume
3. Sift cocoa powder together with flour.
4. Fold into (2). Mix well.
5. Fold in corn oil.
6. Pour into baking pan and bake for 15-20 minutes.
7. Remove from oven and remove paper lining from cake.
8. Let cool and cut cake to fit cake ring. (I used 8 inch ring)
9. Place cut out cake in cake ring onto cake board and freeze.

Vanilla Cream Cheese layer
250 gm cream cheese (room temperature)
40gm sugar
100 gm plain yogurt
1 tsp vanilla essence
100 gm whipping cream (whipped)
1 Tbsp gelatin
60 ml water.

1. Put gelatin and water into a heat proof bowl. Double boil until gelatin dissolves. Let cool to room temperature.
2. Beat cream cheese and sugar until light and creamy.
3. Add in yogurt and vanilla essence. Mix well.
4. Fold in whipped cream. Mix well.
5. Drizzle in dissolved gelatin and mix well.
6. Pour cheese filling onto frozen choc sponge. Level surface and place cake into the fridge, not freezer.

Strawberry Yogurt layer.
150gm strawberries
2 Tbsp sugar
420gm strawberry flavoured yogurt ( I used 3 cups of Dutch Lady yogurt)
100gm whipping cream
1 � Tbsp gelatin
60ml water

1. Chop strawberries and macerate with sugar until strawberries soften and bleed. Puree with a fork.
2. Bloom gelatin in water.
3. Bring whipping cream to a boil and pour onto gelatin mixture. Stir to make sure gelatin is dissolved.
4. Mix yogurt with pureed strawberries.
5. Pour (3) into (4) and mix well.
6. Pour (5) onto set cheese layer. Chill cake for 5 hours before removing from cake ring.

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Strawberry Haw Flakes Layer Cake ?????????

The bun is still in the oven... not wanting to follow the sister's footsteps to be out early. The exact due date is tomorrow, doc's dateline to induce is 29th, coming monday. Keeping my fingers crossed that I need not be induced.. The pain is rather unbearable when being induced, I don't even have time to breathe. *sigh*

Ok, so, here's the last of the three layers cakes I made.

Out of the three cakes, and the favourite ratings are:
Horlicks: 35%
Kaya: 10%
Strawberry Haw flakes: 55%
This is just an approximate value of the responses I got.
Not that the kaya one is not tasty... it's just "favourite".
I personally like Horlicks best, then kaya then haw flakes being last.

I might be trying out Milo, Prunes, or even nutella in the future...

Here's the recipe for Strawberry Haw Flakes Layer Cake. I incorporated the strawberry jam because I wanted to have some pink layers in it. And being pink with no flavour is so.... fake to me. So, to be pink, there must be some justification to it.

Ingredients (A)
225gm butter
50gm sugar
5 medium eggs, grade C
170gm Strawberry jam (warmed to liquify it a bit)
170gm sweetened condensed milk (1/3 medium can)
150gm Marie biscuits (finely ground into powder form)
Few drops red colouring

Ingredients (B)
225gm butter
50gm sugar
5 medium eggs, grade C
340gm sweetened condensed milk (2/3 medium can)
150gm Marie biscuits (finely ground into powder form)
Haw flakes � as many as u want

Method:
Ingredients (A)
1. Beat sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
2. Add in eggs one by one. Beating well after each addition.
3. Mix in strawberry jam and condensed milk
4. Add marie biscuits crumbs to batter and mix well.
5. If colouring is added, add in last and mix well

Ingredients (B)
1. Beat sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
2. Add in eggs one by one. Beating well after each addition.
3. Mix in condensed milk
4. Add marie biscuits crumbs to batter and mix well.

Baking:
1. Preheat Oven in grill mode at 220C.
2. Line the base of a 9X9 inch baking pan and grease the sides. Preheat the pan over a pot of hot water or in the preheating oven
3. Place one ladle of (A) in the hot pan.
4. Spread batter evenly. Tilt pan left and right to level batter.
5. Grill for 7 minutes or until cake layer turns golden.
6. Remove cake pan from oven and press cake layer to release air.
7. Put in a ladle of (B) and repeat step 4,5 and 6. Arrange haw flakes on top of layer (B) after step 4.
8. Continue baking cake layers alternating batter (A) and (B) until all batter is used up.




There are less layers this time, as I used more batter for each layer, adding in 3 more minutes to grill than the other cakes. And it looks better with more prominently visible layers. It's up to you to have as many layers and as thick as u want it to be.


Top layer haw flakes were hard after baking, so they cracked when I layed the knife on them. Keep the cake wrapped for 2-3 days and the hawflakes will turn soft again.


The earlier 2 Layer Cakes:
Horlicks Layer Cake
Kaya Layer Cake

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Jojo and Hung's Birthday

This was last saturday.

I made my eldest brother and her daughter a Strawberry Shortcake. Their birthdays are just 1 week apart.

The deco was simple..but yet, made my niece""Awwwww".. kekekeke

As long as the strawberries are big, red, and there's lots of chocolate... they're happy..keke..

The huge strawberries(min 2 inch long) are from Raju's in Camerons. Darn pricey now. RM30/kg, got a shock when I paid for them. They used to be just RM20 few months back. But believe me, they are worth it. I got them one week b4 I made the cake and the leftover strawberries are 2 weeks old now.. and they're still fine and fresh in my fridge. Still trying to figure out what to do with just 8 strawberries.

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No Bake Strawberry Yoghurt Tart ?????

Actually I planned to make Yoghurt Cheesecake�. a Secret recipe copycat.. But I didn�t get hold of cream cheese and my yoghurt�s coming to it�s use by date.. And I got a lot of fresh strawberries in the fridge (just went to Camerons the week before, Strawberries were on sale, RM20 /2kg @ 4 big boxes).

So, this came as a sudden idea. I planned to use digestive biscuits for this, but the minimart nearby didn�t have it. So, I changed plans to use Oreo and Weetameal instead.


No Bake Strawberry Yoghurt Tart Recipe

Ingredients:

Weetameal Crust
130gm Jacob�s Weetameal (1 small pack)
2 Tbsp honey
65 gm melted butter

Oreo Crust
150gm Oreo (1 tube)
50 gm melted butter

Yoghurt Filling
500gm / 2 cups good creamy strawberry yoghurt
1 cup milk
2 Tbsp sugar
1 � Tbsp gelatin
2 Tbsp water

Topping
2 cups of strawberries (cut into halves)
1 cup water
2 Tbsp sugar
� Tbsp gelatin

Method:
1. Weetameal crust: Blend biscuits in a food processor, mix in honey and melted butter. Mix well.
2. Oreo crust: Blend whole cookies in a food processor and mix in melted butter. Mix well.
3. Press crumbs into a deep dish or tart foils. Freeze.
4. While tart cases are freezing, prepare filling. Bloom gelatin in water. Boil milk and sugar. Pour onto bloomed gelatin. Stir until gelatin is totally dissolved. Leave to cool down.
5. Pour yoghurt into milk, mix well. Ladle yoghurt mixture into chilled tart cases.
6. Place tarts into the fridge again to set and then prepare topping.
7. Boil water and sugar, remove from heat and sprinkle in gelatin. Stir to dissolve. Leave to cool until syrupy consistency.
8. When yoghurt filling has set, arrange strawberries on top of filling and spoon in a 5mm layer of gelatin mixture.
9. Chill in fridge until everything is set.




The tarts I made, 2 big and 2 small




Weetameal crust






Weetameal crust cut up







Oreo crust







Oreo crust cut up



****

I personally prefer Oreo crust

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Japanese Strawberry Shortcake ??????

This is the 2nd thing made from Kenny's strawberries.

Found this recipe in yochana's site. Needed to use up my fresh strawberries. It'll be a pity to freeze them and they're going bad soon.

My short cake, was baked in a 8 inch round pan instead, and my cake was.. 1.5 inches tall. Kinda short.. I dunno where I went wrong, the sides of the cake was fluffy(it's unlike a sponge cake), but the centre's a bit dense as u can see in the cut up pic. But overall, it's still a very lovely cake.

I used dairy whipping cream for this, tried stabilising it with sugar, gelatine and even creamer, but yet, it's runny after a while when I was still in the midst of decorating the cake. Despite it looking ugly, still it made people oooooh when they "glanced" (not looking carefully) at it. kekekeke.

Hey, this is just my 2nd attempt at frosting a whole cake, ok..... kesian a bit here orite... Still learning to do it..

Japanese Strawberry Shortcake -whole

Ingredients:

Cake:

120 gm. cake flour

1/4 tsp. baking powder

50 gm. sugar

50 gm. melted butter

50 gm. cornoil

4 egg yolks

1/2 tsp. vanilla essence

4 egg whites

65 gm. castor sugar

Decoration:

300 gm. whipped cream

10 strawberries (diced)

10 strawberries - thinly sliced

1 Tbsp. instant strawberry jelly + 2 Tbsp. boiling water - for glazing fruit

Method:

(1) For cake: Sieve cake flour, baking powder and 50 gm. of sugar into a bowl and mix thoroughly.

(2) Mix egg yolk, butter and cornoil together and then pour into flour mixture and stir till smooth.

(3) Whisk egg white till slightly frothy, then pour in 65 gm. sugar gradually and whisk till medium peak.

(4) Fold egg white with egg yolk mixture and then pour into a 8" Square tray and bake in preheated oven at 175C for about 45 mins. or till cooked.

(5) Leave cake to cool on wire rack and then slice cake into 3 slices.

(6) Whip up the whipping cream and then spread whipped cream onto each layer and sprinkle diced strawberries on top. Repeat till the last layer of sponge cake. Spread the cake on top with whipped cream. Arrange sliced strawberries on top overlapping one another.

(7) Mix instant strawberry jelly with boiling water then brush it over the sliced strawberries.

(8) Chill before slicing and serve.

not chilled enough....runny frosting

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Homemade Strawberry Jelly ??????

homemade strawberry jelly



I often order Jelly & Ice cream at KFC, besides getting some for my nieces as well. Well, kids love strawberry jelly. I'm a kid.. haha!!


There are quite a number of brands in the market, Jello, Nona, Lady's Choice.... But why don't you try making one from scratch. It's not difficult. One can be assured that no colouring or flavouring essences are added in, and it's not that much dearer than buying it in a packet.


Last week, hub's fren Kenny bought us 2kgs of strawberries, so this is the first thing that came out of it.


My nieces had a great time helping out to make their favourite dessert. I gave them table knives (can't cut themselves) and flat dinner plates to do their bit of masak-masak.






Homemade Strawberry Jelly Recipe
2 cups of Strawberries (cut into smaller chunks)
2 cups water
3/4 cup sugar
2 Tbsp lemon juice
2 Tbsp gelatine


Put strawberry chunks, sugar and water into a saucepan. Bring to a boil. Use a fork to lightly squash the fruits as it comes to a boil.
When it has boiled, let it simmer for a minute until fruits are very soft.
Take it off the fire and strain the juice.
Sprinkle gelatine into hot juice and stir to dissolve.
When gelatine has dissolved, put in lemon juice.
Let jelly mixture cool down a bit and pour into jelly moulds or cups.
(I cool it down so that my niece can do it)

into taller cups, to go with ice cream later, shorter cups, to eat it on it's own

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Yummy Strawberries from Kenny!!

I'm a sucker for strawberries.... Anything made with this.. I'd love it.

Hub's fren, Kenny, works in Camerons and he visits my hub almost monthly. Cameron's strawberries ripen on the plant itself and they can't last long, but are very fragrant and sometimes sweet (depends on the weather what!!). So, Kenny gets them as fresh as he can for me.. (He's got connections up there.... ) This time, he got me 2 kgs of huge red strawberries!!

see how much he got me!!!! 2 kgs of fat big strawberries

My head is thinking of strawberry jelly, red velvet cake (found a recipe that uses strawberry juice as the colouring), strawberry poke cake, and strawberry mirror cake (again!!!!!!)

I kept those ripe but not very ripe ones into the fridge and wait few days for them to ripen even more before I hull and chuck them into the freezer for future use.. and the very ripe ones... I plan to make them into Strawberry Jelly with my 2 nieces, Hannah and Jojo this weekend.

Just look at them.... Aren't they pretty??

A nice one on hubby's fingers

So, will be posting a strawberry jelly recipe soon.... next week, maybe??

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Strawberry Mirror Cake ??????

I was captivated the moment I saw the picture!! And I hadn't even tasted it!! I'd just got to try out this cake. Pink with strawberries, layered with a nice yellow sponge... Yummy yummy. The picture is in http://simplyannes.blogspot.com/2007/07/pretty-in-pink.html. Well, it was a Daring Baker's challenge, and the recipe can be found at http://www.culinaryconcoctionsbypeabody.com/2007/07/30/mirror-mirroron-the-wall/

Well, I'm a novice at making cakes, other than pound cakes or chiffon cakes. And I've never whipped cream using dairy whipping cream, never made real custard with egg yolks and milk.... Yet, I'm determined to try this out, all because I love strawberries.


My first attempt :
Made several mistakes with the bavarian cream, but the sponge cake and mirror was good.
Mistakes:-----
1. Over beat the whipping cream, and made butter instead. But I still dumped them into the filling. Looked ugly, but still tasted alright.
2. Boiled the custard, so it curdled... looks grainy.. ugly, but still tasted alright.
3. Made manila card sqaure spring form pans. And they were too soft that they didn't remain a square when filled, but bulged by the sides.
4. Didn't wait for the custard to cool down enough before mixing with the curdled whipping cream and the whole bavarian cream was too liquidy when poured onto the frozen sponge. My sponge cake floated..

2nd attempt: Successful!!! In terms of assemby and taste.
And I made one in a springform and one in a square cake tin. It was my niece's birthday and I'm glad I didn't spoil her cake..... totally. But... I don't know why there are white streaks on the mirror.. and me, being worried that I won't be able to unmould the cake properly, put cling film on the sides of the spring form pan. when I did unmould it, there were lines on the sides of the cake from the cling film... looked pretty ugly that way. I should've prepared some whipped cream to cover up the streaky sides.


3rd attempt. Changed the assembly method and made a single layer of each.. I find that I like it this way better as I can serve it in smaller cuts without having to prepare plates and knife. It's easy to hold with fingers. Nice party dessert.


Some Daring Baker's blogs had some negative comment on the cake saying that it was not flavourful enough, I think, it might be due to the quality of the strawberries. I found that imported strawberries are not that fragrant and Cameron's strawberries are really really flavourful and fragrant. (Cameron's strawberries ripen on the plant, which is why they are so nice but spoils easily), I didn't even use colouring at all!! It was so red! So, for those who are not from Malaysia, try to use local strawberries that you know ripens on the plant. And if u ever go to Camerons, bring along a water tight container, so that u can get those so so ripe strawberries that goes on sale when it's almost closing hours for the Saturday night market at Brinchang. Wash, hull and freeze them. They are still yummy the next time u may need them. The problem of bringing down so so ripe strawberries from Camerons is that they bleed..so better clean and place them in a water tight container when u bring them down so that u can retain those yummy juices.


I made some ammendments to the portions of the recipe and eliminated the kirsch. And I wrote the modified instructions based on my experience.

Strawberry Mirror Cake Recipe
The sponge:-
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
100gm sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 egg whites
1 pinch cream of tartar
1 tbsp sugar
50gm sifted cake flour


Moisting syrup:- mix and cool down.
50ml hot water
1 tsbp sugar


Strawberry Bavarian Cream:-
1 � tbsp unflavored gelatin
150 gm fresh strawberries + strained strawberries from preparing the mirror.(pureed)
2 egg yolks
70gm sugar
180 ml milk
1 tbsp lemon juice
200ml whipping cream

Strawberry Mirror:-
250 gm fresh strawberries
150 gm sugar
180ml water
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp unflavored gelatin

**I did this cake in less than 4 hours with lotsa breaks in between. I know the list of ingredients and the instructions seemed so long.... but once u get the hang of it, it's actually pretty easy to make.



Method:

Assembling the cake.
1. Prepare cake. Place trimmed cake onto a 10 x 10 jelly roll pan. Put in the freezer.
2. Prepare strawberry juice.
3. Prepare bavarian cream.
4. Moisten cake with moisting sugar syrup and pour bavarian cream onto cake. Level the cream. Put in the fridge to set.
5. Prepare strawberry mirror and when mirror mixture has turned syrupy pour onto the bavarian cream layer. Place cake in the fridge to set.

Sponge cake:-
1. Preheat oven to 180/200C. Line a 10 X10 inch jelly roll pan.
2. Beat eggs whites until foamy, then add in cream of tartar. Beat until soft peaks, then add in 1 tbsp of sugar and beat until stiff and glossy.
3. In a separate bowl, beat eggs, egg yolks, and sugar until creamy, pale and light. Beat in vanilla.
4. Sift cake flour. Fold into egg yolk mixture.
5. Stir in 1/3 of beaten egg whites into egg yolk mixture. Then fold in the rest of the egg whites.
6. Spread batter evenly in pan. Bake for 12-15 minutes.
7. When cake has cooled, remove baking paper, trim cake so that cake will have an even surface and remove the brown upper skin. Cover and place in freezer.


Bavarian Cream:-
1. Puree strawberries and sprinkle in gelatine powder. Stir it until the gelatine is well blended in well with the puree.
2. Whip egg yolks and sugar until pale and light.
3. Bring milk to a boil and pour in 1/4 of the milk into the egg yolk mixture while still beating with a mixer. Pour in the rest of the milk slowly. Mix well.
4. Return this mixture to the fire and cook with a low fire, stirring constantly, until your finger leaves a clear trail in sauce when drawn across the back of the spoon.(Do not boil or mixture will curdle.)
5. Immediately remove from heat and stir in strawberry mixture.
6. Pour into a stainless steel bowl and place over a bowl of ice water. Stir in lemon juice. Stir once a while to prevent the sides from solidifying.
7. While waiting for the strawberry custard mixture to cool down, whip whipping cream to soft peaks. Do not overbeat!!
8. When strawberry gelatin mixture has cooled and thickened to the consistency of softly whipped cream, fold whipped cream into strawberry custard mixture.


Strawberry Mirror:-
**I prepare strawberry juice(step 1-3) in advance because I `recycle' the strained strawberry pulp from the juice into the bavarian cream.
1. Chop strawberries into large chunks.
2. Place strawberries, sugar and water into a saucepan. Lightly press the strawberries to release juice. Bring to a boil.
3. Strain the juice with a strainer and don't press the fruits at this point.
** this step to be done only after bavarian cream has set on the cake.
4. Bring the strawberry juice that was prepared earlier to a boil. Remove from fire. Sprinkle in gelatine powder and stir to ensure the gelatine has melted.
5. Put in lemon juice. Stir. Wait for it to cool down and turn syrupy.


3rd attempt....



2nd attempt : -My niece's birthday cake




Made a base out of old milk powder packaging. Look at the ugly streaks at the side from the cling film. This assembly is based on the recipe from the Daring Bakers.

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