Eggnog Cheesecake

Happy Thanksgiving.

I've a confession to make. Every year my sister gets to make pies for our family's Thanksgiving dinner and I've felt cheated. I love to make desserts (truth be told I'm a chef, not a pastry chef but still, I love desserts). Still I cook better than anyone else in my family. I say this not to boast, but ten years of professional cooking has its advantage. I've also become somewhat of a food snob. So this year, I took dibs on the desserts. My sister-in-law wanted to make pies so I'll let her but I get to make the cheesecakes and my sister gets to bring a salad this year.

A little over a month ago I made my first ever cheesecake, a Pina Colada Cheesecake and it was good, but it fell. So I made it again and perfected the technique. Since then I've experimented with a Pumpkin Chocolate Chip for Halloween and it also turned out well. So for Thanksgiving I am upping the anti by making three different varieties. A Peppermint Chocolate Chip, a Dark Chocolate and an Eggnog Cheesecake. These three are going to the family dinner so sister, eat your heart out.

With five different varieties under my belt, I think my favorite so far is the Eggnog. A friend of mine, Tina requested the recipe so what better place to share than this blog. Here goes.

Eggnog Cheesecake

Preheat oven to 350

Ingredients

Crust

1 package Graham Crackers

4 oz Candied Pecans

1/2 cup butter

Filling

12 oz Cream Cheese (3 pgk)

3/4 cup Sugar (I use Splenda® for a lower sugar content)

1/3 cup Heavy Cream

1/2 tsp Salt

1 tsp Rum Extract

2 Tbl AP Flour

1 tsp Vanilla

1 Tbl Cinnamon

1/4 tsp Nutmeg + nutmeg to top

4 large eggs

Instructions

1. In a food processor combine graham crackers and pecans and puree to a course texture. Add butter and blend. Press into a 8" springform pan along the bottom and up the sides. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Cool but leave oven on.

2. In a mixing bowl combine the cream cheese, sugar, heavy cream, salt, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, rum extract, flour and eggs (one at a time) and blend until smooth, scrapping down the edges as needed. Pour into the prepared crust, sprinkle with nutmeg and bake for about 1 hour. Center should be soft set.

3. Turn off oven and let cool for 15 minutes before removing the cheesecake. After 15 minutes remove to a counter, run a thin blade knife around the edge to separate and loose the pan. Let cool completely and then refrigerate for 4 hours or over night. Can be made several days in advance.

4. Top with sweetened whipped cream.

Enjoy.

Orange Cranberry Cheesecake

From Executive Chef to Executive Producer.

What's your favorite TV channel? I think mine is the Food Network. I especially love Good Eats with Alton Brown. I can spend hours watching Iron Chef American, Good Eats, and Chopped. But my love of cooking programs goes back much further. I remember watching "The Frugal Gourmet" and "Yan Can Cook" ("If Yan can cook, so can you!") back in my teens. Those shows (and my Dad's flair for making tasty meals out of whatever was in the cupboard) were some of my early inspiration and one of the reasons I became a Chef. Eventually, I might even like to have my own cooking show. Maybe something built around outdoor camp cooking or "The Victory Garden" meets "Good Eats", but for now my creative outlet is limited to a little known blog and a family who gets to sample my treats.

Today's recipe was inspired from a watching a Ocean Spray commercial while reading an article in Cooking Light (Frozen Orange Torte). I put the elements for both together with my desire to perfect my cheesecakes and this is what I came up with, Orange-Cranberry Cheesecake.

Orange Cranberry Cheesecake

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Ingredients

Crust

1/2 package Graham Crackers, crushed (about 6 crackers)

1 oz Semi-Sweet Chocolate

3 oz Unsalted Butter

Filling

3 (8 oz) packages Cream Cheese (regular or reduced fat), softened

3/4 cup Sugar (I used Splenda)

2 Tbsp AP Flour

3 Eggs, lightly beaten

1/3 cup Dried Cranberries

1/4 cup Orange Juice

1 Tbsp Orange Zest

1/4 tsp Orange Extract (or 6-8 drops Wild Orange Essential Oil, I get mine for my DoTerra)

Compote

1 (12 oz) package Frozen Cranberries

1 cup Sugar (or Splenda)

1 Tbsp Orange Zest

3-4 drops Wild Orange Oil or 1/8 tsp Orange Extract

1 package No Sugar Added Pectin

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Melt butter and chocolate together. Combine with crushed Graham Crackers and press into an 8 or 9" springform pan; cover and set aside.

2. In mixing bowl beat cream cheese, sugar and flour on medium speed for 5 minutes. Mix in eggs one at a time, orange zest, orange extract and juice until combined. Fold in cranberries and pour into crust lined pan.

3. Place springform pan on baking sheet and fill baking sheet with water. If your springform pan is not sealed (waterproof) fold two layers of heavy alumin foil around pan. Bake 35-40 minutes or until 2 1/2 inch area around edges appears set when gently shaken. Turn off oven and let cool (in oven) for 1-2 hours).

4. On stove top combine cranberries, water, zest and orange oil and bring to a rolling boil. Add pectin and boil 1 minute longer. Let cool slightly. Spread compote over cheesecake, cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours before serving. Makes 10-12 slices.

Enjoy

Cherry-Peach Buckle

They say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Well I say that dessert can be a meal in and of itself. So this morning I made a breakfast that could be a dessert or a dessert that could be a breakfast, a Cherry-Peach Buckle. By definition a buckle is a dessert which combines fresh seasonal fruit, a rich cake batter and a streusel topping. The result is a dense cake with a moist crumb, sometimes compared to a coffee cake.

My inspiration came for today's breakfast came from one of my favorite TV chef's, Alton Brown but with my own variations. It was also a good opportunity to teach my son, Josh about scaling recipes (basic algebra, fractions, decimals, and critical thinking) and my sweet wife about two different baking methods, creaming method and the biscuit method. I adjusted this for a 9x13 pan.

Cherry-Peach Buckle

Spray a 9 x 13 cake pan with pan spray and pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees.

Batter:

13 oz Cake Flour

1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder

3/4 tsp Salt

3/4 tsp Ground Ginger

3 oz Butter, softened

7 1/2 oz Sugar

2 Eggs

3/4 cup Milk

21 oz Fruit (your choice, frozen is best).

Mix first four ingredients in separate bowl.

In mixer (using the creaming method) mix butter, sugar and eggs.

Slowly add flour mixture and milk 1/3 at a time.

Fold in fruit and put into your greased cake pan.

Topping:

5 oz Brown Sugar

2.2 oz Flour (About 1/2 cup)

1/2 tsp Ground Nutmeg

3 oz Butter, cut into pieces

Blend topping ingredients by hand (don't warm butter) to a crumbly texture.

Cover cake mix with topping

Bake for 35-40 minutes

Best served warm with Vanilla Ice Cream or Whipped Cream.

Enjoy