double chocolate cheesecake with salted caramel sauce

For those who love chocolate...and cheesecake...and caramel...this recipe is truly, seriously good.

Double chocolate cheesecake
Adapted from Anna & Michael Olson Cook at Home

Brownie layer:
 
1 cup butter
1 cup cocoa powder
1 3/4 cups sugar
4 eggs at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly butter a 9x13-inch glass baking dish.

Melt the butter and pour into a large mixing bowl. Whisk in the cocoa, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. In a separate bowl, stir the flour, baking powder and salt together. Add flour mixture to the cocoa mixture and whisk until blended. Pour into prepared baking dish and bake for about 18-20 minutes or just until the brownie is set in the middle. Let cool completely before adding cheesecake layer.


Cheesecake layer:

6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate
2 packages of cream cheese (250g each), at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups cold heavy cream

Melt the chocolate, either in a double boiler (bowl set over pan of simmering water) or in the microwave (watch it carefully). Set aside.

Beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add the sugar and vanilla and beat until well blended.  Pour in the whipping cream and beat on high speed until thickened. Pour in the melted chocolate and quickly mix until thoroughly blended. Pour cheesecake filling on top of the cooled brownie layer. Chill in the fridge at least 2 hours. Cut into squares and drizzle with Salted Caramel Sauce.

Salted Caramel Sauce

adapted from Simply Recipes

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup water

6 tbsp butter

1/2 cup heavy cream

1/2 tsp vanilla

sea salt, to taste (optional)

Get all the ingredients ready before you start. This will be quick! In a 3-quart pot, over medium-high heat, melt sugar with 1/2 cup water. Don't stir it. Let it come to a boil, and let it keep on boiling until you begin to see it turning brown. It might turn brown in spots; that's okay. Don't stir it. You can gently swirl the pot to prevent any possible burning. 

As soon as the sugar has all turned brown, add the butter and stir. Remove from the heat. Pour in the cream, stirring carefully - the mixture will bubble up quite a bit. Stir in the vanilla and the salt, if you like. Pour into a glass container or jar. Caramel will thicken as it cools. Keeps in the fridge for a week or two.

 

chocolate chip cookies

Everybody has a favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe; here's mine. I like soft, chewy chocolate chip cookies (rather than crisp ones). Two tips that I can give you to get the best results are to chill the dough (for a few hours or overnight if possible), and always underbake the cookies. They should be just set in the centre, and maybe even look a tiny bit moist. The edges should just be turning golden. I get good results using insulated cookie sheets and never end up with dark or burned bottoms.


Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
2 cups chocolate chips

Beat butter with both sugars, baking soda and salt until well mixed, scraping down the sides of the bowl occasionally. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth. Beat in the flour. Use a wooden spoon to stir in the chocolate chips. If you are chilling the dough, just cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for a few hours.


Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Scoop the dough with a tablespoon (or a small ice cream scoop, which is what I use), 2 inches apart onto a baking sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until just set and the edges are light golden. When you take them out of the oven, let them rest on the baking sheet for a couple of minutes before you transfer them to a rack to cool.

maple caramel popcorn

Popcorn is one of my favourite snacks. One of my friends makes amazing popcorn. She has made variations with peanut butter, peanuts and chocolate (omg), and she even made a version for Valentine's Day with crushed cinnamon hearts and a chocolate drizzle. So good!!

This recipe calls for making caramel from scratch using a candy thermometer. I'm always a bit nervous when I use my candy thermometer because you have to be so precise. But if you are patient and pay attention to what you're doing, it's not that hard. Also, it gets easier with practice, so you should probably go ahead and make this recipe often. You won't be sorry.

This recipe is adapted from one given to me by a friend, who has a great foodie website here.

Maple Caramel Popcorn

1 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup butter
8 cups popped popcorn
sea salt (optional)

2 bowls - make sure one of the bowls is large enough to hold the popcorn, with enough room for tossing with the caramel
2 wooden spoons
1 or 2 cookie sheets
candy thermometer

*Important* Pop the popcorn using your preferred method - air popped, microwave, or stove top. Put it into one of the bowls. Then, use your hands to transfer it to a large, lightly buttered bowl. DON'T dump it into the buttered bowl. This should ensure that all the unpopped kernels are removed from the popcorn.

Lightly butter the largest bowl and the two wooden spoons. Set aside. Have 1 or 2 large cookie sheets ready to spread out the finished popcorn.

Put the sugar, water and maple syrup into a medium pot over medium high heat. Gently stir to help dissolve the sugar a little. Bring to a boil. Add the butter in chunks. Don't stir. You may want to reduce the heat slightly if it looks like it might boil over, but make sure it continues to bubble rapidly.

Clip a candy thermometer to the side of the pot. Cook until the candy thermometer reaches 275 degrees, or hard crack stage. If you don't have a candy thermometer, you can test to see if it's at the right stage by dropping a teaspoonful into a cup of very cold water; if it hardens into brittle threads, it's ready. Take a bite to test it. It should be crunchy and shouldn't stick to your teeth.

Watch the thermometer carefully! Caramel can quickly go from beautiful to burnt in just a few seconds. Another tip: sugar will continue to cook for a few minutes even after you take it off the heat, so I usually take the pot off the heat a few degrees before it reaches 275 and do the cold water test. You can always put it back on the heat for a few minutes if it's not ready.

Now the tricky part is done! Pour the caramel over the popcorn and quickly toss to coat. Add a pinch of salt if you like; toss some more.

Spread the popcorn on the cookie sheets to cool. Keeps well in an airtight container for about a week. Or you can eat it all right away, like we do.

chicken, pesto and mushroom pizza with goat cheese

This pizza dough is made with a cup of beer instead of water and it makes a big difference in the flavour, in my opinion. I use my bread machine to mix it up but you can make it in a big bowl too. Sometimes we don't make the dough and just buy dough from the bakery section of the grocery store. No shame in that, either!

Pizza Dough
(makes two thin crust pizzas)

1 cup beer
1 tbsp butter
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 3/4 cups flour
1 tbsp dry yeast

If using a bread machine, just put in all the ingredients, choose the dough setting and walk away.

Or, you can: measure the beer into a measuring cup and warm it for about 1 minute in the microwave. Pour the warm beer into a bowl. Drink the remaining cold beer from the bottle (very important step, haha). Add the sugar and yeast to the bowl and stir to dissolve. Stir in the flour and salt. Form the dough into a ball (best done with your hands). Place in a large, lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let it rest for about 30 minutes to an hour.

When the dough is ready, cut it into two pieces. Roll, stretch and press the dough into a lightly oiled, round pizza pan. Or you can roll it out on a pizza stone, in which case I don't use any oil, just a generous sprinkle of cornmeal to prevent any sticking.

Now it's ready for your favourite toppings. The photo above shows a pizza made with pesto, shredded chicken, mushrooms, goat cheese and a little mozzarella (to hold all the toppings together nicely). I added some freshly ground pepper on top and it was so good. We ate the leftovers cold for breakfast the next morning. I also like chicken, bacon, mushroom, and caramelized onion, with mozzarella and a little sprinkle of asiago. The salty bacon and sweet onion are just meant to be together on a pizza.

buttermilk biscuits

These biscuits always turn out and they taste about 200 times better than any biscuits you can buy. They're definitely worth it to make at home. You can mix it together with a fork and a pastry blender (to cut in the butter), but I like to use my food processor.

Making light, flaky biscuits depends on using cold butter, and the method of mixing them. If you use a food processor, you don't want the butter to be completely blitzed to smithereens. There should be some pieces about the size of peas, and some smaller pieces - "coarse crumbs" as most recipes will say. When they bake in a really hot oven, those irregular sized pieces of butter will create moist little pockets of steam inside the biscuits as they rise and bake, which create the flaky texture. I read this in a cookbook somewhere a long time ago...seems to make sense. So if you use a food processor, be careful not to over-process the dough or your biscuits will turn out flat. And nobody likes flat biscuits.

(Speaking of flat biscuits, I once made these with a stone-ground flour that I got from a local mill. They didn't rise. At all. They were hard and dry and pretty awful...and my husband ate them anyway. What a guy.)

We eat these biscuits a lot in the winter with chili and stews. My kids love them for breakfast, warmed for a minute in the toaster and spread with butter and a sprinkle of cinnamon and sugar.

Buttermilk Biscuits
(adapted from Better Homes and Gardens)


3 cups flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cream of tartar
3/4 cup cold butter, cubed
1 1/4 cups buttermilk (or 1 cup regular milk if you don't have buttermilk)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. In the bowl of a food processor, combine the flour, baking powder, sugar, salt and cream of tartar. Process until well mixed. 


Add the cold butter cubes. Pulse a few times, just until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs with some pea-sized pieces. Add the milk and pulse a few more times, just until the dough forms a rough ball.


Turn out the dough onto a floured surface. Gently knead the dough by folding and pressing it about 4-5 times. Lightly roll out the dough to about 1 inch thick. With a round cookie cutter or a juice glass, cut rounds about 2 1/2 inches in diameter. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for about 10-12 minutes or until biscuits are golden on top.

sugar cookies

When I was little, my mom made rolled sugar cookies for every holiday: hearts for Valentine's Day, bunnies and chicks for Easter, pumpkins and witches for Halloween, candy canes and reindeer for Christmas, and so on. I try to do this for my kids whenever I can. 

The secret to making tender, melt-in-your-mouth sugar cookies is to handle the dough very gently when mixing in the flour. Too much beating will make the cookies tough. Also, my mom rolls the dough between two sheets of parchment paper instead of using flour to prevent them from sticking. I do use a sprinkle of flour on the countertop when I roll out the dough, but just barely enough to keep them from sticking. I find that I can use less flour if I use well chilled dough (at least a couple of hours in the fridge).

Sugar Cookies
(makes about 2-3 dozen cookies, depending on cookie cutters)

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 egg
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cream of tartar

To decorate: Vanilla Buttercream (half recipe), coloured sprinkles

Preheat oven to 350 degrees with rack in the centre of the oven. Beat together the sugar, butter, vanilla and almond extracts, and egg. Stir in flour, baking soda and cream of tartar. Shape the dough into a ball; press it down to form a more or less flat disk. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.


Cut chilled dough into four equal pieces. Between two sheets of parchment paper (or on a lightly floured surface), roll one piece of dough until it's about 1/4 inch thick. Cut into desired shapes and bake about 8-10 minutes or until cookies are set (they should not be golden brown). Let cool; frost and decorate with sprinkles.

white chocolate cranberry bars

Starbucks has a cookie that they only carry at Christmas called the Cranberry Bliss Bar. I love it, but I don't love paying $3.50 for one bar! So I have come up with a recipe that I think is a pretty good version of the Starbucks bar. It's basically a soft vanilla cookie base with layers of white chocolate, cranberries, and white chocolate drizzled on top. This recipe makes a nice big pan and they freeze really well too.

Please excuse the poor quality of my photos...I'm not a great photographer to begin with and then I had to take these at night in low light.

White Chocolate Cranberry Bars

Base:
2/3 cup butter
2 cups brown sugar, packed
2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup dried cranberries

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting:
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
2 cups powdered sugar
3 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla


Topping:
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup white chocolate chips (or 2 squares white baking chocolate)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly butter a 9x13 inch pan and line with parchment paper, leaving some paper hanging over the edges. This makes it a lot easier to lift the bars out of the pan and slice them later. Set the prepared pan aside.


In a medium to large sized pot, melt the butter and brown sugar together. Remove from heat and let it cool a little. Beat in the vanilla and then the eggs. Add the flour, baking powder, and baking soda and beat just until combined. Pour into the pan and spread evenly. Sprinkle the white chocolate chips and cranberries on top. Bake for 25-30 minutes or till golden and set. Don't overbake - you want these to be chewy like brownies. Let the cookie base cool completely before you do the next step.


Make the vanilla buttercream: In a bowl, beat the butter until light and fluffy, 3-5 minutes. Add the powdered sugar alternately with the milk, starting and ending with the sugar. Beat in the vanilla. Spread the frosting over the cooled cookie base. 

Sprinkle with dried cranberries and lightly press them into the frosting. 

Melt the white chocolate in a small bowl in the microwave, taking it out to stir it about every 30 seconds, until it's melted. White chocolate burns very easily and quickly, so keep a close eye on it. 

Put the melted chocolate into a small ziploc bag; close the bag, snip off one corner, and drizzle it over the bars. If you happen to have a pastry bag, you could use that to drizzle the chocolate. 

Slice into squares. Sometimes I cut these into large squares and then diagonally into triangles because that's how Starbucks cuts theirs. The shape won't affect the taste one bit. ;-)


How to cut neat bars/squares: People have asked me how I cut things into neat little squares, so here's my method in case you'd like to know. I always use parchment paper to line the pan, even if the recipe calls for greasing the pan. I leave extra paper hanging over two sides of the pan. If the squares are really gooey and soft, refrigerate the whole pan until they're firm. Then I use the parchment paper to lift the whole thing out of the pan and put it onto a cutting board. I take a large knife, run it under hot water and wipe it dry with a paper towel; then use the hot knife to cut the squares. Try not to saw back and forth, just press the knife down firmly in one motion. If the knife gets covered in sticky crumbs, just run it under hot water and wipe dry every now and then.