Chocolate and Caramel Brownie Mini Cheesecakes

 

 

Coming back from our honeymoon in the Galapagos Islands earlier this year, we had a very long layover at Miami airport. To kill some time we went to a nearby shopping mall and had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory - the third US city where I've eaten at one of those restaurants. I can't get enough of the cheesecake!

This time I had the caramel pecan turtle cheesecake - named after a particular brand of chocolate called turtles. It consisted of a pecan brownie and caramel-fudge swirl cheesecake, topped with caramel turtle pecans and chocolate. It was so good- though of course I couldn't eat more than half of it!

Back at the airport, shopping to use up the last of my dollars, I bought a packet of  - which contained a pecan and soft caramel covered in chocolate. I'd had them before so didn't eat them right away and brought them home. A few weeks ago I found them in the cupboard and decided to see if I could recreate the Cheesecake Factory dessert. The only caveat being that my husband doesn't like nuts!

I found this copycat recipe which looks amazing; but I was making the dessert on a night when I had been out all day and needed to make some shortcuts. I also wanted to turn them into mini cheesecakes rather than one large one. I'd just had an Asda delivery a couple of days before so had bought some chocolate brownies; I used these as the base of my dessert, cutting out a circle to put in the bottom of a silicon muffin tray.

 

I followed the recipe instructions for the filling, using a tin of Carnation caramel for the caramel sauce. This is the cream cheese, egg, sugar and vanilla mixture, poured on top of the brownie base which was obviously already cooked as it was ready made.



 

I mixed the chocolate sauce with the caramel sauce and swirled it in to the cheesecake mixture:

 

 

Here they are after being baked in the oven.

 

 

I topped each mini cheesecake with a layer of Carnation caramel and a drizzle of chocolate sauce - I used Choc Shot as you can squeeze out a thin drizzle easily. Finally I topped each one with a mini chocolate turtle.

 

 

Here is the view from the side. These were amazing - one mini cheesecake was enough as they are quite rich but the flavours of the caramel and chocolate, and the texture of the cheesecake on the brownie base, were just amazing. Almost as good as at the Cheesecake Factory!

 

 

I'm sending these to Treat Petite, hosted by Stuart at Cakeyboi and Kat, the Baking Explorer, for their monthly baking challenge.

 

 

I'm also sharing these with We Should Cocoa, hosted by Choclette at Tin and Thyme.

 

French Toast Stuffed with Cream Cheese and Caramelised Pecans

Breakfasts in American hotels are always awesome (even in cheaper chain hotels which all seem to have waffle makers!) and the River Inn of Harbor Town in Memphis was no different. We stayed there for three nights and had some great breakfasts, many of which involved maple syrup. Instead of giving us a jug, we had miniature bottles which were so cute I couldn’t resist keeping one that I didn’t use as a souvenir, to use in cooking at home.

I’d had a brioche loaf in the freezer after not using it when I had friends staying so decided this was the perfect thing to use to make French toast. I wanted to make it a bit more interesting and remembered one hotel I’d stayed in gave us French toast that was stuffed with cheese and came – I think – with caramelised pecans. It turned out to be very easy to make, and delicious when served with crispy bacon!

 

You need:

2-4 slices brioche loaf per person

Handful of pecans

50g butter

50g caster sugar plus 1 tbsp

1 egg

Dash of milk

Dash of vanilla flavouring

Fry light or oil for frying

About 100g cream cheese

Bacon to serve on the side

Maple syrup to drizzle over the top

 

 

First make the candied pecans – place 50g butter and 50g sugar in a small pan and heat until the sugar has melted. Add the nuts and stir around to coat.

 

Cut the brioche loaf into thick slices and use a sharp knife to make a pocket in each slice as best you can. Fill with some cream cheese.

 

Mix a beaten egg with a dash of milk, 1 tbsp sugar and a splash of vanilla and dip each slice of bread into it.

Place in a hot, lightly oiled frying pan – I did these in two batches or you could use two pans, as the bread needs to sit flat. Turn once or twice until browned.

 

Meanwhile fry the bacon, in this case the crispier the better.

 

Serve the stuffed French toast with the pecans scattered over the top and the bacon on the side, and pour over the maple syrup. A very indulgent but enjoyable breakfast or brunch!

I'm sharing this with Alphabakes, the blog challenge I co-host with Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker, as the letter this month is M - in this recipe, M is for maple syrup.

I'm also sending this to the Club Sandwich, a new blog challenge hosted by the Crafty Larder and Cakeyboi.

Finally also to Simply Eggcellent hosted by Dom at Belleau Kitchen as the theme is eggy breads, puddings and pastries.

Toffee Apple Bonfire Night Cake

Today I'm combining baking with a public service announcement - please check there are no hedgehogs in your bonfire before you set it alight!

Actually, the reason I made this is because a hedgehog is a lot easier to make than a figure of Guy Fawkes!

I decided to go to my second Clandestine Cake Club and was pleased to see that this time my local Sutton group had joined forces with nearby Epsom for a bonfire night extravaganza - the theme was "gunpowder, treason and plot". Last year I made these ginger bonfire cupcakes using Cadbury flakes which I topped with popping candy. I was really pleased with them but didn't want to make the same thing again. The food I associate mainly with bonfire night - other than sausages, which wouldn't really work in a cake (or would it....?!) - is toffee apple. Which is funny as I've never actually eaten a toffee apple! I also wanted to find a way to decorate the cake so it would stand out - with 25 people expected at the Cake Club I knew I needed a showstopper! (Competitive, moi?). I thought about making a figurine of Guy Fawkes sat on a bonfire made of Matchmakers chocolate sticks, but realised I probably didn't have the time to make a person and it would be a lot easier and quicker to make a hedgehog. I also have a leaf-shaped plunger cutter which I thought I could put to good use by making autumn leaves to cover the cake. What do you think?

I based the cake partly on this one from All Recipes but added my own spin.

You need:

3 eggs

200g caster sugar

200ml vegetable oil

2 tsp vanilla flavouring

375g plain flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp bicarb of soda

500g apples, peeled and chopped

100g pecans, chopped

For the toffee buttercream:

110g butter

220g brown sugar

250g icing sugar

pinch of salt

dash of milk (optional)





Preheat the oven to 180C. Cream the eggs and sugar then mix in the vegetable oil and vanilla.

Fold in the flour, salt and bicarb of soda.

Chop the pecans and add to the cake mix.

Peel and chop about 500g or so of apples.

Fold in the mixture, which will be quite stiff by this point.

Grease a large round cake tin and spoon in the mixture. Bake for about an hour, keeping an eye on the cake so the top doesn't start to burn.

The cake rose a lot in the middle which was perfect for the bonfire effect I wanted. Turn out of the tin and leave to cool.

Cut the cake in half - you can see the apple and pecan pieces clearly.

I decided to make toffee buttercream to go with the apple flavour in the cake. I melted the butter in a small pan and added the brown sugar, stirring until I had a fudge-like consistency.

Remove from the heat and allow to cool, then mix in the icing sugar. If the mixture is too stiff add a splash of milk.

When cool, spread over the bottom half of the cake.

Sandwich the cake together. This is a pretty big cake!

I have a set of three  leaf-shape plunger cutters in varying sizes. I used the middle size to make a pile of leaves out of fondant, which I had coloured green, brown and orange with gel icing colours.

I also made a hedgehog from fondant which I had coloured with two shades of brown. It was very easy to make. Make a large ball for the body and a small ball for the head, and pinch the head slightly so it is pointed. Roll sausage shapes for the arms and feet. I also rolled a circle of the paler brown colour to stick on as the face and also the stomach, and used tiny amounts of black fondant for the nose and eyes. I made him an orange scarf as well, from a sausage shape which I rolled and then pressed flat. To make the spikes, simply take a pair of scissors and make very small v-shaped snips all over the hedgehog's head and body - it looks like spikes!

To decorate the cake, I covered the top with plain buttercream as the toffee buttercream would have been too stiff. I then placed the leaves haphazardly all over the cake so it would look as if they had fallen from trees.

I sat Mr. Hedgehod in the middle of the cake, and took a box of orange Matchmakers and propped the sticks up around him to look like a bonfire. I placed some broken Matchmakers in front of him to look like logs.

Here you can see the hedgehog sitting in the bonfire, surrounded by leaves.

And here's the whole cake!

I am sharing this with Elizabeth of Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary for her Shop Local challenge as the apples I used in the cake came from my boyfriend's mum's garden - which means the food miles of that particular ingredient were less than three!

This might be slightly tenuous but as the Matchmakers are chocolate orange flavour, I am entering this into Alphabakes, the blog challenge that I co-host with Ros of the More Than Occasional Baker, as the letter we have chosen this month is O.

I took this cake to my local Clandestine Cake Club as the theme was "gunpowder, treason and plot". I had a lovely time chatting to new faces and people I had met before and tasting all the cakes. I took a few photos which I wanted to share with you; this is Maureen's cake with 'flames' on top that are hard caramel shards she says were very easy to make:



The organiser Hayley decorated the tables with Halloween and bonfire night themed decorations. I can't remember the names of all the cakes here but there is a bonfire at the back, and a very neat fondant-covered cake with flames on the right.

This spiced toffee apple cake was made by my almost-sister-in-law Ellie and was delicious

This creation was from Gemma, organiser of the Croydon CCC, who made a toffee apple complete with giant lolly stick and wrapped it in cellophane. It was very original!

Pecan puffs

I made some pina colada cupcakes for a barbecue recently and wanted to take something else along as well, and was thinking of cookies, until I saw these in the same recipe book as the cupcakes - Eat Me by Cookie Girl, aka Xanthe Milton. They are bitesize so easy to eat at a barbecue and I thought they would be a bit different. They were also quite quick and easy to make, which is always good when you are baking more than one thing at a time!

You need:

55g butter, softened

2 tbsp caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

110g pecan nuts

110g self raising flour

Preheat oven to 180C. Chop the nuts in a food processor.



Cream the butter and sugar

Add ground nuts and the flour to the creamed butter and stir in

Roll into balls - I used an ice-cream scoop. Place on a greased and lined baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes.

The recipe says to roll them in icing sugar then pop back in the oven for 2 minutes to glaze, but I either forgot this part or didn't have time. Still, they don't look bad:

They were nice though a little dry so I think they would go better with a cup of tea than eaten at a barbecue, but for a quick and easy bake - and something that children could easily do - they're not bad.

As the letter for this month's Alphabakes is P, I am making my pecan puffs my second entry this month. If you want to take part check out the rules in my post and the prize we have to give away!

I'm also sending this to Bake Fest, guest hosted this month by The Mad Scientist's Kitchen, as they accept as entries anything that has been baked.