Brownie cheescake - sajttorta brownie

It looks like I'm Americanizing my baking, which will be the case with some pies coming soon to our table, but this brownie ironically had been on our menu for years.. not less than 10 years.. OMG.. time really flies.
The recipe came from a fellow social network addict back in 2003, living in France, loving cheese, and chocolate I suppose :).
It has two types of cheese, so no wonder why the recipe made it to France :).
It is a nice way to get your kids eat cottage cheese and ricotta, if they are not mad about them in any form already, like mine.
The recipe is sooo easy, the challenging part is to let it sit for a day in the fridge.. nooohoohhooo way :D. Ok, this time might work as I finished it at 9 in the evening, and I keep fingers crossed that nobody wants to dill their belly with sweets for the night.

Ingredients
Cheesecake
250 g ricotta (farmers cheese, cottage cheese will do it)
150 g farmers cheese (cottage cheese, maitorahka :))
4 tbsp powder sugar
small dash of vanilla extract
2 eggs
120 g heavy whipping cream
2 tbsp flour

Brownie
200 g butter (2 sticks)
300 g dark chocolate (or semisweet chocolate chips)
6 eggs
200 g powder sugar
ash of vanilla extract
150 g flour (1 cup, or 250 ml)
pinch salt

Prepare a deeper tray, 5 cm - 2 inch, by lining parchment paper on the bottom and buttering/ flouring the sides. Preheat the oven to 180 C, 350 F.
 Prepare the cheesecake. Mix the ricotta, farmers cheese, sugar, vanilla, 2 eggs (adding them one by one and working them well in the batter), at the end add the whipping cream and flour. You'll get a yogurt like liquid batter. Scoop it into a piping bag.

Melt the chocolate with the butter over water bath or in the microwave.
In another bowl mix well the eggs with the sugar and vanilla. Add the melted chocolate, flour and pinch of salt to the butter-sugar mix.
Scoop the butter in the tray, and dip the top of the piping bag in the batter. Start gently pressing, while slowly moving the bag in zig-zag, or as you like until you empty the bag. The cheesecake does not have to be visible on the top, it just happened that as I managed to poor it the way it looks.
Bake for 35 minutes on the middle rack. Let it cool, and refrigerate it for 4 hours, or better a day.
Serve cut in roughly 4x4 cm, 1.5x1.5" cubes.. be en garde!, and grab some before it is gone! :)
Bon appétit!

Light chocolate muffins/mini cakes

So many things going on right now.. Number one priority is the house, but no matter what else is on my plate I still have a family to feed. And they like goodies..
On top of all there is Easter, and making plans ahead wouldn't hurt.. so I kinda try.

I decided to make some Easter egg nests, and combine some idea prototyping with a "light" chocolate/baking therapy to accompany a hot rum tea on a late afternoon. One additional reason for choosing muffin was the cooooooold weather, it is not the most convenient to bake yeast based goodies when I can't heat my kitchen.

Instill don't have my triple chocolate muffin recipe, which was THE best, but I thought I'm gonna use my friends' recipe as a base.
I didn't haven measuring cups at hand so I just threw things in the bowl, but cupcakes are NOT rocket science, so one can hardly go wrong if there are enough moisturizers.
The original recipe I used is from Ripaus ja hyppysellinen, without the cream, 'cause I just simply don't like creams unless absolutely needed.
I used mini cake forms because they reminded me of little nests, and I will use these as a bases to decorate for Easter.

Ingredients
200 g grated chocolate, preferably on the darker side, or roughly 1 1/2 cups small semi sweet chocolate chips. It would be even better to mix and match dark and milk chocolate chips, or even white one.. next time.. 
1 1/3 stick butter (150 g)
1 1/2 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
2 eggs
3-4 tsp cocoa powder
1/2 cup sugar, can be humpy
2/3 cup yogurt
1 tbsp oil, something with no flavor

Preheat oven to 430 F, 225 C. Prepare about 18 smaller (not the mini though) muffin forms any eay you want. I like to lightly
Mix butter with sugar until creamy. Mix in the eggs, one by one, blending in each properly.
Mix the dry ingredients, except chocolate and start adding them to the buttery mix. Mix in the yogurt, the tbsp oil,  and last just fold in the chocolate.
Divide the dough in the baking form, filling about 2/3.
Bake for 15 minutes, and let cool.
Next, you can do as wish, decorate with melted chocolate wiggles, add butter cream, castor sugar..
I will most probably make various decorations before Easter, for Easter, so check back if interested..
Bon appétit!

Choco - cocomint cake

My hubby likes coconut very much and I wanted to make a coconut cake for him but unfortunately coconut is too sweet for me, and baking something I wouldn't like at all was just too big of a compromise. 

So I decided to get creative and was looking for add-ins with a fresh flavor. I thought I would give a try to mint, inspired by last night's mojito. 

This recipe shows how creative cocktails can make you :D.

Ingredients

175 g butter (3/4 cup)

2,5 dl  sugar (1 cup)

3 eggs

1 dl cream (half-half) or coconut milk (bit less then 1/2 cup)

250 g pastry flour

2 tsp baking powder

3 tbsp coconut powder/flour (~15 g)

5 tbsp oil (never had coconut oil, but I might give a try)

1/2 tsp peppermint extract

150 g semisweet chocolate chips or grated 40%-60% chocolate

Beat butter with sugar. Add the eggs one by one, beating continuously. Mix in the mint extract, oil, and coconut flour/shred.

Add the flour mixed with the baking powder and last with a spoon mix in the chocolate chips.

In a 26 cm kuglof form (or I guess a 20 cm cake form) spread the butter evenly and bake at 175  C for ~1 hour, but keep an eye on it after 50 minutes.

Decorate with white chocolate wiggles and sugar pearls.

It was a "give it a try" cake, but became everybody's new favorite in the "easy cake" category. 

I have a 20 cm kuglof form which I found suitable size for neighbors (baked additional 4 cakes of smaller size..), and I adjusted quickly the recipe to:
100 g butter
80 g sugar
2 eggs
0.5 dl cream + 2 spoons of coconut milk
150 g pastry flour
3 tbsp oil
1/2 mocha spoon peppermint extract
70 g semisweet chocolate chip, baked it for 30 min at 170 C (350F)

PS. I had only coconut shred and I wanted it smoother(to hide the coconut bits from the kids :D), so I used the coffee grinder. If you wanna do the same, use a bit of sugar when grinding, or the coconut oil will make your flour sticking together and messing up your coffee grinder