Photo Shoot!

In less than 12 hours our kitchen darling will have a professional photo shoot! The crowd here at Pegleg Penny's Test Kitchen (which includes myself, the KitchenAid, my food processor, tart pan, and stack of cookbooks) is totally jazzed and excited!  It's not every day we get pro photos. Especially since I've always been a point and shoot kind of girl.  Sometimes I try to stage the pics, but it doesn't always come out as cool as it does in my mind. It doesn't matter because I post them regardless.
So my friend John, who's been reading my blog, appreciates the content, but he's tired of seeing my kitchen outlets in the background, messy counter tops, and just total lack of staging. He's a fantastic photographer.  I highly recommend you check out his work, Red Town Photography, on the world wide web. He also has a lot of free time right now, so he offered his services to the crew here and in exchange I'll feed him and buy him beer.
I don't think he has any idea what he's gotten himself into.
I really hope he brings a back drop like glamour shots from the early 90's.
And that he gives me lots of tips because I don't want to spoil you guys with one super cool entry and then go back to lame photos.
No matter what direction he decides to take this photo shoot (Lady Gaga like or Martha Stewart like), it's going to be great fun! I just hope the KitchenAid doesn't go all diva because we do not have bottled water in this household.
Want to know what we're going to bake for the shoot? I'm still working on it, but I'm sure it will be great! More to come soon.

Who cut the Cheese...cake? Snicker's style

Cheesecakes…

For some reason, I’ve never been a huge fan. In theory, I would think cheesecakes would be one of my favorite desserts. I have a deep passion for all things cheese.

My favorite breakfast is an English muffin, with sliced pears and Brie on top, broiled for like five minutes so the Brie gets bubbly. Just thinking about it is making my mouth water.

In my apartment we have an entire drawer in our refrigerator devoted to cheese. You can bring cheese for any occasion, eat it during any meal, and enjoy it all year round. In the summer, nothing beats a ripe, juicy cantaloupe with a chunk of sharp cheddar except maybe fresh mozzarella with ripe tomatoes from the garden. Outdoor music – we’ve got you covered, just get yourself some baby rounds of wax-covered Gouda. Want to add a little laughter to your meal? – Check out the Laughing Cow’s. They remind me a lot of my childhood and Saturday morning errands with my Pops. Every time I go to Wisconsin I have to stop at a Culver’s and get cheese curds and a malt, to go. I could hit up the Culver’s in the Chicago land area, but the reality is, it’s just not the same. Wisconsin cheese, there’s nothing better. Cheese is probably a cow and goat’s greatest gift to humans.

Cheese is something I feel passionately about. Please do not try to pass off American cheese as a real cheese option on my burger, sandwich, or crackers. While I may have fallen for your “singles” as a child, my tastes are definitely more refined, not to mention all the processing and plastic can’t be good for you.

Cheese…its GOOOUDA….

But when it comes to cheesecake – I’m not a huge fan. I can’t exactly pinpoint what I don’t like about it. It’s a combo of things I’m sure, from the texture to the all around taste. However, I know there are those of you out there who LOVE your cheesecake. Who look at the dessert menu and get excited to get a slice of New York Cheesecake. Who dream about the Cheesecake Factory, not because of their food, but because of the cheesecake options. Who aren’t big “cake” fans, but for some reason really like cheesecake. The Golden Girls loved cheesecake, or at least their characters did.

World wide web – meet my roommate Kim. For the record, she is NOT a Golden Girl, but sometimes our lives may be mirrored by the Golden Girls, but most of the time not. We’ve been roommates for four years and we’ve known each other like double that time. She’s never been a big sweets fan. Her birthday always falls during lent and most of the time she’s given up candy and sweet things. This year was different. Kim didn’t give up sweets for lent. She also decided to throw a huge party at our house in her honor. This party included food, kegs, people, and naturally, a birthday cake. For her birthday, as with most people’s birthdays I wanted to make her a fantastic birthday cake. She’s not a huge chocolate fan and she likes to be healthy. She loves cheesecake. So for her birthday she wanted a Snicker’s cheesecake, because she loves Snickers too.

Making this cheesecake was daunting. Not only is it a dessert that doesn’t jump off the menu at me, but I didn’t have a palatable reference for it either. I had never made a cheesecake before, let alone a Snicker’s one. I felt pressured. In my brain I took apart every piece of cheesecake I had ever eaten and tried to figure out what it was missing and how I could make it better and incorporate the Snicker’s aspect. Mostly, I wanted to make sure I kept true to the Snickers taste and just used the cheesecake as a canvas.

So here’s where the recipe and the cheesecake adventure started.

Snicker’s Cheesecake – A collection of aspects from multiple sources

Ingredients:
Crust: (A little help from Recipezaar.)
1 ½ cups – Nilla Wafers, food processed so they’re finely ground (about 38 cookies)
½ cup – peanuts, ground/crushed/chopped/fine
1/3 cup – unsalted butter, melted

Cheesecake Filling: (A little help from Chef2Chef)
3 – 8 oz. packages of cream cheese, softened
1 cup – sugar
4 – eggs
1 TBSP – vanilla extract
¾ cup – heavy whipping cream
¼ cup – peanut butter (I used extra crunchy, but you can use whatever your heart desires)
14 – snack sized Snickers bars, chopped into small pieces (it’s about 1 ½ cups) – I bought an 11.18 oz bag of the Snickers – the remaining ones from the bag I chopped and used as garnish)

Topping:
Snickers bars, finely chopped (see note above)
Fudge sauce (I used pre-made that I bought in the ice cream aisle)
1 cup – peanuts, crushed or ground
Whipped cream (optional)

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Spray a 9-10” spring form pan with cooking spray.
In the food processor, grind the cookies and peanuts. Place in a bowl and add the melted butter. Stir until everything is combined. Pour the cookie crust into the bottom of a spring form pan. Use a cold measuring cup to press the crust evenly into the bottom and 1” up the sides of the spring form pan. Set crust aside.

In your mixer, cream the cream cheese, sugar, and peanut butter until smooth. (It can be very difficult to dump the cream cheese into the mixer. I recommend opening all the packages and laying them on your counter. Use a knife to slice them into smaller pieces and dump them in your bowl. Use the knife to scrape any cream cheese remnants that are left on the foil. No doubt, you will probably end up using your fingers at some point.) Add the eggs to the cream cheese mixture one at a time. Making sure they are fully incorporated before adding the next egg. Next add the vanilla and heavy cream. Beat the mixture for five minutes on a medium speed. Gently fold the Snickers pieces into the cream cheese batter.

Carefully, pour the filling into the crust. It will go over the top of the crust. Bake in the oven for approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes (check on it after an hour). The cheesecake will be pretty puffed up and should look almost set, but still have a little jiggle in the middle.

The cheesecake will be really puffed up when you take it out of the oven, it does fall over time. Don’t worry; it will still taste good.

Let the cheesecake cool to room temperature before putting in the fridge (1-2 hours). Refrigerate cheesecake for at least 4-6 hours before serving. I refrigerate my cake still with the sides of the spring form pan on, but you don’t have to. Just whenever you are taking the sides off, make sure to run a knife around the edge of the pan so it’s an easy removal.

When you’re ready to serve, top the cooled cheesecake with a jar of chocolate sauce, Snicker’s bar pieces, crushed peanuts, and whipped cream.

Substitutions:
If you’re looking to substitute anything, here’s what I would recommend.
- Instead of ‘Nilla wafers use chocolate graham crackers or chocolate wafers in the crust.
- If you’re wanting to go ‘nut-less’, take the ½ cup of nuts out of the crust and add a ½ cup of cookies. Also, don’t add the peanut butter into the filling and instead change the ¾ cup of heavy whipping cream to 1 cup of heavy whipping cream.
- Wouldn’t it be great with Reese’s Peanut Butter cups as the candy instead?

Wrap Up:
As you already know, I’m not a huge cheesecake fan, but even I liked this cheesecake. I think it’s because it was the furthest thing from boring. The crust was interesting, the filling wasn’t too cheesy and thick and the toppings just made it a million times better. I got good feedback on this cake. It wasn’t too difficult to make and the presentation was gorgeous. Kim was very happy and super pleased. It lived up to her tastes as to what a good cheesecake is all about. The one thing I would change is that I would for sure cut the Snickers garnish into very small pieces. Honestly, I’d probably food process them. They were a little too chunky (because I was a little too lazy) and once the leftover cake was put back in the fridge, they were really hard to bite into. Additionally, the sides of the crust were a little too thick, but the bottom was too thin. So in the future, I just need to make sure it’s spread a little more evenly.
My first cheesecake was a success. I was really nervous about it, especially when it fell/settled and I didn’t expect that. This sure beat out any boring, plain, fruit from a can, cheesecake I have had in my past. I might be growing a little fonder of cheesecakes, but I’m not completely converted yet. I think what really got me was that it was pretty and fairly easy to make once I figured out how I wanted to get it done. I’m a sucker for aesthetics; after all, you eat with your eyes first.

The Craig-Oreo Cake

My roommates think I’m nuts.

I stay up way past my bedtime, on school nights, when I’m exhausted and irritable, dreaming or creating recipes.

My parent’s think I’m a visionary.

I stay up way past my bedtime, on school nights, when I’m exhausted and irritable, and most of the time hungry to carefully craft the anecdotes that go with my recipes.

The woman who read my palm thinks I should take care of myself.

I stay up way past my bedtime, on school nights, when I’m exhausted and irritable, hungry, and battling a migraine/allergies/chest pain because I like to bake for others and would rather stress myself out to bring someone a heavenly bite.

I am fully aware that all these statements are partially true, but not entirely.

I just think I’m a perfectionist. I may be creative, but my methods are type A. I like devising plans, using exact measurements; I even take the time to sift. (And lets face it; my patience is tested time and time again when it comes to sifting…)

My roommates also think that out of my staff of 15, they were all born two weeks apart because I seem to be making them birthday cakes every other week. You could be fooled to think this, but the dates and ages of my staff make that presumption highly unlikely and 100% impossible. There are a couple clusters around the same time, so there will be a month or two here and there of baking frenzy.

What I’ve learned while baking for my wonderful staff is that they’re all different. They want different things and have different ideas as to the perfect birthday dessert. Some of them have specific ideas; others let me use my imagination. And while I may be up past my bedtime, on a school night, exhausted, irritable, hungry, and in some sort of physical pain, I truly enjoy baking for them. They are happy to be the guinea pigs and try some of the crazy concoctions that come out of Pegleg Penny’s Test Kitchen. At the end of the day they deserve a special treat. They work hard, have fun, and the reality is, they make my life a lot easier. If I didn’t have such a strong team I would probably be in a zoned out state where bad elevator music plays on repeat. (Although, I’m sure they would be happy to send me to that state sometimes.)

They’re a good bunch and I’ve learned that the best motivator and the best way I can show my appreciation is through their stomachs.

And so we come to Craig...

This is what our pre-cake interview sounded like (in my head):
Me: Craig, what kind of cake do you want for your birthday?
Craig: That’s really tough. Let me think about it.
(Insert 2-day pause.)
Me: So Craig, did you think about your cake? What do you want or like or do you have any requirements?
Craig: Well, I want the cake to trump all birthday cakes. I want – ice cream, chocolate, Snickers, 3 Musketeers, coffee, bananas, ginger ale, peanut butter, applesauce, Oreos, something with mint. I want it to have all my favorite things. I also want it to look like the Coliseum.
Me: (Insert jaw drop, look of disbelief, and portray a rather sick, but challenged feeling. I felt I had met my match – that was it – my baking days were over.) There’s no way I can do that.
Craig: You can do anything. You’re Princess Amazing! (I'm not joking - sometimes he calls me Princess Amazing and it's like this animated, mocking, 1985 face he puts on and it's hilarious and awesome...)
Me: Craig – that’s too many things. First of all, we don’t have a freezer so ice cream is automatically out and it’s just too much. Pick one crazy topping or flavor and I’ll see what I can do.
Craig: Can I pick two?
Me: One.
(Insert an additional daylong pause.)
Me: Have you decided on my secret ingredient?
Craig: Oreos. I love Oreos. They’re my favorite cookies.

If you've ever met Craig you know that he likes facts. It's not as important if they're true or false, just so there's some sort of research/validation behind the statement. So I had to do some serious research on the Oreo cookie.

Hey! You've got to hide your FLAN away!

So, this is my second attempt at this cake. The first attempt, while a noble effort, was for my little sister’s 20th birthday. I tried to make it gluten free and I tried to make it delicious and the truth is – it was edible, but not finger licking good…It was dry and too much cake and not what I was going for. My sister’s pretty special and I wanted to honor her with a pretty special cake, I just should have worked out the kinks beforehand.

The hang up on this cake is probably that I kind of had to make it up. In February of 2009, I went on vacation to visit my favorite foreign country in the entire world, Panama. There we were at a celebration that had a cake called Flan Escondido, translation: Hidden Flan. It was two layers of cake with a sandwich of flan in between. I had never thought to combine the two, but it turned out to be the most delicious piece of dessert I have eaten, quite possibly, ever. However, there was no recipe. So I tried and failed. Ever since I’ve been trying to wrap my head around how to make it better and how it should turn out, but I haven’t had a reason to bake it.

I should have known that this cake was going to be complicated; everything with the little one has some sort of excitement. She’s that cool. No matter what, there’s something about my little sister that makes me always want to protect her, no matter how much we’re fighting or how much we don’t agree. Even if we don’t “get” each other, we still “get” each other. Now that we’re older we share an inexplicable love for 80’s music, a love/hate relationship with the idea of bangs, and a deeper, more tolerant understanding of each other. (Well that last one we try to do, not always successfully.) Do we still argue and disagree – of course, we’re normal sisters. But even though I picture her at 20 now, I still kind of picture her at 5 playing Lalabelle’s Beauty Salon, making me over and doing my crazy make up. If I’ve learned anything in the last 20 years it’s to never underestimate the expectations you put on yourself for the sake of your family. So I’ve been dreaming of making this cake better and better.

And then my friend Amanda had a birthday.

So I tried again.

And she appreciates the innovative and interesting. (After all, it was on her request that I resurrected the Bacon cake.)

Much to my surprise, it turned out delicious! And I know I will be making it again, next time for my sissy.

Flan Escondido AKA Hidden Flan

For the Flan:
Mami’s Flan (This is my mom’s flan recipe, it took some deciphering and adding since basically she handed it to me and it was just measurements and I had no idea what to do.) I doubled her recipe so that I could make two thin flan layers. This is the doubled recipe:
Ingredients:
2/3 cup + ½ cup Sugar
2 oz Water
2 – 12oz can Evaporated Milk
4 Eggs
2 teaspoon Vanilla

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Combine 2/3 cup of Sugar and 2 oz of Water in a skillet. Set over low heat and caramelize the sugar. (It will get thick and a light brown color.) Be careful not to burn it! Do not stir the sugar and water combo, just swirl the pan over the flame so that it cooks evenly. (You can turn the heat up a little bit, just be careful that it doesn’t burn.) Quickly pour into 2 - 9” circular baking pans (each pan should get about half) and turn it to coat the bottom of the pan. If the caramel cools too quickly before you are able to coat the bottom of the pan. Hold it above the flame on your stovetop to liquefy the caramel again and coat the pan.

Whisk together the evaporated milk, eggs, vanilla, and sugar. Divide the mixture in half and pour the mixture into the prepared pans with the caramelized sugar on the bottom. Set the pans with your flan mixture inside a bigger pan. Fill the bigger pan with boiling water to a depth of 1”.

Bake for 45 minutes. To know that the flan is done, insert a knife ½ way into the center of the cake, it should come out clean. Let the flan cool completely before attempting to remove from the pan. (You can even chill it.) Once cool, carefully run a knife around the outside of the pan to loosen the sides of the flan. Invert onto two separate platters. Make sure they’re not shallow platters because there is caramel sauce that will spill out.


For the cake:

Magnolia Bakery's Traditional Vanilla Birthday Cake
(Adapted from Allysa Torey and Jennifer Appel's fantastic cookbook.)

Ingredients:
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs, room temp
1 ½ cups self rising flour
1 ¼ cups all purpose flour
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and lightly flour 3 – 9” round pans. Cover the bottom of the three pans with parchment paper.
In a small bowl, mix the flours together.
In a separate bowl, combine the milk with vanilla.
In the large bowl of the mixer, cream the butter until smooth.
Gradually add the sugar mixture to the butter and beat until fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time to the butter/sugar mixture, beating each egg until combined.
Add the flour in four parts alternating with the milk/vanilla extract combo. After each addition, beat until combined, before you add the next set of ingredients.
Divide the batter among the three cake pans. Bake 25 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. It may take a little longer to cook because there are three rounds.

Cool completely before assembling.

Brown Sugar Whipped Cream Frosting
Ingredients:
1 cup Heavy Cream
1/3 cup Sour Cream
1/3 cup Brown Sugar
1 teaspoon Vanilla

Beat all the ingredients together until stiff peaks form.

Assembly:
Place one layer of vanilla cake on the serving platter, top down. Use a fork to puncture holes all over the side of the cake that’s facing up. Carefully slide the flan onto the top of the cake. (Even if the flan breaks a little bit, because it’s delicate, it’s ok – you can’t really see it.) Pour the caramel sauce slowly over the cake and flan and let it soak in. Put a light layer of frosting on top of the flan. Before placing the second layer of cake on, using a fork, puncture holes in both the top and bottom sides of the cake. Place the second layer of cake on top of the flan. With the remaining caramel sauce, gently pour it over the top of the cake. Carefully slide the second flan on top of the cake. Pour the caramel sauce slowly over the cake and flan and let it soak in. Put a light layer of frosting on top of the flan. Using a fork, puncture holes in the top and bottom of the third layer cake. Place the cake on top of the second flan. Pour the remaining caramel over the top of the cake slowly so it soaks in. Frost the top and sides of the cake with Brown Sugar Whipped Cream.

This cake was delicious! There was something about the layering of flavors and the different textures that made it work perfectly together. Also, the way the caramel soaked into the cake layers gave it a very moist, sweet, slightly soggy taste. The cake to flan ratio was spot on.