Cheesecake Napoleon

If you ever stumble upon a Copeland's of New Orleans restaurant stop in and have a piece of their signature cheesecake. It is light and fluffy and smooth as rich cream. The cheesecake can be decked out with a variety of toppings (praline is my favorite), but it also comes "Napoleon" style, where a layer of cheesecake is sandwiched between two layers of yellow pudding cake. Delicious.

For years I've been hunting for a copycat version of Copeland's Cheesecake Napoleon and in all that time I've only been able to find one recipe. One. In the whole world wide web. And according to that one recipe, Copeland's cheesecake is no-bake. Hummm. Like Jell-O cheesecake?

Intrigued, I decided to kludge together random pieces-parts or different recipes and come up with my own version of Cheesecake Napoleon. Here it is…


First I made the no-bake cheesecake layer:

2 (8oz) packages cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1-8oz tub of Cool Whip topping

* Beat together the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until smooth.
* Gently fold in the Cool Whip topping.
* Drape one 8" cake pan with two 30" pieces of plastic wrap. Center the first piece of the plastic wrap in the center of the pan. Fit the plastic wrap to the contours of the pan drape the excess over the side. Do the same with the other piece, positioning it perpendicular to the first piece.
* Dump the cheesecake mixture into the prepared pan and smooth until flat.
*Cover the flattened top of the cheesecake with the plastic wrap that was draped over the sides of the pan. Gently press the plastic wrap into the cheesecake, flattening the cheesecake even more and making sure it conforms to the shape of the pan.
* Freeze the cheesecake (and the pan) for at least 8 hours or overnight.


Next bake a yellow cake. Any yellow cake will do, but it needs to be moist. Over the last month I baked five different yellow cakes for Cake Central's June Scratch-Off, and from that experience I decided to try a modified Downy Yellow Cake recipe. I liked the Downy cake's texture and ease of mixing, but I really loved the taste of Sylvia Weinstock's Classic yellow cake. Maybe a combination of the two would give me that elusive "perfect" yellow cake. I used all the ingredients called for in the Downy recipe but added 1/2 cup of sour cream, 4 additional tablespoons of butter, an extra teaspoon of vanilla.

Mixing the cake was a snap:



After the yellow cakes are cooled and the cheesecake is frozen solid, start the assembly. 1) Remove the crown from the top of the cake with a serrated knife. 2) Stack the layers: yellow cake at the bottom (cut side toward cheesecake), cheesecake in the middle, yellow cake on top (cut side toward cheesecake). 3) Let the cheesecake soften up a bit and using a spatula work smooth the cheesecake into the gaps between the layers until it looks like one continuous tower of goodness.



Slice a piece of Cheesecake Napoleon and smother in your favorite topping. I used raspberry preserves and whipped cream on mine, but let your imagination run free!

But does it taste good?

Well yes, kinda. It taste okay, but it's not "Copeland's". Both recipes need some tweaking. The cheesecake needs a lot more flavor, and the yellow cake ended up denser than I wanted. Next time I'm gonna use Crème Fraiche instead of Cool Whip, and adjust a few ingredients in the cake to try and lighten it up.

I'll also get a few slices of the real stuff so I can compare the two side-by-side.
See how willing I am to suffer for my craft?
No really, I am…

Meet my New Camera: Nikon D5000

After months of indecision and waffling I finally bought a new camera!I stayed home from work today just so I could be here when it arrived (someone had to sign for it, so it wasn't a completely frivolous waste of a vacation day).

At around 11:00 am the dog started barking and I rushed outside. It's the UPS man. My camera is here.

See it in its Amazon box. Ohhhh…..

But I can't open the box just yet. I have cupcakes in the oven, more cookies to decorate, and I also have to run to Best Buy to buy a memory card. Can you believe that the camera doesn't come with a freakin' memory card? Not even a measly little 64K one!

Here is everything unboxed.

I'm so excited about my new toy. My old camera, a Nikon Coolpix 990, is ten years old and on its last leg. Here is my old camera.

Rest in peace little Nikon 990, I will remember you fondly.

Neiman-Marcus Chocolate Chip Cookies

Is there anything better than a warm, gooey chocolate chip cookie and a cold glass of milk? The melted chocolate oozes when you take a bite and coats your tongue and lips in smooth bliss...



My Go-to chocolate chip recipe goes by many names "Neiman-Marcus, Macy's, Mock Mrs. Fields..." I don't know where the recipe originated, but every time I bake-up a batch I thank that unknown, unheralded baker.

Pictured below is the cast of characters. The key to this cookie's moistness is grated chocolate and finely ground oats. Don't omit either one, and add more grated chocolate if you dare.


Here are the stages of cookie construction. 1) creaming butter and sugars; 2) mixing in the dry ingredients; 3) Adding the grated chocolate and chocolate chips; 4) scoops of cookies dough waiting for their turn in the oven.

I use a tablespoon size ice cream scoop and scoop the dough to overflowing. Bake for just 8 minutes until just the edges start to brown. The cookies will continue after you remove them from the oven, so you want to take them out before they look finished.



COOKIES... Next to brownies, chocolate chip cookies are my favorite. Want some?

Sylvia Weinstock's "NEW" Classic Yellow Cake

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The Scratch-Off / June 2009 / Yellow Cakes - Trial #3

A group of scratch bakers on Cake Central have gotten together to test, rate and critique different cake recipes from a predetermined list. This week I decided to try Sylvia Weinstock's NEW Classic Yellow Cake.  (Ms. Weinstock has some great books like Sensational Cakes.)

click here for Sylvia's "new" yellow cake recipe (oops - now this recipe is gone too. So much for data hanging around forever on the internet.  The new recipe was like the old with an additional 1 cup of milk added - yes, one full cup.)

click here for her "original" recipe  - (oops, broken link - see comment section for recipe)

Here is my finished product. "Look Glinda, I'm defying gravity."


The ingredients....

The mixing got a little involved. First the butter and sugar are creamed. Eggs are added one at a time. Milk added to creamed ingredients. Note: I got a little concerned at this point because after the milk was added the creamed mixture looked curdled (sorry I didn't get a picture). But I mixed on.

Next came the sour cream and flour which was added in five stages, beginning and ending with flour. In the final step beaten eggs whites were folded into the mix. I had just seen an episode of Alton Brown called "A Cake on Every Plate", and I decided to follow his suggestion and weigh my pans to make sure I had equal amounts of batter in each pan.


Kinda cool, huh. But I do need one of those new fangled digital scale. Next the equally weighted pans went into the oven.

Whew, it was a lot of work. This had better be worth it!

Just out of the oven and everything looks good.


After 3 minutes I remove the cakes for their pan and set on a cooling rack. The bottom of the cake looked a little "wet", so I place it on a paper towel to absorb the excess moisture.


A few minutes I removed the paper towel and, YIKES, I found this !!!!!! A huge pile of yucky, sticky, gooey mess. What is going on ????




This is the bottom of the cake after the paper towel was pulled away. Notice the big oval patch in the middle where the cake looks REALLY wet. This is not looking good.


But I couldn't worry about the wetness; I had a wedding to attend. So after the cake had cooled to room temperature, I wrapped the layers up in plastic wrap and went off to the wedding.

The wedding was held at The Peristyle in City Park, New Orleans LA




When I got home that afternoon I unwrapped the cake and took a slice. Yuck!! It was gooey and sticky and looked like someone a dipped the bottom third into melted butter.


I took a taste...

Hummmm... not bad. In fact it was delicious. But I couldn't get past the texture. It was wet and gooey and somewhat slimy. It was like eating squishy worms. I threw it in the trash and frantically baked another cake (more on that later).

But the next morning I found the second layer sitting on the counter just waiting to be unceremoniously pitched into the trash. I felt sorry for the poor guy (any guilty about being a wasteful American), so I decided to bring the goopy thing to a family gathering that day and see what other people thought of it.

Well do you know what???? THEY LOVED IT. You could have knocked me over with a feather. They actually LOVED it. Not everyone mind you, about half the taste testers thought it was too moist, but the other half thought it was the BEST CAKE EVER.

Go figure. Teach me to assume that everyone likes dry hunks of sawdust like me.


If you would like to see the final results of the Yellow Cake Scratch-Off, click here. I could just tell you who the winner was, but that would spoil the surprise.

Downy Yellow Cake

The Scratch-Off / June 2009 / Yellow Cakes - Trial #4

Scared of baking a cake from scratch? Well then, this is the cake for you!!!

No whipping of egg whites.

No creaming of butter and sugar.

Everything goes into one big bowl and you mix. Nothing could be easier. And it taste pretty good too.


Doesn't the batter look lovely? So thick, so creamy. Why bake, just eat it raw!



So like I mentioned in a few other posts, some scratch bakers from Cake Central have gotten together to test/rate/critique 14 popular yellow cake recipes. The Downy Yellow Cake is the fourth recipe from the list that I have tried.

Here is the original recipe that was a part of the Cake Central challenge:

All-Occasion Downy Yellow Cake

6 large egg yolks
1 cup milk, divided (1/4 cup and 3/4 cup)
2-1/2 teaspoon vanilla
---
3 cups sifted cake flour
1-1/2 cups sugar
4 teaspoons Baking Powder
1/2 teaspoon Salt
--
12 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter, cubed, room temperature (Note: cube the butter while it is still cold)


Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare two 8" round pans.

2. In a bowl combine egg yolks, 1/4 cup milk, vanilla. Whisk until combined.

3. In a large mixing bowl, combine all the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, salt). Blend with a whisk (or low speed of your mixer).

4. Add butter and remaining 3/4 cup milk to the dry ingredients. Mix on low speed until the dry ingredients are moistened. Increase to medium speed and mix for 2 minutes. This will aerate and develop the gluten in the flour. Scrape down the sides with a rubber spatula.

5. Gradually add the egg mixture in 3 batches, scraping down the sides and beating 20 seconds after each addition. Make sure each egg mixture batch is fully incorporate before adding the next batch.

6. Divide the batter between prepared pans and smooth the surface with spatula.

7. Bake 25-30 minutes or until just a few crumbs cling to a wooden toothpick tester. DO NO OVERBAKE or the cake will dry out. Remove from oven just as the cake starts to pull away from the side of the pan.


In the final analysis the Downy cake was a little on the dry side (I may have baked it too long), but man was it easy to mix. Almost as easy as a box mix. I think I will play with the recipe (maybe add some sour cream, and more extract) to punch up the flavor and moisture content. Wish me luck.

Magnolia's Vanilla Birthday Cake

The Scratch-Off / June 2009 / Yellow Cakes - Trial #2

I just baked up my second test for Cake Central’s June “Scratch-Off” which features 14 different scratch “Yellow Cake” recipes. This time I selected the Not So Lemon Magnolia Cake. I have an aversion to all things lemon flavored so I subbed the lemon juice with milk and the lemon zest with vanilla extract. This subbed out version of the Magnolia Lemon Cake is also Magnolia’s Vanilla Cake.


The creaming…

The final 1/3 of flour being mixed in by hand…

The scoop. Man was this batter thick, and sweet, and oh so yummy…

Here is a dissected cupcake, showing all of it beautiful crumb...

Just so you know, it tasted as good as it looks. Definitely a 9 out of 10 on the score board.

Empire Cookies

I stumbled across a blog called The Canadian Baker and after one glance my heart started to thump and drool puddled in my mouth. Empire Cookies. What was this??? Raspberry jam sandwiched between two crisp sugar cookies and topped with almond glaze and candied cherries. Yummm….


I immediately revised my mental "Baking To Do" list and placed Empire Cookies in the number one slot. How had this delightful little cookie escaped my notice all these years? I couldn't wait for the weekend so I could bake up a batch and see if they tasted as good as they looked (oh please, please, please……).

Well they DID!!!! (Taste as good as it looked, that is.)

The dough was a breeze to mix up, and the rolling and cutting went fine. I did have to add a little more flour to keep the dough from sticking to the rolling pin (stupid New Orleans humidity), but the added flour didn't affect the overall taste at all. Baking was a snap too. 10 minutes exactly. The cookies didn't spread, so you can pile a bunch on your cookie tray. Less oven time, less clean-up time, and more cookie munching time.

To ice the cookies I borrowed a tip from a reviewer on RecipeZaar and thinned the icing more that the recipe directs. Then just dip the cookie into the icing rather than spreading it. Dip, swirl, next, dip, swirl, next. Assembly line quick and it gives you a super smooth finish to the dried icing.


To finish off the cookie, the recipe (and British tradition) calls for a candied cherry to be placed on top. I was all out of candied cherries (ha, ha, ha), so I put the kid's gummy fruit on top. Is that tacky? I'm sure The Queen would not approve. I guess I'll have to call them Trailer Park Cookies rather than Empire Cookies.

The Great Scratch Off - June 2009 - Yellow Cake

One of my favorite web sites CAKE CENTRAL is having "The Great Scratch-Off" baking event. Every month a different category of scratch cake is chosen and several recipes are selected for testing. Each participant bakes one or more of the entries and then submits their results/opinions/ratings. At the end of the month the results are tabulated and a winner is announced.

The June 2009 Cake Central Scratch-Off Category is (ta da) YELLOW CAKE .

Not very exciting I know, but where would the world be without Yellow Cake?

14 different yellow cake recipes were submitted for testing. The contenders are:

Great American Cakes by Barbara Kafka
Lita's Yellow Cake Recipe
Sylvia Weinstock's Classic Yellow Cake Recipe
Not So Lemon Lemon Cake from Magnolia Bakery
Paula Deen's 1234 cake
Whimsical Bakehouse Gold Cake
All-Purpose Buttery Yellow Cake from America's Test Kitchen
Vanilla Buttermilk Recipe from Sky High
White on White Buttermilk Cake
The All-Occasion Downy Yellow Cake
Cakeman Raven's Modified Red Velvet
Doubleday White Wedding Cake
Serious Cakes' Yellow Cake
Toba Garett's Ultimate Yellow Cake


To see all the recipes click here. The recipes are on the 9th post of page 3.

Each cake is to be critiqued on texture, moistness, and flavor.

My first test was Serious Cakes' Yellow Cake.

Texture: The cake had a fine crumb. It was tender but not crumbly. The mouth feel was dense, almost velvety. It held together nicely when cut, so it would probably be a good cake to carve.



Moistness: Very moist, but not wet or gooey tasting. Top and bottom of the freshly baked cakes were sticky, but the sides were crunchy. The cake was cut on the second day after baking. On the third day I brought the leftovers (individual slices that had been stored under a cake dome) to work and everyone commented positively on the moistness and flavor of the cake.


Flavor: A little lacking in depth, but I paired it with chocolate frosting which made the cake perfect. I think the cake needs more vanilla and also some butter extract (especially since it uses shortening instead of butter).

Ease of preparation: Medium. Creaming of fats, and whipping of egg whites.

Cost: Average. I used supermarket brands of flour, vanilla and shortening.

Other comments: The top domed during baking and then sank to near flat after removing from the oven. I over baked it (oops) to the point where the sides pulled away from the pan and no crumbs came out on the toothpick. I removed the cakes from the pans after three minutes of cooling and after an hour I wrapped in plastic wrap for overnight storage on the counter. I frosted the next morning and served the cake late in the afternoon. Everyone thought the cake tasted great, but a few cake aficionados remarked that most of the flavor excitement came from the frosting.


Overall Rating: 8 out of 10. I liked the cake and plan to bake it again, but next time I'll add more vanilla and include butter extract.


At the end of the month, I will post the results of The Great Scratch-Off June 2009 - Yellow Cakes. Till then here is another look at the cake....

Chocolate Soufflé with Crème Anglaise (low carb)

This weekend I was trying to stick with my low crab diet (I put on a few pounds in the last two weeks and my jeans are starting to get snug). But just because I’m low carbing it doesn’t mean I can’t bake! I had a recipe for Chocolate Soufflé with Creme Anglaise that I thought would work well with Splenda and sugar free chocolate. So I gave it a try…

Here is the end product. What do you think?


I know, I know, too many nuts, but I looove nuts. I had never made soufflé before, but based on pictures I thought it would puff up more. Maybe it was the Splenda. It was also dense, more like flourless chocolate cake than my idea of a soufflé. But I didn’t mind… it still tasted good. Especially when I soaked it in the Crème Anglaise. Yummmm....


Here is the recipe…

Chocolate Soufflé with Crème Anglaise (Low Carb version)

Makes 4 mini souffles

1/2 cup nuts, finely chopped

5 tablespoons pourable Splenda (the kind in the box that measures like regular sugar)

1 – 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for brushing

4 oz sugar free Dark Chocolate

2 large egg yolks

3 large egg whites

Pinch of salt

Vanilla Crème Anglaise (recipe to follow, make this first and allow to set in refrigerator)

• Pre heat oven to 400 degrees.

• In a bowl mix the chopped nuts and 1 tablespoon of Splenda.

• Brush four 4-ounce ramekins with butter and coat with the nut mixture (reserve some of the nut mixture to top the batter before baking).

• Place the ramekins in a 9 x 9 inch brownie pan and place in the refrigerator .

• In the microwave melt (at 30 sec interval) the chocolate and 1 - 1/2 tablespoons of butter. Stir until smooth. Set aside and allow to cool completely.

• In a medium bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the egg yolks with 3 tablespoons of Splenda until pale and thickened (about 4 minutes).

• Gradually beat in the cooled chocolate. IMPORTANT: if the chocolate is too hot it will cook the egg yolks.

• In another bowl, and using clean beaters, beat the egg whites and salt until soft peaks form. Beat in the remaining 1 tablespoon of Splenda.

• Beat 1/4 of the eggs whites into the chocolate mix, and then gently fold in the rest of the egg whites into the chocolate mix using a rubber spatula.

• Spoon the batter into the ramekins and sprinkles remaining nut mixture over the batter.

• Rub your thumb along the inside rim of the ramekin to remove any stray batter.

• Half fill the brownie pan with water and place the pan in the center of the oven.

• Bake for 15 minutes or until the edges are set but the center is still soft.

• Set ramekins on heat proof plates and immediately sever with chilled Crème Anglaise.

Vanilla Crème Anglaise

1 cup whipping cream

1/4 cup pourable Splenda

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 large egg yolks

• Prepare an ice bath the will hold a small sauce pan.

• Wisk egg yolks with 1 tablespoon of Splenda.

• In a small sauce pan combine all ingredients (whipping cream, remaining Splenda, vanilla, and egg yolk mixture). Stir until combined.

• Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until the sauce is thick enough to coat the back of the spoon (about 6 minutes). Note: the “coat” test will not work on a metal spoon or rubber spatula.

• Once cooked, submerge the bottom of the sauce pan into the ice bath and continue to stir. This will immediately halt the cooking process and prevent the cream from curdling.

• Store in refrigerator and allow to set before serving atop hot soufflé.

What's Blooming? Knock-Out Roses

What's blooming in my garden today - Knock-Out roses.