Someone's Been a Tad Bit Busy... Oops!

I realized today that it has been over a month since I lasted posted a recipe. Although I have been cooking and baking the whole time, you'd never know :P Here is a quick run down of some things I've made... a few recipes are secret so I can't share :( Sorry!

PIES, PIES and more PIES!
So I've had a little obsession with pies lately... Here's a few photos of the different kinds I've been experimenting with. Old faithful apple pie is on the left, cranberry-apple is in the center (my favorite!), blueberry-cherry is on the right (needed more cherries :P). As you can see, I was also in a leaves and berries stage so all the crusts are very similarly decorated.

Pumpkin Cheese Cake with a Gingersnap Crust
I wanted to make something more festive so I chose pumpkin. Instead of using regular graham crackers, I thought gingersnaps might be nice. I was searching for a recipe online and noticed that a decent amount of pumpkin cheesecakes had chocolate crusts so I figured I'd throw a few chocolate chips on top of a portion of the crust to see how the flavour combo would be. I ended up bringing half of the cheese cake to work and everyone loved it (especially the bits of chocolate in a few pieces).

Crust Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cup crushed gingersnaps
- 1/3 cup melted butter
- Dash of cinnamon
- Dash of ginger

I mixed all the ingredients together and pressed it onto the bottom of a pie plate (any baking dish works, provided you don't care what it looks like!). I should have added a bit more cinnamon and ginger, couldn't really taste it. Bake the crust at 350 for 10 minutes and then take out of the oven and cool. I added a few chocolate chips on part of the crust just to experiment.

Cheese Cake Ingredients:
- 3 bricks cream cheese
- 1 15oz can pumpkin puree
- 4 eggs
- 1/4 cup sour cream
- 1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp cloves
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
- 2 tbsp flour
- 1 tsp vanilla

I made a BIG mistake and used cold cream cheese.... You need to beat the cream cheese and sugar until it is smooth. Mine never become smooth so it had little baby cream cheese balls in it :S Once it's as creamy as you think it can get, add the pumpkin, eggs, sour cream and spices and then add flour and vanilla. Mix well.

Next, just pour the mixture onto the crust and spread it out evenly. Bake at 350F for 1 hour and then remove and let it cool.

Nice and Easy!!

 

Phyllo Baskets with a Lemon Cream Cheese and Fruit Filling!

Matt and I recently had some friends over for a games night. I went appie crazy and made little steak/asiago/pesto bites, spanakopita and these random desserts with all the left overs. I had left over cream cheese and some phyllo from the spanakopita so I decided to make little baskets and fill them with something containing cream cheese. I have seen mini pastry baskets on pinterest and figured I'd give it a try. I searched through the fridge and found a lemon.. cream cheese flavour done!! It needed something else so I took a looked for fruit... we have frozen fruit for smoothies for I picked out some raspberries and opened a jar of sour cherries I had kickin around. I think they turned out pretty awesome!

Phyllo Baskets

Simply brush a layer of phyllo dough with melted butter and put another one on top. Repeat until you have enough layers! I did 6 layers because that was what was left but I think 4-5 would have been better. Cut them into squares with a knife and then squash them into mini muffin tins. I used part of our apple corer to press them in but your fingers would also work just fine. I can't remember exactly but I think I just baked them at 350F until golder. WARNING: they are small pieces so it doesn't take much time... I recommend sitting in front of the oven and watching! haha

I mixed about half a brick of cream cheese with the zest and juice of one lemon and some icing sugar. All of this was eyeballed so I can't give you details... Just add little bits until it tastes good! Matt insisted that there wasn't enough to fill all the baskets so he ran out and got some heavy cream. I folded in some whipped cream and it ended up adding a nice touch (although there was lots of leftovers haha). I just used a piping bag to pour the filling in the baskets, super fast and clean that way! 

For the fruit... I threw the cherries and raspberries in different small pots. I added a little lemon juice, a bit of sugar and then cooked them on low. Once they started to break down I added a little cornstarch to thicken them up. After cooling down the fruit, I topped the cream cheese with one of the two topping and then stored them in the fridge. Both tasted super yummy!

So there's a few things I've made lately... I promise I'll try and remember to write new posts! Christmas baking is about to start :D