Monday, August 10, 2009

Day 2: Brooklyn Continued

Today was a super long day but since it is my last day off for another 5 days, I knew I had to be good and bake more for the project! So it is now 11:22 p.m., I have to work in the morning, and I still have a cheesecake in the oven. Ce la vie :)

And I've just realized how expensive this endeavor is going to be. I can find ways to cut some corners, but today I spent $7 just on jam. And I only needed a tiny bit. Guess we're having pb&j for dinner the next few weeks...

One of the next two recipes in the Brooklyn section was an authentic New York style Cheesecake which Sherry calls the "A&S" cheesecake, named after the department store where her mother used to take her shopping as a kid, and get cheesecake afterwards in the downstairs area of the store. I think I'd love any clothing store that sold cheesecake. Think about it, you go to try on bathing suits, get depressed, and go get a turtle fudge cheesecake. Mhmm... I think chocolate and sugar are the best end to any day, good or bad. And if Sherry's shopping experiences as a child were anything like mine were, her mother deserved a great big ole piece of dessert after shopping with her children. I can't tell you how many tantrums I threw at Palais Royal and JC Penny's growing up. I think I'm still banned there.

So the cheesecake is still in the oven so no pictures yet, and I cant really comment much except that I am super excited to try this cheesecake because it is made with farmers cheese. Any of my Greek family members reading this are probably going "oh neat!" right about now. We grew up on Greek food made mostly from farmers cheese. Although this recipe also calls for sour cream, cream cheese and heavy cream. I have never made a cheesecake with heavy cream and have wanted to try out recipes that use it to see if its any better than those made without it.

Surprisingly, the cheesecake was SO much faster to make than the other recipe I made tonight - rainbow cookies. I have seen these cookies in many new york style bakeries and was eager to try them out. However, Sherry converted this recipe to a cake instead of a cookie. And oh my gosh. They are good. I could put some exclamation points after that sentence but I know me, and I would over do it on the exclamation points (DOUBLE EXCLAMATION POINTS! - seinfeld reference, sorry)... Anyways they are basically an almond cake and I love love love anything almond flavored, especially if it uses almond paste, which this recipe did. I love the smell of almond paste. But I did not read the recipe correctly and only had enough almond paste for a 1/2 recipe, so thats what I ended up making.

The original recipe yields 80 pieces and frankly I do not need 80 pieces of almond cake in my house anyway (my wedding is 13 months away!) and since I didnt have the paste it worked out. This recipe calls for one cake mix, divided into three parts and dyed three colors, hence the name "rainbow cookies". They end up more like petit fours, glazed with chocolate icing. I didnt have the grand mariner for the icing (which I see I will need for future recipes so I may need to go to the liquor store soon) so at the suggestion of my wise friend mandy I added amaretto instead. YUM!


obviously I didnt divide them out evenly :) but there is also so little of the yellow layer because I did not have enough of the right size sheet pans and had to use one that way way too big. Apparantly I do not have enough pans, and I'm not kidding you I think I already own atleast 15. Of assorted shapes and sizes.

So I will have to post pictures of the cheesecake after its done baking and after its refrigerated overnight, maybe in the morning if I have time before work. I'm curious about it also because it does not have a crust! Its just pure cheescake. I'm a fan of crust on anything - cheesecake, tarts, pies, whatever. So we'll see. And after that, the next 2 recipes are drink recipes which should be interesting.

Man I'm already craving more of the rainbow cake... this is bad news...

2 comments:

  1. Who did you have for Intro to Baking? Did you have Chef Wang? I did and her recipe for cheesecake uses heavy cream and I use it all the time, it is a great one! Let me know if you want the recipe :)

    Reading your blog kind of makes me want to start my own "project"..seeing as how I do not have a job so I have all this time on my hands lol.. just don't know what book I would want to bake my way through :)

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  2. you should start a project! i heard julia child has a baking cookbook but i've never seen it, that might be a good one b/c it is classical french baking. I did have chef wang and i totally do not remember her cheesecake recipe. I'll look it up in my binder of recipes from school!

    but i have to say the restaurant i work for has the BEST cheesecake recipe in the world so i am sticking to that one for now, although it is not new york style.

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