Culinary Concoctions by Peabody

So I had a rather disappointing week this last week. I discovered that a non food blogger has been ripping my site off and posting my blog word for word(picture for picture) on their site. Now, they are not claiming it as their own but copying word for word is pretty much blatant stealing….especially because it is eating my bandwidth.

Everyone in the food blogging community has been great about this so I am not talking about you. I love when places like Slashfood feature my food porn….but they don’t copy my post…..they LINK to it. Link away I say. But don’t be so lame as to even steal my post about saying I wont be in town for a couple of days….because that is just sad.

We’ve contacted the thief and let them know that we find it unacceptable and I had to add an outline to my blog under usage. Unfortunately if it continues my husband and I have discussed that we will go further with the matter in the legal sense.

I hope nothing like this is happening to any of your blogs. I would check to see in your site admin if perhaps it is happening to you. I realize that copying is a sign of flattery but taking the last 16 of my post is a bit much. I’m sure they will be lame and copy this post too.

Enough of this, I off to bake my anger away

UPDATE: The morons indeed did copy this post word for word.

All text and images on this site have ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Copyright (c) 2006 by Peabody Rudd.

I thought long and hard about when my love affair with cheesecake started and more like a typical male(sorry guys ) I could not remember our “anniversary” of the first time we met. My mother didn’t make cheesecakes at home(not sure why… she still doesn’t) and so I only ever got it going out.  I’m sure my first experience involved the no-bake Jello cheesecake version that was so popular when I was a kid. But I suspect that I fell in love at a restaurant taking a bite off my mother’s plate. No doubt it was New York cheesecake with the then obligatory blob of cherries on top…for years this is the only way I thought it could be offered.

Fresh from all my pastry learning, I worked part time(I was a full time teacher) at a little bakery that sadly no longer exist(Phoenix is over run by commercialism now). I decided that I wanted to make the cheesecakes(among other things). Now you are probably thinking that I chose that so I could eat all the cheesecake I wanted….WRONG. I took it in hopes of breaking off the affair. When my brother was in high school he worked for a large Chicken chain. The first two weeks he worked, he threw up every night. After two years of working there he couldn’t eat fried chicken for many, many years after that. This is what I was thinking of when I agreed to do cheesecakes. I would get sick of them and never want to put another piece in my mouth…again with the WRONG. All that did was make me much more efficient at making them. It introduced me to many new flavors of cheesecake that I didn’t know existed and encouraged me to bake at home to come up with new cheesecake ideas for the bakery. So needless to say the love affair did not end but my job did(4 months=15 pounds so I quit).

So today I offer you a pumpkin swirl cheesecake from my days at the bakery. I once again, chose to make mini ones( I swear I do own full size pans).  This is such a great recipe. It’s so creamy and light but still a little rich at the same time. The pumpkin flavor is not overpowering but is noticeable there. The gingersnap crust give a nice bite to the creaminess of the cake. If I were to have made a real sized cheesecake I could have gotten the good swirl going, but since I did mini’s you can’t add enough batter to get the full effect. This one is a crowd pleaser for sure.

Pumpkin Swirl Cheesecake

1 1/2 cups Gingersnaps
1/4 cup melted butter
2 1/2/bs cream cheese
2 1/2 cups sugar
2 TBSP flour
5 large eggs
2 egg yolks
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup pumpkin
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg

1. For crust, combine the gingersnaps, and butter. Press onto the bottom of a 10 inch spring form pan. Bake for 10 minutes in 350F oven. Set aside.
2. For the filling, cream the cheese until soft. Add in the sugar and mix well. Add i the flour and mix to blend.
3. Add in the eggs, one at a time, scraping th bowl down after each addition. Add in the yolks and vanilla. Mix well.
4. Remove 3 cups of the batter and place in a bowl. In a seperate bowl, combine the pumpkin, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Stir in the 3 cups of plain cheesecake batter.
5. Layer the two batters in the springform pan starting with the plain batter. Do three layers plain batter and two of the pumpkin batter. Swirl the batters to create a marbelized look.
6. Place the cake on a sheet pan. Place in the oven and pour in hot water to create a water bath. Bake the cheesecake at 350 F for approx. 2 hours. A thin knife inserted in the center should come out almost clean.
7. Cool the cake and then chill. Let sit overnight before unmolding.
 

All text and images on this site have ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Copyright (c) 2006 by Peabody Rudd.

So I know I said that I would be making Walnut and Huckleberry jam cookies…well I lied. I had every intention of doing so until I opened the jar of jam that I had recieved. It looked a little more chunky than what I wanted to deal with for a sandwich cookie and when I put it in my mouth to taste test it was pretty gritty. I did however(so as not to be a complete liar) make one for a photo.

On a positive note, I was not killed in the middle of the night by angry and rejected sugar cookie dough, nor did I dream of it either.

I was at my friend’s housewarming the other day and her dad came with a big box of hazelnuts. I tried to convince her to give me some of them, but she did not like that idea :(  (I really must work on my begging). Which made me sad since the second I saw the box I thought, oh, I want Linzer cookies. Since I did not go home with hazelnuts that night I needed to pick something else. Traditionally linzers are made with either almonds or hazelnuts…two nuts I don’t happen to have. So it was walnuts or cashews….walnuts won. These cookies also make for a great tart crust if you want to get creative. I ended up using my mom’s strawberry jam and they turned out quite yummy.

Linzer Cookies(the non-traditonal way)

12 oz unsalted butter, softened

1 3/4 cups powdered sugar

1 egg

2 cups flour

1 cup cornstarch

2 cups ground walnuts

1/2 cup strawberry jam

1. Cream the butter with the sugar until light. Add in the egg and mix well.

2. Mix together the flour and cornstarch. Add this to the creamed mixture and blend. Mix in the nuts thoroughly.

3. Form the dough into a bowl and wrap in plastic. Chill for about 4 hours.

4. Roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thickeness. Cut with a cookie cutter(I chose round but hearts are nice too). Keep half the batch whole and the other half take a smaller cutter and cut out the middle of the cookie. You want to create a window effect(see photos)

5. Chill the cookies for 10 minutes and preheat oven to 325F. Bake cookies for about 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool on a rack.

6. Spread jam on half of the cookies(the ones that aren’t cut out). Place the other half on top of the ones spread with jam. Sprinkle with powdered sugar or drizzle with melted chocolate if you would like.

All text and images on this site have ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Copyright (c) 2006 by Peabody Rudd.

If you read my blog and don’t just look at the pictures(all though feel free just to do that….but then of course you wouldn’t be reading this) you know that I made a batch of ever multiplying sugar cookie dough. I made this sour cream-apple tart a couple of days ago in hopes of putting a dent into my cookie dough. Dent it I did not, and it just came back stronger and more determined to form a coup and take over the fridge. So today I had to make the decision. Throw the dough away or freeze the remaining. There just isn’t enough rental property in my freezer for the cookie dough to occupy and then later on overthrow. So out it went. I imagine I will have nightmares of the cookie dough getting larger and larger until it becomes a 3 foot blob rising like a phoenix out of the dumpster and coming to suffocate me with all it’s buttery goodness in the middle of the night. But it had to be done.

Now the recipe I give is the original one that I made oh so long ago. So if you are going to use the cookie dough like I did, just disregard the crust part…minus the fact that you do need to bake you cookie dough. I did for about 7 minutes. I also made a brown sugar sauce(I bet you thought I was doing caramel…again, but no). To make the sauce it is just simply 1/2 cup brown sugar, one stick of butter and 1/4 cup of heavy whipping cream. Melt the butter and sugar together and once the butter has melted whisk in the cream. Remove from heat and serve warm.

So wish me luck all, that the mighty cookie dough does not come back and seek revenge tonight. If it does, enjoy this, my last entry on my blog If not, walnut and huckleberry jam cookies should be next.
Sour Cream-Apple Tart  
 
*Needs to be made in a 10 inch springform pan

Crust:
1 cup sll-purpose flour
1/2 cup butter, well chilled
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup apricot jam, heated and strained

Preheat oven to 375F. Place flour and sugar in a processor bowl. Add butter, in small chunks and blend until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add egg and walnuts. Pat dough into bottom and 1/2 inch up the sides of the pan. Bake until golden brown, 20-25 minutes. Cool, then spread with warm jam.

Filling:
2 1/2lbs tart apples, peedled, cored and thinly sliced
2 tsp fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup raisins(optional)
1 tsp freshly grated lemon zest
3 TBSP unsalted butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Toss apples with lemon juice. Melt butter in large, heavy skillet over low heat. Add apples and both sugars, stir to mix. Cover and cook until apples are just tender, 10-12 minutes.
Uncover, icrease heat to medium-high and cook until liquid has evaporated, 7-8 minutes. Stir in raisins, cinnamon and zest. Cool mixture.

Topping:
2 cups sour cream
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup whipping cream
1/4 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 350F.
Beat sour cream, whipping cream, eggs, sugar and vanilla in medium bowl.
Spoon chilled filling into crust. Very slowly pour topping over, lifting apples so topping seeps through. Bake until topping is consistancy of cooked custard, about 35-40 minutes.
Cool to room temperature and refrigerate for at least 8 hours. Serve Chilled.
 

All text and images on this site have ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Copyright (c) 2006 by Peabody Rudd.