Culinary Concoctions by Peabody

Oh you knew I would have to make a cheesecake for Christmas….and so I did. For some reason this cheesecake was inspired by me watching Little Women(which I was watching today). I already make a white chocolate and raspberry cheesecake but just subbed the cranberries to make it more Christmas like. The satsumas come from the scene in the movie when they have a wonderful breakfast laid out and Amy is so very excited that there is an orange. Yet, gracious as their family is, they give their breakfast away. I’m not really sure how oranges became such a big thing at Christmas. I have several friends that have the tradition of having an orange at the bottom of their stocking(I prefer jewelry…but to each their own ) So I added satsuma zest to the cookie dough crust and instead of a regular caramel, I went with the satsuma caramel. And in the grand tradition of the movie I am giving away my cheesecakes…just in case you were wondering.

Well I am off to watch more Christmas movies….who knows what I will come up with after watching the Grinch…roast beast anyone???

White Chocolate Cranberry Cheesecake with Satsuma Caramel Sauce

sugar cookie dough(leftover from frosted cookies)
2 1/2 lbs cream cheese
2 1/2 cups sugar
2 TB flour
5 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
6 oz white chocolate, chopped
1 cup dried cranberries

1. Press sugar cookie dough into 10 inch spring form pan. Bake for 10 minutes on 350F and set aside.
2. Cream the cheese until soft. Add in the sugar and mix well. Decrease the mixer speed to low and add the flour.
3. Add eggs in one at a time scraping bowl down to make sure that there are no lumps.
4. Stir in the vanilla. The chocolate and cranberries can be added now; they just get stirred in. If you wish to melt the chocolate and add in this was that is fine.
5. Pour batter into the pan. Bake in a water bath at 350F for approx 2 hours. Let cake sit at room temperature until cool, then chill overnight.

1/2 cup superfine granulated sugar
1 cup Satsuma juice(or just oranges if you don’t have satsumas) about 5 satsumas or 3 oranges
Remove zest from 2 satsumas. Squeeze juice from satsumas and strain through a fine sieve. Measure out 1 cup juice.

Cook remaining 1/2 cup sugar in a dry heavy saucepan over moderate heat, undisturbed, until it begins to melt. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally with a fork, until sugar is melted into a deep golden caramel. Add zest and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 15 seconds. Tilt pan and carefully pour in juice (caramel will harden and steam vigorously). Cook over moderately low heat, stirring, until caramel is dissolved, then cool sauce.

You throw enough bacon and cheese in anything and you can get a man to eat it. And what is more important is that quiche taste good, too good. Why oh why, must everything I love to eat be bad for you. Cream, check. Eggs, check. Bacon, check. Cheese, check. Cholesterol pills, check. I’ve never actually had a flavor combination of quiche that I didn’t like, but my favorite is always some version of quiche Lorraine. This quiche falls into that category.

Quiche is so versatile. It can be an appetizer, your breakfast/brunch, or even your main meal with a nice salad. There aren’t that many foods that can say that. And it can be made ahead of time to boot.  The only problem I find with quiche is that it never quite feels me up and I end up eating more and my four hundred calorie piece ends up being a thousand….sigh. I highlight quiche this week because I think it makes an excellent Christmas morning breakfast. You could make it ahead of time and have one less stressful thing to do. Plus, it is soooo simple to make.

I didn’t include a pie crust dough because the one I tried from allrecipes.com was horrible…there was nothing flaky about it. Luckily the quiche still was wonderful.

Hope all your holiday who-ha is in full swing and you are enjoying this time of year.

Pie crust for one 9-inch pie(use a recipe of your own or buy store bought)
6 ounces thick cut bacon, cut into narrow strips (or “lardons”)
3 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
1 1/2 cups cream
1/4 teaspoon salt
Pinch freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
1/2 cup grated manchego cheese
 
 Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
 
Line the pie crust with parchment paper and fill with pie weights or dried beans. Bake until the crust is set, 12 to 14 minutes. Remove the paper and weights and bake until golden brown, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack. Leave the oven on.
 
In a medium skillet, cook the bacon until crisp and the fat is rendered, about 5 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. Discard the fat or reserve for another use.
 
Arrange the bacon evenly over the bottom of the baked crust.
 
In a large bowl, beat the eggs, yolks, and cream. Add the remaining ingredients and whisk to combine. Pour into the prepared crust and bake until the custard is golden, puffed, and set yet still slightly wiggly in the center, 30 to 35 minutes.

Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup. Stoffers Macaroni and Cheese that has been cooked a little too long so that the edges are all crispy. Cold Stone Creamery Cake Batter ice cream with Heath mix in. And bread pudding. These are my go to foods when the world is treating me less than kind. Of all of those, bread pudding is my favorite, but the one I make the least(I tend to eat the whole pan).
I didn’t start off a fan of bread pudding. Growing up I was allergic to milk and so the few times I ate pudding, I had adverse reactions to it. One night while out to eat with my parents my mother insisted that I try a piece of her dessert, it was bread pudding. Being smart she did not tell me it’s name and therefore I tried it. Sneaky woman. It was so wonderful. It was warm, soft and sweet and I swore it felt like some one was wrapping me with a blanket and telling me it was all okay. Bread pudding has that power over me.
Since that day it became my quest to find the best bread pudding. If it is on the menu at a restaurant, I try it. I have probably eaten or made darn close to every variety out there….it’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it. In all of my research and baking I have discovered that my favorite bread pudding is made with croissants. I mean if you are going to ingest all those calories, why not really go for it? My bread pudding is a little more custardy than some, mostly because I bake mine in a water bath. I feel that it just makes it that more creamy and soft texture.
The sauce is the next important thing to me. If you have a bad sauce you have ruined your bread pudding and that would just be sad. I prefer the “toffee” sauce…your brown sugar, cream and butter based, the only exception being when I make chocolate chip or chocolate bread pudding…then ganache is that best.
Whoever said, “nothing tastes as good as thin feels” obviously never had my bread pudding.

 Crossiant Bread Pudding with Pecan Toffee Sauce

4 large croissants or 6 small ones
1 pint heavy cream
4 egg yolks
½ cup of sugar
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 350F.
1.Tear croissants into pieces and place int o baking dish. Sprinkle bread with the raisins.
2.Mix the egg yolks, sugar and nutmeg together in a bowl. Then stir in the heavy cream.
3.Pour the custard over the bread. Press down the bread pieces until the bread is soaked with the custard. You will most likely have extra custard depending on how stale your crossiants are. Don’t feel like you have to use all the custard.
4.Place pan into another pan that will hold a water bath. Bake the bread pudding for 45 minutes until golden on top. Cool 10 minutes and serve warm.

Pecan Toffee Sauce

3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup unsalted butter
1/3 cup whipping cream
1 TBSP Amaretto
1/2 cup chopped pecans, toasted
1.Stir brown sugar and butter in heavy medium saucepan over medium heat until melted and smooth, about 2 minutes.
2. Add cream and Amaretto and bring to a simmer. Simmer for about 5 minutes and then add pecans.

Well as luck would have it, I forgot that before the big wind storm I had made(and photographed) a lovely eggnog cake. An experiment really that turned out nicely. I like hot milk cake and so I thought, why not replace the milk in the cake with eggnog…a risk I know, but all turned out lovely. What it produced was a very spongy yet dense cake that could easily be eaten on it’s own, but I love frosting too much so that was out of the question. I personally am not an eggnog person…especially if it is made the proper way with the floating meringue. It just bothers me and I feel like I should be throwing the eggnog into a pie shell and making a custard pie out of it, instead of drinking it. But I do like the flavor of eggnog in certian things(lattes aside…coffee and eggnog don’t mix well with me). I originally wanted to make cupcakes I saw a long while back on the Cupcake Blog but it seems a little too egg noggy for me. I did however steal her idea of having a bourbon cream cheese frosting.

 Hot Eggnog Cake

Hot Egg Nog Cake

3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup egg nog
1 TBSP butter
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 325F.

In a large bowl, beat together the eggs and sugar until very thick; the batter should fall from the beaters in a thick ribbon. Beat in the vanilla.
While you’re beating the eggs and sugar, heat the egg nog and butter in a small saucepan to just simmering. Add the hot egg nog to the egg mixture in a slow, steady stream as you continue beating.
In a seperate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, stirring utnil they’re just combined.
Pour the batter into a lighty greased 9 inch cake round. Bake for 50 minutes, or until the cake is a deep golden brown and starting to pull away from the sides of the pan. Remove the cake from the oven and cool it in the pan for 10-15 minutes. Run a knife around the sides of the pan.

Bourbon Cream Cheese Frosting

2 tablespoons bourbon
1-1/2 packages cream cheese, room temp
1/4cup butter, room temp
4-5 cups confectioner’s sugar(will depend on how thick you like your frosting)

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat cream cheese and butter until soft.
Add the confectioner’s sugar and beat to combine.
Add the 2 TBSP of bourbon and beat to combine.

Source: Inspired by Hot Milk Cake in the King Arthur’s Flour Baker’s Companion All Purpose Baking Cookibook