….there is a Red Velvet Cheesecake.
Falling into the why didn’t I think of that category I ran across a recipe in Southern Living Christmas Cookbook for a Red Velvet Cheesecake. My mouth dropped open just a bit. How had I never thought of this before. I mean my husband is the man who loves all things red velvet and he eats cheesecake. Plus I love to experiment with cheesecake flavors.
The question I get from most people when I made this was, does it taste like the cake. For the most part yes. It has all the flavor components but in a creamy texture that is cheesecake. And it has cream cheese frosting on top. So cheesecake with cream cheese frosting. Yeah, a pretty darn good invention if you ask me. The cheesecake is not baked in a water bath which I was reluctant about. It came out creamy but the next time I make this I will bake in a water bath.
I would love the say that I have crossed more things off my Holiday to-do-list. Other than getting the tree up that would be a big fat zero…and I got invited to another party. I find this the most ironic. For last year I was invited to zero parties. None, zippo, nada. This year 10. You think they could have spread these things out.
No gifts have been bought. Apparently when I told my editor that I needed my check so that I could Christmas shop, he must have thought I was super early and shopping for Christmas 09. It’s been “getting out” to me for over a month now and at this point I’m no longer holding my breath. I almost bought cards today but just didn’t find any I like. Hopefully you are having better motivation than me.

Red Velvet Cheesecake

For the Crust:
1 ½ cups chocolate graham cracker crumbs
¼ cup butter, melted
1 TBSP granulated sugar

For the Filling:
3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, at room temperature
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
3 TBSP unsweetened cocoa
1 cup sour cream
½ cup whole buttermilk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp distilled white vinegar
2 (1 oz) bottles red food coloring

For the Topping:
1 (3 ounce) package cream cheese, at room temperature
¼ cup butter, at room temperature
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

For the Crust:
Stir together graham cracker crumbs, melted butter and 1 TBSP sugar; press mixture onto bottom of a 9-inch springform pan.

For the Filling:
Beat together cream cheese and sugar at medium low speed with an electric mixer 1 minute.
Add eggs, unsweetened cocoa, sour cream, buttermilk, vanilla extract, vinegar and food coloring.  Mix on low speed just until fully combined.
Pour batter into prepared pan.
Bake at 325F for 10  minutes, reduce heat to 300F, and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until center is firm.
Run knife along outer edge of cheese. Turn oven off and let cheesecake stand in oven 30 minutes.
Remove cheesecake from oven; cool in pan on a wire rack for 30 m minutes.
Cover and chill for 8 hours.

For the topping:
Beat cream cheese and butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until smooth; gradually add powdered sugar and vanilla, beating until smooth.
Remove cheesecake from refrigerator and spread topping evenly over top of cheesecake.
Remove sides of springform. Garnish if desired.

Source: Souther Living Christmas Cookbook

I think back to last year at this time and I was so ahead of the game. Tree was up, as well as all holiday decor. All the gifts were bought and wrapped. All the Christmas cards were done and addressed, stamped and ready to go.
This year I do have some holiday decor up but no tree yet. That was suppose to be done Friday night, then Saturday night, then tonight (yeah, not happening somehow we got the tree up, I think this post nudged me a little to do it). I have one gift bought. I think I have wrapping paper somewhere. Christmas cards? Not purchased. Have no idea where my address book is (it’s been missing for months). Stamps? Do I even have those?
Sigh.
To top it off I have 9 holiday parties I have been invited to. Five of which of course are on the same night. Boo. I hate to tell people no, I don’t want them to think we don’t want to come. But I have done the spreading yourself thin and go to all five party thing before and it is no fun. You don’t get to enjoy any of the parties because you are too busy starring at your watch to make sure you have enough time to get to the next one. So this year I have told myself, no more than two parties in a day.
Most of these are potlucks of some sort. Which means I am frantically trying to figure out what I want to make. I always over analyze what to make. I also tend to bring more than the average person. I need to work on that habit. Especially with all the food based parties we are going to this season.
One of my parties is a progressive dinner party. I’ll be going to that one as I am the co-host for the dessert portion of the meal (surprise…I’m doing dessert!). So I have been working on desserts to see what I want to serve for the party. I want to make one chocolate based dessert and “other”.
This falls into the other category. Orange says holiday to me. Not really sure why though it could have to do with those chocolate oranges that you have to crack open and it breaks into segments. We especially enjoyed opening them by smashing them on each other’s heads. Ah, siblings, if it were not for them who would torture us and vice versa? So when I saw this caramel pecan tart I decided it needed to be a orange caramel pecan tart. So glad I did, it went so nicely with it.

Orange-Caramel Pecan Tart

For the Tart Dough:

1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
¼ cup granulated sugar
1 egg yolk
½ tsp vanilla extract
1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour
¼ tsp table salt
zest of one medium orange

Coat a 9” tart pan with removable bottom with nonstick spray; line baking sheet with foil. (I used 4 3-inch diameter tart pans instead).
Cream together butter and sugar for the dough in a bowl with a mixer until light. Add egg yolk and vanilla, beat until combined, then add flour, salt, and zest.
Mix just until dough forms.
Press dough evenly into tart pan, trimming excess from the edges. Chill until firm, 30  minutes; preheat oven to 350F.
Place tart on prepared sheet and bake until crust is dry to the touch but hasn’t begun to brown, 12-14 minutes. Remove from oven (leave oven on) and cool slightly.

For the Filling:

1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, cubed
¾ cup brown sugar
1/3 cup light corn syrup
3 TBSP granulated sugar
3 TBSP heavy whipping cream
½ tsp table salt
1 ½ TBSP orange liqueur (I used Grand Marnier)
1 ½ cups pecan halves, toasted
Bring butter, brown sugar, corn syrup, granulated sugar, cream and salt for the filling to a boil in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Cook to 240F on an instant read thermometer. Off heat, stir in the orange liqueur (it will bubble furiously), then fold in the pecans.
Pour mixture into tart shell(s), return to oven, and bake until filling is bubbly and crust is brown, about 20 minutes (about 15 for the smaller ones). Let rat cool on the baking sheet 15-20 minutes, then carefully remove the side ring. Cool tart completely before slicing.

Adapted from Cuisine at Home Magazine Holiday Menus

Good in theory…bad in practice. I say this a lot in my life. Mostly in hockey though. For there are a lot of things I see so clearly in my mind yet when I go to execute them at hockey they never go that way. It’s a very sad sight indeed.
Sometimes the good in theory, bad in practice phrase also relates to my baking. This week’s Tuesday’s with Dorie (which we were allowed to post late due to US Thanksgiving) was a Thanksgiving Twofer Pie (La Casserole Carree). It’s basically a combo of pecan pie and pumpkin pie. I of course set out to do something different. I wanted to make a pecan pie cake. Pumpkin ice cream. And then turn that into a Baked Alaska.
The cake itself was tasty, but when I went to cut into circles it rebelled against me…with a vengeance and I never got a very good circle out of any of them. The ice cream was super yummy. I made a Kabocha Squash and Pumpkin Ice Cream. But getting the ice cream on top of the mutilated pecan pie cake was also difficult, even with me holding it together with caramel.
Then I over whipped my meringue by not paying attention but at that point didn’t care as I was already angry. They still spread so that worked out.
Like I said, in theory this was great. In practice the separate pieces were great. Together we were the leaning, annoying tower of Thanksgiving.
Those of you celebrating US Thanksgiving I wish you a full stomach and not that many dishes to do. As for me, I am headed to a 9 course tasting menu where I don’t have any dishes to do.

Pecan Pie Cake

Yellow Cake Batter:

2 cups cake flour
2 tsp baking powder
½  tsp salt
½  cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs, room temperature
2 tsp vanilla
¾  cup milk

*This cake makes enough for 2 9-inch pans. But for this recipe you are only using half of the batter. Reserve the batter for a Banana Butterscotch cake that will be up over the weekend.
In bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt with a wire whisk.
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Add vanilla and mix until completely combines. Slowly add flour alternately with milk. At end of addition batter should be smooth.

Make pecan pie portion:

¼ cup light or dark corn syrup
1/8  cup packed light brown sugar
1 TBSP unsalted butter, melted
1 large egg
¼  tsp pure vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
3/4 cups pecan halves or pieces

Mix all together in one bowl. Then fold into the yellow cake batter until completely incorporated.

Bake for 22 to 27 minutes. Use a tester to make sure it is baked all the way through. Cool 5 minutes in pan, then invert onto a rack.

Cut out into little circles using cookie cutter.

Yellow cake recipe adapted from: about.com

Kabocha Squash and Pumpkin Ice Cream

4 Large whole eggs
1 3/4 cup Granulated sugar
4 cups Heavy cream
2 cups Milk
1 cup Kabocha squash puree (drained over night to reduce moisture) can also just use pumpkin
1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree (drained overnight to reduce moisture) or canned
2 T Pumpkin spice

With an electric mixer using the whip attachment, whip the eggs together until they become pale in color, about 3-4 minutes. Add in the sugar, pumpkin and squash puree until very smooth, scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl. With the mixer on low speed add the cream, spice and milk. Freeze in ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

 To see how to make it into Baked Alaska, head on over to Aran’s site (Cannelle et Vanille) for meringue recipe and instructions.

So to round out what had already been a very odd week, LFB was scheduled to be spayed on Tuesday. After getting blood work and the once over LFB was cleared for surgery and I went home (this was around 9am). Now even though spay and  neutering is very routine I was still a tad nervous, as anytime a small animal goes under anesthesia it is never good, and LFB is only a little over 2 pounds total.
Around 2 pm I got a phone call from the veterinarian. I was suppose to get LFB at 3 pm and so I assumed it was them telling me that everything had gone well and I can pick up LFB in about an hour. But instead it was the Vet telling me that their was a problem. My heart sank. I asked if something had gone wrong in the surgery and he told me no, that LFB had not even gone into surgery yet.
At this point I was confused. The Vet told me that he was embarrassed to say this but that LFB could  not be spayed that day. I asked why not and he said because LFB was not a girl, but at BOY. Yes, that’s right my little baby bunny girl who has been referred to as a girl for the last 7 months is indeed a boy. You see, I was told that LFB was a girl. I had never noticed any “parts” and LFB had never displayed any boy behaviors of any boy bunnies I had in the past.
But sure enough when they shaved him down, there in all it’s less than glory was his tiny manhood. So tiny in fact that a veterinarian who specializes in rabbits didn’t catch on. We laughed and laughed and I told him no worries as I had told him that “she” was a girl. He asked if I wanted LFB to be neutered and I did…so in a way LFB is back to being a girl.
It has taken some getting used to. We still slip up and call him a her. I still slip up and call him girly, girl (a former nickname). Lucky for us he has no idea and hopefully isn’t having any sort of identity crisis. LFB is doing well now. He has recovered just fine…at least physically.
When I was stressing over the surgery I was figuring out what to do with some cranberries I bought. I originally though I was going to make a cranberry lime semifreddo, but had no limes and it was a little too cold that day to be wanting anything frozen. Having bought some ladyfingers and then doing nothing with them I decided to make a Charlotte and fill it with a cranberry orange Bavarian cream. This will blow away any cranberry Jello salad that anyone brings to the Thanksgiving day table.

Cranberry Orange Charlotte

1 package ladyfinger cookies
cranberry orange bavarian (recipe follows)
caramel sauce (you can use store bought)

Cranberry-Orange Bavarain

2 eggs, separated (at room temperature)
2/3  cup fresh cranberries
3 TBSP fresh orange juice
½ cup granulated sugar (vanilla sugar if you have it)
2 TBSP superfine sugar
½ cup heavy whipping cream
2 tsp powdered gelatin.

In a small saucepan add the cranberries, orange juice and ¼ cup vanilla sugar. Cook over medium-high heat until the cranberries start to make a popping sound, 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.
Run cranberry mixture through a blender and puree until smooth. Set aside.
In a metal or glass bowl, add the egg yolks, remaining ¼ cup vanilla sugar and cranberry mixture. Whisk together to combine. Place bowl over a pan of simmering water (or use a double boiler if you have one),  whisk until the mixture is thickened and hot. Keep whisking the whole time to prevent the mixture from becoming scrambled eggs. This will take about 3-5 minutes depend on the conductivity of you bowl.
Remove the bowl from the pan and move to an ice bath ( a large bowl full of ice cubes). You are wanting to cool down the mixture. While still warm, sprinkle gelatin evenly over the cranberry-egg mixture. Whisk to incorporate. Keep whisking until mixture has cooled to room temperature. You don’t want it to get cooler than that as the gelatin will start to set if you let it get too cool.
In a thoroughly clean mixing bowl, add the egg whites and whip on high speed with an electric mixer (or whisk by hand if you are wanting a workout) until they start to get frothy. Slowly sprinkle in the superfine sugar ans whip until the egg whites are peaking. Using a spatula, gently fold the egg whites into the chilled cranberry mixture.
Whip the whipping cream until stiff peaks form. Again with the spatula, gently fold into the cranberry mixture.
Set ladyfingers into a Charlotte mold. Pour Bavarian into the center of the mold, careful to not cover up the ladyfingers. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours. Unmold the Charlotte and serve chilled with a little caramel sauce on top. Scoop the leftover Bavarian into glasses and chill for 4 hours.