Lemon flavour Japanese cheesecake

Timeline:
- Preparation time: 30 minutes
- Cooking time: 50-60 minutes
- Ready time: at least 4 hours

Ingredients:
1 lemon
4 eggs
1 tbsp maize flour
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup cream cheese
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/8 tsp tartar cream
2/3 cup whipping cream

1. Preheat the oven at 375°F.
2. Separate the egg white from the egg yolk and make a meringue with the egg white. To make the meringue, put the egg white in a mixer and beat it to maximum speed for 5-7 minutes. Add in the sugar in 3 separate steps and add the tartar cream when it reaches soft peak. Stop when it reaches hard peak.
3. While preparing the meringue, sift the maize flour with the all purpose flour, and grate the the lemon's skin and squeeze its juice.
4. Melt the cream cheese and the butter in a bain-marie. Use a spoon to stir and mix the two products together. Before removing the mix away from heat, add the lemon zest and juice, and mix well.
5. Beat the cream cheese mix. Beat until it becomes fluffy and add the egg yolk first and the the dry ingredients, beat at medium speed until everything looks creamy.
6. Mix the meringue with the batter. Add it in several steps, gently folding it in the batter. Make sure to gently fold in the same direction, otherwise the cake might not rise.
7. Pour the batter in a 10 inches cake pan, and bake it in the preheated oven for 50-60 minutes or until the skewer comes out clean when poking the cake. Be sure to lower the temperature to 350°F as soon as the cake enters the oven. 
8. Remove the cake from the pan and let it sit at room temperature for 2 hours and leave it in the fridge for at least 2 hours, if possible, preferably overnight.

Good luck and enjoy! 

Spring cupcakes decorations (improvisation)

At last, we can see the green green grass! It is too bad that buds have not bloom yet, but I can already imagine butterflies flapping their wings to the sound of fresh breezes.

I've made cupcakes and I wanted to find a way to use the cream cheese, confetti candies and chocolate chip that I had at home. After thinking through and looking around, I came up with the idea of using them as decorations, in addition to using whatever I have at home. I usually don't enjoy frosting much due to the rich buttery texture, but this time, I find that it is pleasurable to the taste buds and palate. I have simply replaced butter with something lighter and healthier!

You will find below two recipes, one for the chocolate decoration and the other one is for the cream cheese frosting. They are both improvised recipes, meaning that I roughly measured everything.

Alright, less talk.

Chocolate butterflies
Timeline:
Preparation time: 2-5 minutes
Cooking time: 3-5 minutes
Ready time: 1 hours

Ingredients:
1/2 cup chocolate chips
2 tbsp milk
Confetti candies (optional and to your taste)

1. Draw a butterfly on a piece of paper and prepare parchment paper to imprint your decorations.
2. In a bain-marie, melt the chocolate with milk. If you want to get it done quicker, you can melt the chocolate in the microwave. To my experience, bain-marie has a better outcome.
3. Mix and when the chocolate and milk are well blended, transfer the mixture in a plastic sandwich bag. Cut a corner of the bag. Depending on how precise you want to draw, you can adjust the size of the hole.
4. While it is still very warm, draw your butterfly. Put the drawing underneath the parchment paper and squeeze the chocolate on the parchment paper. In order to reduce mistakes, it is better to draw the edges and fill the inside. This process would need some quick hands, as the chocolate becomes less malleable once slightly cooled down. I simply drew the wings and the antennae.
5. Sprinkle some confetti candies while it is still soft. You may press gently to have the confetti engraved in the decorations.
6. Let it sit in the freezer for 45 minutes and it should be ready to decorate.

Cream cheese frosting
Timeline:
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Ready time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:
4 tbsp cream cheese
2 tbsp greek yogurt
2 tbsp sugar
tiny splash of vanilla extract

1. In a mixer, blend the cream cheese with greek yogurt.
2. When the dairy products are blended into one another, add the sugar and vanilla extract. Whip until everything looks smooth. It is now ready to serve.

How to decorate? 
1. Make sure that the cupcake is cooled to room temperature. With a spatula, spread the frosting on top of your cupcake.
2. Take the butterfly wings and position them as desired. Add the antenna.
3. Let them sit in the fridge for an hour so that the decorations can settle. They are now ready to serve.

There are many ways of drawing your butterfly wings, here is an alternative of method!

Want to know how to make a bitter-sweet cupcake? Simply click on the image below!

Good luck and enjoy! 

Kabocha Cheesecake

Someday in October, I came back home to the fragrant smell of spices. I could tell that it was the perfume of Thanksgiving, as the room stank like pumpkin. My sweet old landlady came to me and said: “[My neighbour]’s oven crashed and so I offered her to use mine instead!” Boy, it smelled so good that I needed to know how to cook that delicious thing in the oven!

A pumpkin coconut cheesecake was the treat. I must say that it tasted really good, but I wanted to add an exotic twist to it. Plus, I have a big preference in preparing everything from scratch and cutting pumpkin tends to be a difficult task. And so, I replaced the pumpkin with kabocha butter squash, and it turns out that the marriage between kabocha, coconut and cream cheese is perfect. In the case where you don’t like kabocha, you can always replace it with pumpkin.

It is a long recipe, but I find it totally worth it!

Ingredients:

(Purée)

1 cup steamed kabocha

1 tsp ground cinnamon

2 tbsp sugar

½ tsp grinded ginger

½ tsp nutmeg and salt

1 tsp vanilla

(Base crust)

1 ½ cup oatmeal

½ cup all purpose flour

¼ cup sugar

A pinch of grounded cinnamon

½ cup shortening (soften at a room temperature)

1 egg

(Cheese filling)

4 eggs

½ cup brown sugar

½ cup granulated sugar

500g mascarpone cheese

Shredded coconut

Whipping cream

1. Cut the kabocha into half and steam it for 30 minutes or until it becomes soft and tender.

2. When the kabocha is ready, cut it into pieces and place it in a blender to prepare the purée. Add all the ingredients for the purée and blend until smooth.

3. Preheat the oven at 350°F.

4. For the base crust, you will need to mix all the dry ingredients together. Use your hands to mix the shortening with the dry ingredients and finally add in the egg. Then in a 10 inch diameter cake pan, layer the crust. Press firmly and use a fork to poke the crust, it will help baking evenly. Bake it for 10-15 minutes, do not overcook it since you will need to bake it one more time later. Let it cool in a rack and now set the oven at 325°F for baking the cheesecake later.

5. While waiting for the crust, you shall prepare the cheese filling. With a mixer, beat the eggs, brown sugar and granulated sugar. When everything is combined, add in the mascarpone cheese. Beat until the texture becomes smooth and incorporate the kabocha purée. Then add the shredded coconut and whipping cream. When everything is mixed, pour the filling on the crust.

6. Bake the cake for 50-60 minutes or until the top becomes golden brown.

7. Let it cool for a few hours before placing it in the fridge for at least four hours. It tastes best if you let it cool overnight.

Good luck and enjoy!