Oreo Cheesecake

I made this No-bake Oreo Cheesecake for my younger one's birthday recently. His birthday cake was a bit small. As such I made this cheesecake to ensure everyone gets to eat a piece of cake. I was very glad that it was very well received. Thanks Evan, from Evan's Kitchen Rambling for providing the receipe. I am very inspired by her creations and her talents in both baking and photograpy. I modified the recipe a little and added chocolate shavings on top of the cake to decorate it a little.

Most instructions for cheesecakes call for the use of a springform pan or a loose-bottom pan, as cheesecakes cannot be turned out on the rack without collapsing. As I do not have any one of these pans, I improvised by following the tip from Kraft's website. Just line a 18cm round pan with a sheet of aluminum foil that extends out 2-3 cm at the side of the pan. When the cake is chilled, lift the cake out of the pan by the foil. Carefully remove the foil and transfer the cake to a platter. Decorate the top or side as desired.

The side of the cake looks a little crinkly because of the foil. Next time, I will use a strip of baking paper to line the side of the pan so that the sides will look neat.

Ingredients:

base:

110g digestive biscuits(about 8 pieces), chopped into fine crumbs
40g melted butter

filling:

300ml whipping cream (chilled, I used Bulla Thickened Cream)

1 tablespoon gelatin powder

3 tablespoon boiling water

10ml lemon juice

250g cream cheese, soften at room temperature

50g icing sugar

45ml fresh milk

1 table spoon vanilla essence

8 pieces of oreo cookies (coarsely chopped, with cream removed)

4 pieces of oreo cookies (finely chopped, with cream removed)(1 piece refers to half of the oreo cookies)

Method:

• Mix biscuit crumbs & melted butter together and press firmly with the help of a spoon onto the base of a 18cm cake tin. Chill for 30 minutes.
• Beat whipping cream with electric mixer until 70% stiff or until mousse-like. Do not over mix. Takes about 2 to 3mins on low speed. Keep in the fridge.
• Place gelatin powder, lemon juice & boiling water in a bowl. Heat a pot filled with water until just simmering and place the bowl inside the pot. Dissolve gelatin, lemon juice & boiling water in the bowl. Keep warm.
• With an electric mixer, beat cream cheese , icing sugar, milk and vanilla essence until smooth & creamy. Blend in gelatin solution. Blend in whipping cream with a spatula.
• Pour half of the cheese mixture into a bowl. Stir in finely chopped oreo cookies. Mix well. Pour the mixture the cake tin. Chill for 15 minutes.
• Sprinkle coarsely chopped oreo cookies on top of the first half of cheese mixture which has been chilled. Pour in the remaining half of the cheese mixture. Chill for 3 to 4 hours before serving. Remove from pan and decorate with chocolate shavings or as desired.

Tips:
To ensure easy whipping, make sure the cream is chilled. Chill the mixing bowl in the fridge for 15mins before using it to whip the cream.

To achieve a clean slice, heat up the knife before slicing (eg. soak knife in a cup of hot water or heat over a stove on low heat). Clean the knife after each cut.

Oreo Muffins

The males in my family loves oreo cookies. Upon their request, I made these oreo muffins for breakfast. I simply replace the chocolate chips called for in the recipe with oreo cookies chunks. Here's a simple and easy muffins for all those oreo fans out there. The recipe here makes 6 muffins, you can easily double it to make 12.

I bought these muffin liners from Diaso at Vivo city, it comes in various sizes. This size comes in 40 pcs and cost only S$2. It has a wax lining on it, as such, the muffin comes out clean and neat and will not stick onto the liner unlike the usual paper liners.

Ingredients:
(makes 6 muffins)

2oz butter, soften @ room temperature
35g caster sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
105g plain flour (all purpose flour)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup fresh milk
1/2 cup oreo cookie chunks

Method:

• Preheat oven to 190 degC.
• With an electric mixer, cream butter until soft.
• Add in sugar and beat until light and fluffy.
• Add in the egg gradually. Beat well each time egg is added.
• Sift flour and baking powder. Fold flour mixture into the butter mixture, alternating with the milk.
• Fill each muffin cup/liner with batter till half full. Sprinkle several oreo cookie chunks on top, then cover with a spoonful of batter.
• Bake for 25 mins, until lightly browned. Cool the muffins in the pan for 5 mins before transfering to a wire rack to cool.

Journey to home baking

I finally bought a convection oven in August. I have stopped working since January this year to be a full time stay-at-home mum to take care of my 2 boys. I love baking, more than cooking meals for the family. Since I bought my little oven, I have been able to try baking various types of muffins, cookies & cakes. I have also managed to try frosting a layer cake. I realised that most of my friends do not bake or even cook frequently. I have came across many interesting recipes and bakes from the local food blogs here. By starting this blog, I hope I am able to get ideas and suggestions from fellow home bakers to improve my baking skills. At the same time I hope my creations and little experiments would also inspire others, who are like me, to start baking as a hobby. Here's my latest creation, Chocolate Fudge Brownies.

I followed the recipe from a cookbook for the base. The cake did'nt turn out to my expectation to be fudgy, instead, it's more cake-like and a bit dry. As such, I will not post the recipe here. The frosting is great. I melted some dark chocolate with whipping cream. It's very smooth and chocolaty. Yum yum! My LG likes the brownies, he finds it very tasty. I used little bear jelly gums to decorate the brownies as my younger boy luv candies.