Cheesecake-Swirled Brownies

I woke up early this morning for some reason. I think I was a little too excited about continuing Hunger Games because that book is all kinds of fantastic. I was looking through the pantry for some coffee when I noticed the pack of expensive cooking chocolate given to us a long time ago by an aunt. My Mum tells me it will expire soon so she urges me to get rid of them, so I thought I'd go on ahead and use them. There's no point in wasting fine dark cooking chocolate, yeah?

I actually accidentally dropped some melted chocolate into my cream cheese mixture (insert sad face here) so my marbling doesn't particularly look as nice as I would've wanted. As you can see in the above photo, the marbling is almost non-existent. Sometimes these things happen and one can only sigh. But in all honesty I wanted to slap myself for doing something avoidable.

Cheesecake-Swirled Brownies

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients for brownie batter:
1/2 cup (4 oz or 1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
85g (3 oz) unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 tspn. pure vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
2/3 cup all-purpose flour

Procedure for the brownie batter:
Preheat oven at 350F, making sure the oven rack is set at the middle of the oven. Butter an 8-inch square baking pan and set aside.

Heat butter and chopped chocolate in a mixing bowl floating over simmering water. Make sure the heat is low to moderate so as the chocolate will melt more gently. Occasionally stir or whisk the misture until fully melted.

Remove from the heat and immediately whisk in sugar, eggs, vanilla and that pinch of salt until well combined. Whisk in the flour until just combined, careful not to overmix. The batter should be kind of gooey and thick. Pour the batter into the baking pan and spread.

Ingredients for the cheesecake batter:
8 oz cream cheese, well-softened
1/3 cup sugar
1 large egg yolk
1/4 tspn. pure vanilla extract

*1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Procedure:
Whisk together all ingredients in a small bowl until smooth. The chocolate chips can be added into the cheesecake batter, but I would recommend topping them later on after marbling.


Dollop the cheesecake batter over the brownie batter, then swirl with a butter knife by folding some of the cheesecake batter over the brownie batter in swirling motions. Sprinkle the chocolate chips over the marbled batter if you haven't already put them into the cheesecake batter.

Bake the brownies until edges are slightly puffed and center is just set. I baked mine for 35 minutes more or less. It can be served warm, at room temperature or chilled.

Rainbows take the cake!

It's true what they say about rainbows, they're pretty anywhere! I've been planning on making these cupcakes for quite a while and after submitting my term paper on Strategic Management, which I slaved over and managed to write into 84 pages, I finally found the time! These rainbow cupcakes only made things a whole lot better when I received a 3.75 grade point average for my Strategic Management course. Celebrate? 

This is pretty fun to make with kids- your children- or with your younger siblings, like I did with my baby brother. Or if you're making it alone, it absolutely makes you feel giddy! Or at least that's what happened with me. And it's pretty easy too!

Rainbow Cupcakes

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3 tspn. baking powder

1/2 tspn. salt

1 1/2 cups sugar

3/4 cup or 1 1/2 sticks of butter at room temperature

2 large eggs at room temperature

2 egg whites at room temperature

2 tspn. vanilla extract

1 cup milk

food coloring (I used red, yellow, green, blue and purple)

any garnish you like

Procedure:

Preheat oven to 350F and line muffin pan with paper liners. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

In another bowl, beat together sugar and butter using an electric mixer until well-combined, around 2-3 minutes. Put the mixer on low then add eggs and egg whites one at a time. Add vanilla.

Gradually add flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with milk in 2 additions, ending with the flour mixture. Divide the batter into number of available food color (For mine it was 5). Add food coloring per bowl (the lightness/darkness of the color is up to you) and mix to combine.

Add batter into each cupcake liner color by color, around 1/2 to 1 tablespoon each color. Start with violet and end with red for a perfect rainbow. Don't worry about the colors mixing up when you add them on top of each other. All the colors together should fill the cupcake liner around 2/3 full.

Bake around 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick/tester inserted into the cupcake comes out clean. If you don't want to poke holes into your cupcakes, you can touch the top of the cupcake and if it springs back, then it's ready.

Of course poking holes don't matter if you're planning on putting frosting atop your cupcakes. These cupcakes taste pretty good without frosting, and they're really cute to eat- almost too cute in fact. But we can take it a step further.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:

1 8oz. bar cream cheese

3 tbsp. softened butter

1 cup sifted powdered sugar

1/8 tspn. cinnamon powder

Procedure:

Pour ingredients into the electric mixer's bowl and beat until light and fluffy.

Checkerboard Cookies

I have a love-hate relationship with dough. Somehow the recipes I make involving dough don't always turn out as I expect them to. When I made these Butter Checkerboard Cookies, I was dangerously close to throwing a tantrum on the kitchen floor. It's always either I put in too much butter or I made a mistake of sifting the flour after I measured. I'm banking on the second option. It's always better to sift first so that you don't waste any flour at all.

The dough became difficult to handle for the most part because it was too soft. I only managed to form sad little checkerboards of cookies, which made me equally sad. I really should've added more flour to the mixture. I broke my back trying to knead the dough and form the checkerboards. The procedure seemed simple on paper, but in reality it was a bit challenging. But don't be disheartened because the challenge is what makes it fun!

I made these cookies two days before my family and I left for a beach trip. It had been the long weekend (because of the holiday that fell on a Monday) before my final exams. I made sure I went through my notes before I made these cookies. Tomorrow I take the last Final Exam of my college life. It hasn't sunk in yet that it is my last, and that the four years of my life spent in university is coming to an end. Right now it seems I'm more emotional about the state of the cookies I baked rather than the fact that I'm leaving my school, my friends, and will soon be facing 'the world out there'.

Because the rectangular checkerboard dough was softer than it was supposed to be even after overnight refrigeration, it had a tendency to mash together while I was slicing it with the knife. I cut my cookies way thicker than I was supposed to, because I made them smaller than usual. I was disheartened by the look of the so-called checkerboards I made, but nobody ever said I couldn't use the dough to make other patterns, so I decided to form swirling patterns with the rest of the dough instead. There were lots of left-over dough to choose from. I even flatted a couple of vanilla and chocolate dough with plans of sandwiching the cream cheese frosting I had left over from some cupcakes I made the week before. I loved the idea of making them look like macaroons.

The cookies turned out beautifully but they weren't crispy, nor were they hard. They were somewhere between chewy and crispy, which to me was perfect for butter cookies. But after a day or two they turned chewy, maybe because mine were made with too much butter? They did taste like the expensive-looking canned butter cookies with the expensive-sounding names from the Supermarket. Those cookies are my grandma's favorites so I let her have some of my freshly baked ones. And well, because she is my grandma I couldn't help thinking she felt obliged to tell me they were good. And because I obsess over my baking, which translates to I want to hear people say it's 'delicious' rather than it 'tastes okay/fine', I had to get a second opinion. Anything short of delicious to me is classified as somewhat a failure. I know, I'm sensitive with my baking.

So I have this younger brother who loves sweets. I fed him some cookies and he made a face as he said, "The cookies taste okay." At this point I was slapping myself in my head and vowing never to make these cookies again. Heck, I was scared to bring the other dozens of cookies that came out from this recipe to the beach trip, where we will be joined by family friends. My Mum encouraged me by eating quite a few pieces of cookies, and so did my Dad and my other brothers. I ended up bringing a big jar of cookies, which surprisingly became quite popular. This is one of those instances you are happy to come home empty-handed. Needless to say I'll be making these again one of these days. I do believe they taste better the day after they're baked.

Butter Checkerboard Cookies

Adapted from Baking Obsession

Ingredients:

5 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 lb (2 cups or 4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

2 cups granulated sugar

1 tbsp pure vanilla extract

2 large eggs, room temperature

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa

Procedure:
Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

Using the electric mixer, in another larger bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then add the vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture and mix to combine. Finish the mixing with your hands or a wooden spoon. (It was easier with my hands though.)

Divide the dough in half. It's better to make sure you've got two equal dough sizes for your checkerboard so don't forget to weigh your dough. Knead the ½ cup of cocoa into one of the two parted dough to form your chocolate dough.

Again, divide the chocolate and vanilla dough in half. Form each of them into a rectangle, wrap individually in plastic, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours up to a day. Since I couldn't wait, I took them out of the fridge after two hours.

Take one portion of the chocolate and one portion of the vanilla dough and let them sit on the counter for about 15-20 minutes to soften slightly. On parchment paper (I like using this better) or a lightly floured surface, using a floured rolling pin, roll one portion of the vanilla dough into ½ -inch thick rectangles, with the sides about 12 x 5 inches long. Using a pizza wheel or a sharp knife, cut out total of 9 ½ -inch wide strips from the flattened dough. Do the same for the chocolate dough.

Handling the strips delicately, form two checkerboard logs alternating the chocolate and vanilla strips. The first log should have alternating chocolate-vanilla-chocolate as its first layer, and the second log should have vanilla-chocolate-vanilla as its first layer. (You can get the idea from the photos above.) Cover with plastic wrap or parchment paper and refrigerate until firm, at least for another 2 hours.

When ready to continue, roll the remaining vanilla dough into a rectangle about 1/3-inch thick and measuring 12 x 6 inches. Place the firmed checkerboard log with the predominant chocolate pattern (choco-vanilla-choco as first layer) into the center, long sides parallel, and with the aid of parchment, wrap the dough around the checkerboard log pressing firmly to adhere. Roll the finished log from side to side to form sharp corners. Do the same with the chocolate dough and the vanilla-choco-vanilla patterned log. Wrap in the parchment and/or plastic and refrigerate well overnight. You can freeze the logs then thaw them overnight in the refrigerator before using, but I just refrigerate mine.

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350F. Cover a large baking tray with parchment or a silicone mat. Using a very sharp knife, slice the cookie-dough log into ¼-inch thick slices. Place on the prepared baking sheet leaving more or less 1 inch all around each slice. Bake the cookies, in batches, for about 12 minutes or until firm and golden brown on the bottom. The website where I got this recipe says not to let them bake for too long, or the color contrast between the chocolate and vanilla dough will be lost. Cool on the baking sheet on a rack for 15 minutes. Then transfer the cookies to the rack and cool completely.