Baked Cheesecake with Strawberry Glaze

Cheesecake is a dessert consisting of a topping made of soft, fresh cheese on a base made from biscuit, pastry or sponge. The topping is frequently sweetened with sugar and flavored or topped with fruit, nuts, fruit flavored drizzle and/or chocolate. Savory cheesecakes also exist, served sometimes as hors d'oeuvre or with accompanying salads. There's nothing like a delicious piece of cheesecake to mark the end of a good meal. Here's one recipe to share with you.

Crust

1 1/2 c graham cracker crumbs

2 T sugar

2 Tbsp melted butter

Filling

20 ounce (2-1/2 pkgs - 8 ounce each) softened cream cheese

1 cup sugar

1/2 ts vanilla

3 eggs - beaten

Topping

1 cup mashed strawberries

1 cup sugar

3 T cornstarch

1/3 c water

Mix sugar and cracker crumbs with melted butter. Press on to the bottom of a 9" springform pan. Bake at 350° for 10 minutes in preheated oven. Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack.
Whip cream cheese until it's smooth using food processor or an electrical mixer. Gradually beat in the sugar. Add beaten eggs and vanilla. Pour over the pre-baked graham craker crust in the springform pan.
Bake at 300° for an hour or until the center has set. Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack.

Strawberry Glace
Blend the cornstarch and sugar together in a small sauce pan. Stir in water and strawberries, cook on medium heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens and begins to boil. Let boil one minute, stirring constantly. When the glace has cooled completely spread it on the cool cheesecake.
Refrigerate for 3 hours or more before serving.

How To Make Great Cheesecake
Here's some additional tips you can use to make your cheesecake a success:
To soften the cream cheese is to leave it in room temperature until it's softer than refrigerated. It's okay to let it reach room temperature as long as you don't leave it out too long.
You can prevent a cheesecake from cracking by running a thin knife around the edge, between the crust and the pan, just after removing the cake from the oven.
When using a springform pan let the cheesecake cool completely before removing the sides of the pan. Refrigerate before serving.
To cut a whole cheesecake into perfect slices, use dental floss instead of a knife. Prepare yourself with a lot of unwaxed, unflavored dental floss.
Saw your way down through the cheesecake, using lots of sawing motion and pressure when cutting through the crust, then let loose of one end and pull the floss out from the other end. Don't bring it back to the top, it would just make a mess.
Wipe your hands and change floss regularily, otherwise it gets slippery.
When slicing with a knife, the knife should have a long and thin blade to make clean cuts. Dip the knife in hot water and clean the blade between every slice. That way the slices gets a nice and clean cut without crushing the cake.





Since 2006 Simon Byholm has published a cheesecake cookbook, 91 Cheesecake Recipes, as a PDF ebook. You can find the latest version as well as a deliciousturtle cheesecake recipe on his site 91CheesecakeRecipes.com

Lemon Bar Cookies

The bar cookie is basically cookies prepared in a single pan and sliced into bars later, and many of these are relatively admired. A quantity of easy bar cookies like the brownie, are some of the mainly fashionable cookies because they have an appetizing flavour and are easy to make.
The Lemon Bar Cookie is just another tasty variant of a bar cookie and here are easy step-by-step ways in making one.
This Lemon Bar Cookie recipe yields about two dozen lemon bars prepared for approximately twenty minutes and cooks in about twenty-five.

You will need:
Ingredients:
4 large eggs, beaten evenly
1-1/3 cups of granulated sugar
3 tablespoons of all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons of nicely-grated lemon zest from two large lemons
2/3 cup of newly-squeezed lemon juice, strained
1/3 cup of whole milk
1/8 teaspoon of salt
Extra powdered (confectioner's) sugar to decorate finished bars

Preparation
step 1: Preheat your oven set to about 350 degrees F. Adjust the oven rack to the middle position then set up the crust and bake.
Step 2: While letting the crust to bake, create the Lemon Filling. In an average bowl, beat the eggs, sugar, and flour. Mix in the lemon zest, the lemon juice, the whole milk, and the salt to unify well. After which, transfer this blend onto the top of the baked hot crust.
Step 3: Leave this to bake for about 20 minutes, or until the filling feels concrete when touched evenly. Separate this from the oven to transfer onto a pan to the wire cooling stand and let it cool for 20 minutes. Once cooled, take hold of the parchment paper and cautiously raise the bars onto a cutting board. Slice them into serving size squares or bars.

Crust:
1-3/4 cups of all-purpose flour
2/3 cup of powdered sugar
1/4 cup of cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 cup unsalted butter
Additional softened butter for the greasing pan
Preparation
step 1: To make the crust, evenly butter a 14- x 10-inch baking pan and lay it with a parchment paper or wax paper letting the edges come over its sides.
Step 2: Beat the flour, milled sugar, the cornstarch, and the salt in a food processor. Then, put in the butter and blend it for 7 to 10 seconds. Finally, pulse the mixture until it looks like a coarse meal. Dust the mixture into your prepared baking pan and push it securely into a smooth layer with somewhat raised sides to grip in the filling.
Step 3: Refrigerate this for about 20 minutes and then cook it in the oven until it gets golden brown, about 20 to 30 minutes. Put in on a wire cooling rack letting it cool slightly.




Enjoy making a bar cookie recipe and find other delicious home cook recipes like homemade pimento cheese recipe.

The Cupcake Phenomenon

In recent times if you look on any cooking show or in any food magazine there is a very good chance you will find some form of cupcake recipe. Particularly around any of the major holidays pretty much any tv show related to the home or entertaining will be guaranteed to feature a gourmet cupcake recipe.

Off the back of this there has been a corresponding increase in the number of specialty cupcake shops that offer a bewildering array of different styles and flavors and have almost developed their own language in much the same way as the coffee shop industry has flourished in recent times.The recent fame and popularity of the cupcake could easily be explained by the human guilt factor - at the end of the day the cupcake, which is the smaller version of the fuller sister, doesn't feel as decadent or as extravagant as a large fancy cake all by itself.

Cupcakes began life as fairy cakes in England in the 19th century when afternoon tea was all the rage among the upper classes and the idea of baking individual cakes took off in the States at the same time where they became known as cupcakes because of the measuring utensil involved.

Roll forward to the 1990's and New York was establishing itself as cupcake central, particularly when Manhattan's swish Magnolia Bakery was featured in an episode of Sex and the City.Today there are speciality cupcake shops across New York and indeed across the US where the craze for this most individual of treats shows no signs of abating. Los Angeles in particular has gone gaga for cupcakes with Hollywood brimming over with bakeries devoted to producing top notch designer delights.

Baking You Own Cupcakes

There are numerous challenges associated with cupcake making, these can be grouped into two main areas; the batter and the cooking process. In an attempt to pack as much flavor such as chocolate into a cupcake it is very easy to "overweigh" the batter making it to heavy for it to rise creating a brownie style cake.Another issue often encountered by novice bakers is that the oven temperature must be exact, as a too hot or too cool oven will result in a sponge that's either brick hard or flat as a pancake! Invest in good hardware, such as non-stick cupcake pans, and spray your paper wrappers with a little oil so your cupcakes turn out just right.

Cupcake makers are the latest addition to the kitchen gadgets and appliances we now take for granted. Essentially a cupcake maker will produce a batch of cakes in as little as 10 minutes, making the process a much faster and less stressful one. Make your cupcake batter in exactly the same way but instead of preheating your oven, simply plug in your cupcake maker and once it's heated to the desired temperature, fill the non-stick baking cups with the mixture and put them into the machine.Cakes produced this way are more reliable than traditional methods because the machine allows you to bake as small or large a batch of cakes as you need and as its temperature is pre-programmed, there's no danger of your cakes failing to rise.

Sandra Thomas is a working mum of three who writes about cupcakes, cupcake makers, and fashion. Her interests include home baking and personal fitness and shopping for clothes.

Strawberry and Lavender Shortcakes

Strawberry shortcakes are a dessert in the shortcake family of cakes. Below is a recipe showing how to make a delicious strawberry and lavender shortcake that can be enjoyed by friends and family at any time.

Ingredients
150 grams plain flour
25 grams of ground rice
125 grams of diced butter
50 grams of caster sugar
One tablespoon of lavender petals

To decorate:
250 grams of strawberries
150 millilitres of double cream
16 small lavender flowers
Sifted icing sugar

Place the ground rice and the flour into a mixing bowl or alternatively, use a food processor. Next, add the butter and rub it in using your fingertips until the mixture starts to resemble fine breadcrumbs.
Next, stir in the lavender petals and sugar and squeeze the crumbs together to form a smooth ball. Knead the mixture lightly and then roll out onto a lightly floured surface until it is 5mm thick. Stamp out 7.5cm circles using a round biscuit cutter. Move the mixture to an ungreased baking sheet and reknead the trimmings, continuing to roll and stamp out until you have created 16 biscuits.
Prick with a fork and bake in a preheated oven at 325 degrees fahrenheit for around twelve minutes until it is a golden colour. Then, leave it to cool on the baking tray.
For serving, halve four of the strawberries, and slice the rest of them. Whip up the cream and spoon it over eight of the biscuits. Next, top with the sliced strawberries and then onto the remaining biscuits. Spoon the rest of the cream on top and decorate with the reserved halved strawberries and sprigs of lavender. Dust lightly with the icing sugar. They are best eaten on the same day that they are filled, but the plain biscuits can be stored for up to three days in an airtight tin.
This dessert should feed up to eight people, the preparation time is around half an hour and the cooking time is up to twelve minutes.




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