Japanese-American Cheesecake

Recently I have been having this craving for Japanese cheesecake because here in Toronto, the weather has really spiked up to a crazy hot temperature. I love Japanese cheesecake because it is much lighter than American cheesecake, which is especially great for the hotter months. This is my adapted recipe to a Japanese/American cheesecake because I incorporated different factors that I like of each style into one! This cheesecake is much lighter than the American version but it also has that great Graham cracker crust!

Ingredients:

(For the crust)

• 1/2 cups and 1 tbsp of finely ground Graham cracker crumbs
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted

(for the Filling)

• 300 g of softened cream cheese
• 4 tbsp of granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 150 ml of cream
• 1 tbsp of lemon juice
• 3 tbsp of flour
• 1 1/2 tbsp of melted butter

Directions: 

First you start off with lining your pie pan with aluminium or parchment paper. Then you place the Graham cracker crumbs into a medium bowl and add in the melted butter. 

Mix the ingredients together until most of the Graham crackers are coated in the butter and start to stick together.

Then transfer the crust mixture into your lined pie pan and lightly flatten it until it turns into a nice even layer.

After you Finish that, the crust is done so set it aside and now you can start preparing your cheesecake filling. Also preheat the oven to 180ºC or 350ºF.

First, put your soften cream cheese into a medium bowl and whisk it for a little while just to make sure it is softened evenly. 

Add the sugar to the soften cream cheese and beat it until the mixture turns light and creamy and the sugar is fully dissolved. 

Then add in the 2 eggs and beat it until it is all mixed. 

 Then add in the cream and mix well. 

Then mix in the lemon juice until it is evenly incorporated. 

 Next, sift in in the flour and mix well. 

 Then add in the melted butter into the mixture and stir it in.

You are now done your cheesecake filing and now you can transfer your batter into the prepared pie dish. 

Place your cheesecake into the oven in the middle rack for about 35 - 40 minutes or until the top is slightly golden in colour and the cream cheese mixture does not move when the pan is shaken. 

After your Cheesecake is done baking, let it cool to room temperature and then cover and refrigerate it for at least 3 hours. 

Now you can cut your cheesecake into slices and sever! An easy tip for slicing the cheesecake is to have a cup of hot water next to you, and before each cut, place the knife into the hot water for a few seconds and then dry the knife. The knife would be slightly warm, and so when you slice into the cheesecake, it would be much easier and give you a much cleaner cut. 

Here is just a side view of a slice of the cheesecake. I hope you enjoyed my recipe on a Japanese/American cheesecake! 

Mini Hot Dog Buns

I made this recipe a while back, around Christmas time when my dad bought this huge bag of mini sausages. My siblings and I are not really a big fan of sausages, but we like the mini hot dog buns found in Chinese bakeries.  If you don't know what a Chinese hot dog bun tastes like, just imagine the bun being a little sweeter than normal. 

So after making them, it was a big hit with my family and friends. I got requested to make these again and to provide them with the recipe. So I thought, I might as well make a post for it. So here it is! I hope you enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp of active dry yeast (1 package)
• 3 tbsp of sugar
• 1 cup of warm milk ( about 38- 40 degrees Celsius) 
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup of vegetable oil
• 3 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour, and more for dusting or kneading
• 70 - 80 mini sausages, depending on the amount of dough you use for each
• egg wash (egg with water and a little bit of sugar)

Directions:

The first thing you do is put the yeast into a small bowl. Then you add in 1/4 cup of the warm milk and sprinkle the sugar on top evenly. Stir the mixture so that it would react faster and let it stand for 5 minutes. After the five minutes it should have doubled it size and foamed and bubbled. If it didn't, discard it and use a new package of yeast. 

After your yeast has been activated, stir in the egg, oil and the the rest of the milk.  

In a mixer fitted with a dough hook, put the flour and the remaining sugar in and just mix it until it is blended, about 5 seconds. 

With the mixer running on low speed, slowly pour in the warm milk mixture and let it mix until it the dough comes together and forms a rough ball. If the ball feels to sticky or wet, then add a little more flour. But don't add to much or else the dough will become hard! Let it mix for a few more seconds, or until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. 

Shape the dough so that it becomes a smooth round ball and place it in a large oiled bowl. Cover the dough with plastic wrap or kitchen towel and let it rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about an hour.

If it looks like this after an hour, then it is done! If not just wait a little longer, it could be that the temperature you kept it in is not warm enough. 

When your dough is down, punch down on it so that it releases the air bubbles. Then transfer it to a lightly floured surface so that you can shape it into buns if you want! But what I like to do is keep it in the bowl and pull about a marshmallow size of dough for each hot dog. Then I prepare two cookie sheets with aluminium foil.

To make the actual hot dogs I take the dough, either by rolling it into a log and cutting it up into pieces or I use my hands and pull a marshmallow sized dough for each hot dog. The dough should be about the circumference of the sausage. Then wrap it around each hot dog and pinch the two ends together. Have the seam end facing the bottom of the pan. Continue this until all of the dough is used.

Let the hot dogs rise again on the pans for about 30 minutes until an hour, or when it has doubled it size. 

Hehe don't you think they are so cute! :D

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Then make the egg wash, by beating the egg with a little bit of water and sugar. Brush the egg wash over the buns and bake them for 20 minutes or until they turn golden brown. 

And there your done! :D

American Apple Pie Recipe

My family is a huge apple pie fan, especially my sister. So I wasn't surprised that couple of days ago, my sister called me and told me to make her apple pie. Did you notice I didn't say asked? Hehe, well anyways, because my sister is in university now and she hardly comes home, I decided why not? It's not like I had to study for all of the tests that are coming up anyways.

I previously had this thought that I should create a blog just so that I could keep track of all my recipes because I normally like to adapt them and make them a little healthier. Also since I also like to search up recipes online and read about other food blogs. I figured I should contribute back to all those that shared their family recipes for me. So here is my version of the American apple pie, I hope you all like it. 

Ingredients:

(makes a 9" double crust)

• 2 1/2 cup of all purpose flour
• 1 cup of unsalted butter, chilled and diced
• 1/2 cup of ice cold water, or more if required
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt 

Apple pie filling:

• 5-6 Granny Smith apples or Gala apples
• 1 teaspoon of lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, or more if you like
• 1/3 cup of regular white sugar
• 1 tablespoon of cornstarch  

Directions:

The first thing you have to do is to prepare your pie crust. To do that you must first combine the flour and salt together in a bowl. Then you have to dice up the butter into into tiny little cubes so that it would be easier to incorporate it in the mixture later. 

This might seem odd but you have to place  the butter, water,  flour mixture and whatever tool your going to use to combine the mixture together, in this case I'm going to be using a pastry blender, into the freezer for 15 minutes or in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. This is the key in making a really flaky crust, but not allowing the butter to melt before you put it in the oven. 

After you take your chiller butter, water, and flour mixture out of the refrigerator/ freezer. You can add the butter into the flour mixture and using either a fork or a pastry blender. Combine the butter and flour together until it resembles a coarse crumble. Please don't use your hands though, or else the heat from it will melt the butter!  

 Then you can start adding in your water a little at a time, until the mixture starts to form into a little crumbly ball. You might  need to add more water if the mixture isn't coming together, but don't add to much or else the crust would become doughy.

When your mixture starts to come together, divide it in half and transfer each half onto a piece of saran wrap.

You can use your hands to quickly shape the dough into a disk and wrap it with the saran wrap. You should be able to see tiny pieces of butter in the dough, this is what you want! This is how your dough will become flaky, so don't think it's a mistake and continue to combine it together. Repeat this step again for your other half of the dough.

After you have wrapped up both of your disks, place them in the refrigerator to chill for at least 30 minutes. An option you could do, if your in a rush or having people over, is that you can make the crust the night before, so all you have to do the next day is make the filling and bake it. 

What I like to do is when there is only 10 minutes left of waiting for the crust, I start making the filling. So by the time I am done my dough is done chilling. The first thing I do is I start peeling my apples, I'm using gala apples today, just because I had them on hand, but i prefer to use granny smith though. I also start to preheat my oven to 400ºF or 200ºC, whichever one you use.

After your done peeling the apples, you can start slicing them into thin slices about 3mm thick. This might take awhile so I like to sit down and watch tv while slicing them. After they are all sliced, placed them in a medium bowl and add the lemon juice to them.

In a separate bowl mix the sugar and cinnamon together and add it into the apple mixture. 

After you are done mixing everything together, you can add in the cornstarch, depending in the type of apple you use, you might need to add more cornstarch, if there is more juice in the apples. 

By now,You can set the filling aside, and take the dough out of the fridge. I like to keep a sheet of saran wrap on the top and bottom of the dough, so that I don't have to add more flour to my rolling pin, but my dough won't stick to it either. This is also easier when I transfer the dough to my pie pan. 

I start whacking the dough so that it starts to even out, when it starts to flatten out by half of its original size, I will then start to roll it out. Try to keep it as round as possible so that it would be easier when making the crust. The dough should be about half a centimeter thick, depending on how much dough you have. 

What I like to do is place my pie dish on top of the rolled out dough, if the dough is bigger than the pie dish by at least a cm all around, then it is done. If not I would continue rolling it until it's big enough.

 After the dough is rolled out I peel off the top piece of saran wrap, and very quickly, I flip the dough so that the side without the saran wrap is touching the pie dish. Another alternative way to do this is to roll the dough on the rolling pin with the saran wrap side touching the pin. Then you can transfer it to the pie dish by rolling it back out. 

After your dough has been transferred you can press on the dough, so that it's touching the sides of the dish. When you are happy with the outcome you can peel off the saran wrap. Using a fork, you can poke holes in the dough so that, when it is baking steam can be released.

You can now transfer your apple pie filling into the the dish. Make sure you make a nice even layer with the middle a little more fuller than the sides. 

When that is done, you can repeat the previous steps for rolling out the top layer of the pie dough. To receive the beautiful apple pie crust, after you have transferred the top layer on, make sure that there is only about a centimeter and a half or so of dough as excess, if there is more cut it off. Using your thumb and index finger, pinch the dough from the outside and using your other index finger from the inside, poke the dough against your fingers. Continue to do this all around the dish and you should have your crust!

 After you are done with your crust, cut holes in the middle of the pie so that steam can rise out while it bakes. Then, beat an egg with a little bit of water, about a tablespoon, to create an egg wash. Brush it all over the top of the crust. 

You should end up with something like this:

I will then place the apple pie in a preheated oven (400ºF/200ºC), on the middle rack for 35 - 40 minutes. If your pie pan does not have a ring for the crust like mine does, you can wrap tin foil around the edges, after 15 minutes you can remove the tin foil from the pie. 

 After your pie has finished baking let it cool for about 15 minutes before you start cutting into it. Be especially careful because there can be steam! That's that end of my recipe I hope you enjoy my recipe and give it a try.