Double Layer Pumpkin Cheesecake Bites with Spicy Nuts

 This recipe is a hybrid of several.  I love to browse my cookbooks and magazines to get ideas, and then I let them percolate in my head until I come up with what I really want to make.  I think these would be a great alternative to plain pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving, and the beauty is that they work very well to make ahead.  It's even more fun if you have a special kitchen helper like me to assist (and a 50mm/f1.4 lens to take cool pictures...I rediscovered the fun of low aperture).

 I discovered these gingerbread flavored graham crackers a couple of weeks ago.  I imagine that they're only a seasonal item, so snatch them up if you see them!  I've used gingersnaps for crusts before, but it's hard to find ones that are the right texture.  These are the perfect graham texture with a zippy kick of ginger, and the inspiration for this recipe.

 Don't forget to stop and snitch a little bit.  After all, what's the good of cooking if you don't get to taste test?

 I'm all about convenience.  Mash your graham crackers up, and then pour the melted butter into the same bag to mush it all around nicely.  I lined the pan with foil - two layers going opposite directions - both for easy clean up, but also to lift the bars out for easy slicing.

 You will do the filling in layers.  Smooth the plain cream cheese layer down, then dollop blobs of the pumpkin stuff evenly spaced on top and carefully spread it out until it covers the plain layer completely.

 (I would like you to note that this handmixer, #6 in the last 12 years, is on it's way out.  #5 lasted 2 whole weeks.  This one has been kicking around since spring but started making desperate noises this week when I forced it to plow through all of the cream cheese.)

 While the cheesecake is baking, make your white chocolate ganache.  It needs to chill for a while before being whipped.  It's quite simple and can either be done on the stove top or in the microwave.

 Bake the cheesecake until it is uniformly puffed across the top surface and no longer jiggles.

 Another task while waiting for the cheesecake to bake or chill is to make the spiced nuts.  Don't be afraid of cayenne pepper!  Once these are sprinkled on top of the creamy cheesecake, the kick is totally mellowed out.  I think next time I'll put even more pepper.

 Chill the cheesecake for a while.  At least 3-4 hours.  I was in a hurry and only chilled it for 2, but when I tasted leftovers later that evening that had chilled longer, I was far more impressed with the flavors.

 Use the handy dandy foil to lift the cheesecake out of the pan, slice it into 36 even squares, whip the ganache and pipe it on top, and sprinkle with chopped spiced pecans.

Voila!  Sweet, spicy, creamy, smooth, crunchy - all sorts of wonderful flavors in one little tasty mouthful.

Double Layer Pumpkin Cheesecake Bites with Spicy Nuts

Crust:
12 gingerbread graham crackers
4 T. butter, melted

Filling:
3 8 oz. bricks cream cheese
3 T. cream
1 cup sugar
2 T. real vanilla
3 eggs
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
1 t. each cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger
2 T. flour

Ganache:
1 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup + 3 T. cream, divided

Pecans:
1/4 c. sugar
1/2 t. cinnamon
1/4 t. cayenne pepper
1 cup pecan halves

Crush the gingerbread grahams and mix with melted butter until evenly distributed.  Line a 9x13 pan with foil with pieces going both directions and overhanging the edges.  Press the graham crumbs evenly into the bottom of the pan and bake at 325 for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, beat 3 bricks cream cheese (softened at room temperature) until smooth, then beat in the cream, sugar, vanilla and eggs until well incorporated.  Reserve 2 cups of cream cheese mixture and spread the remainder in an even layer over the graham crust.

Into the reserved cream cheese mixture, beat pumpkin, spices and flour.  Spoon dollops evenly over the plain cream cheese layer, then spread carefully until the pumpkin layer completely covers the plain layer.

Bake for 60 minutes at 325 degrees, until it is puffed all the way through and no longer jiggles.  Remove to a wire rack to cool for 30 minutes before putting in the fridge to chill for 3-4 hours.

Meanwhile, make the ganache.  You may either bring the 1/2 cup cream just to a simmer in a saucepan on the stovetop, remove from heat, add the chips and let them sit for a couple of minutes before whisking until smooth, or melt the chips in the microwave at 30 second intervals, stirring in between until smooth, then whisk the cream in.  Either way works just fine.  Chill the ganache in the fridge for an hour or so.

Make the nuts by pouring the nuts into a skillet over medium heat.  Cook for about 5 minutes until they start to lightly brown and smell toasty.  In a small bowl, mix together the sugar, cayenne and cinnamon.  Pour all but 2 T. of it over the nuts and stir constantly as the sugar melts to coat all the nuts evenly.  Once the sugar is melted, remove from heat and immediately pour the remaining 2 T. of sugar on and toss to coat.  Pour the hot nuts out onto a piece of parchment paper to allow them to cool.  Chop into medium pieces.

Once you are ready to assemble the bites, pull the ganache out of the fridge and add 3 T. of cream.  Whip with a handmixer for 2 minutes, or until it is fluffy and reaches a piping consistency.  Lift the cheesecake out of the pan with the foil handles and cut into squares.  Pipe the ganache on top with a large star tip, then sprinkle pecans over the ganache.  You may either serve immediately, or return to the fridge until you are ready.

Monkey Bread and variations

I spied this recipe in the February/March 2010 edition of Taste of Home and knew I had to try it.  I've made it twice this week and it's been declared a new favorite by my kids.  The second time, I used 2 cups of whole wheat flour in place of all purpose flour, as well as adding cinnamon to the sugar the balls are dipped in, and I also diced up an apple and sprinkled it in with the nuts.  I liked the cinnamon and apple additions, but decided that the whole wheat was pretty noticeable.  I subscribe to the theory that if you're going to eat a treat, make it a serious treat.  I don't know that I'll do the whole wheat next time.

I served it at a party warm on a platter with tongs for people to grab chunks of the bread, and it was a big hit.  I suspect it would be good sliced and made in to french toast the second day (that is, if there's any left).  I did modify the recipe a little bit from the original, so I will post it how I made it.  The dough is pleasant to work with because of the butter - nice and rich and easy to knead.  It's kid friendly to make.  Mine enjoyed rolling the dough balls and dipping them in butter and sugar.  It's definitely not diet bread, so save this for a rainy day when you need a pick-me-up and don't mind a few extra calories.

Monkey Bread

Dough:
2 t. active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
1 1/4 cups warm 2% milk
1/3 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 t. salt
5 cups unbleached all purpose flour

Caramel:
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
1 t. vanilla

Assembly:
3/4 cup chopped pecans
1 medium apple, peeled and diced (optional)
2/3 cup sugar
1 T. cinnamon
1/3 cup butter, melted

In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast in warm water.  Add the milk, butter, sugar, egg and salt and stir until well combined.  Stir in the flour one cup at a time until a dough ball starts to form, then generously dust with more flour and knead for 5-7 minutes, until smooth and elastic.  (I do not have a stand mixer, and therefore knead all of my dough by hand.  I sprinkle on 2-3 T. of flour at a time, work it in until the dough starts sticking to my hand, sprinkle some more, knead and repeat.)  Mist with cooking spray, flip over and mist the other side, then cover and let rise until double, about 1 hour.

As the dough is nearing double size, prepare your assembly ingredients.  Combine the caramel ingredients in a medium saucepan over medium heat and cook, stirring constantly, until it comes to a boil.  Boil for three minutes then remove from heat.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Mist a 10 cup bundt pan with cooking spray and pour half of the caramel into the bottom.  Sprinkle with half of the nuts and apples.  Divide the dough into chunks the size of a golf ball and roll into balls.  Dip each ball in melted butter, then roll in cinnamon sugar.  Place evenly around the bottom of the bundt pan.  Once you have laid down half the dough balls, drizzle with remaining caramel, sprinkle on remaining nuts and apples, then layer the rest of the dough balls.

Allow to rest for about 10-15 minutes, then bake for 35-40 minutes.  The top will be very golden.  I noticed that one of the batches I made I skimped a little on the baking time, and while the top was golden, the bottom was just barely cooked.  Err on the side of well done.  You may tent foil loosely over the top if it's browning too quickly.

Cool for 10 minutes, then invert onto a serving plate.  Serve warm.

Cherry Almond Streusel Muffins

These luscious beauties are really so much a treat that it seems sinful to eat them for breakfast.  But that didn't stop me.  Nosiree!  I've had my eye on this recipe for a long time, one of the many gems that I found in my Jackson Hole Cooks cookbook.  That book alone made our trip to Yellowstone worth it!  The original recipe calls for raspberry jam, but I have such a fondness for the Bonne Maman cherry preserves that I had to try it that way.  I was not disappointed.  The list of ingredients looks long and daunting, but it really only took a few minutes to put together and they were very worth the effort.  These earned universal thumbs up from everyone but my 2 1/2 year old, but her opinion doesn't count ;).

I found that the quantity of cream cheese filling in the original recipe was roughly double what I needed.  I used the excess in a pan of cream cheese brownies - a real tragedy to be sure - but I'd rather not have to deal with extra so I am posting it with half the amount.  The batter is very thick and reminiscent of biscuit dough.  I recommend dividing it in half before you begin filling the muffin cups to make sure you don't run out of it for the tops.  I lightly pressed it into the cups, leaving a little depression in the middle to cradle the filling.

Even so, I didn't have as much batter for the tops and I was concerned that the filling would make a mess.  I was generous with the streusel topping, which proved to help seal things together nicely.

The finished product.  Soft, slightly nutty topping, creamy filling in the middle and 100% decadent.  Enjoy!

Cherry Almond Streusel Muffins

Muffin: 

1 3/4 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 t. each baking powder and baking soda

1/4 t. salt

1/2 cup cold, firm butter (no substitutes!)

1 egg

3/4 cup sour cream

1 t. almond extract

Muffin filling:

4 ounces cream cheese, softened

1 egg yolk

2 T. sugar

1/2 t. vanilla extract

2/3 cup cherry preserves (or other fruit preserves of your choice)

Streusel topping:

1/3 cup flour

2 T. sugar

2 T. cold, firm butter

1/3 cup sliced almonds

1/2 t. cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Spray a 12 cup regular sized muffin pan with cooking spray and set aside.

In a small bowl, combine the cream cheese, egg, sugar and vanilla, and beat until smooth and creamy.  Set aside.  In a small food processor, combine all of the streusel ingredients and pulse a few times until combined and roughly chopped.  Set aside.

In a medium bowl, combine the dry muffin ingredients.  Cut in the butter using a pastry blender until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs.  In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg, sour cream and almond extract until smooth, then add to the flour mixture, stirring until the mixture is just moistened.

Divide the batter in half and place equal amounts of the first half in each muffin cup, leaving a slight depression in the middle.  Divide the cream cheese filling equally between the cups, and top off with a dab of jam.  Divide the remaining batter between the muffin cups and spread it as close to the edges as you can to cover the filling.  Sprinkle a generous amount of streusel topping over each muffin.  Bake 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.  Cool muffins for 5 minutes, then remove from pan and serve immediately.

Moist and Chewy Granola Bars

When the weather is gray and murky, I turn to food blog surfing for comfort and inspiration.  Bring on the carbs, I say!  Smitten Kitchen posted a recipe for granola bars that caught my eye.  Just like everything else I cook, I used that recipe as a basic guideline and really just did my own thing.  I'm pleased to say that the pan of gooey nuts, craisins and oats turned into some really wonderfully tasty bars.  I'm not sure I can go quite as far as calling them truly healthy, because they do have butter and brown sugar in them, but I used a nice blend of whole wheat flour, oats, flax, pure almond butter, cashews, almonds and sunflower seeds to counteract them, and skipped the corn syrup in favor of honey and  maple syrup.  This is the sort of recipe that you can unleash your imagination for combination possibilities and be hard pressed to go wrong.  I'm thinking they're a great grab-n-go breakfast choice.

Moist and Chewy (and even mostly healthy) Granola Bars

Dry ingredient mix:

1 2/3 cup quick rolled oats

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 t. salt

1/2 t. cinnamon

1/4 cup ground flax seed

2-3 cups your choice of nuts and dried fruits (I used sunflower seeds, cashews, almonds, coconut and craisins), chopped coarsely if desired

Wet ingredient mix:

6 T. melted butter

1/2 cup honey

1/4 cup pure maple syrup

1/3 cup peanut or almond butter

1 t. vanilla (optional)

Prepare an 8x8 square pan or an 11x7 rectangular pan by lining it in one direction with parchment paper, allowing some overhang for easy removal after baking.  Lightly mist the ends of the pan that are not covered with parchment.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl, mix all of the dry ingredients together until well combined.  In a small bowl, mix all of the wet ingredients together, then stir into the dry ingredient mixture until everything is uniformly coated.  Press into an even layer in the pan.

Bake the bars for 30 minutes, or until the edges and top are golden.  It will still yield to touch in the center, but will set up as it cools.  Allow it to cool in the pan for 20 minutes or so before gently lifting it out by the parchment paper overhang onto a wire rack.  Once it is entirely cool, cut into bars with a serrated knife.  Store in a tightly closed container.  SK says you can freeze these - I doubt they'll last long enough here for that to be an issue ;).

Cherry Almond White Chocolate Biscotti

I had it in my head that biscotti were somehow tricky to make. In a spate of blog surfing this week and wandering through several cooking blogs (of which I found many really great ones), I stumbled across Closet Cooking. Man, does that guy make gooood looking food. My kind of food. A little fussy but not so much that you don't feel like you can make it. Anyway, he posted several biscotti recipes, so I figured I'd give one a try. I modified his cranberry and pistachio biscotti to suit my own tastes and this is what I came up with. The beauty of biscotti is that so many great combinations of fruits and nuts can be stirred in. It was a truly simple recipe. The hardest part was just waiting for them to cook - they do take a while, so plan ahead. But stirring the dough together took literally 5 minutes. I dare you to make a batch. It's the perfect accompaniment to hot cocoa on a cold day.

Cherry Almond White Chocolate Biscotti

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

9 T. sugar

dash of salt

3 eggs

1 1/2 T. vegetable oil

1/3 cup dried cherries, chopped*

1/3 cup sliced almonds

1/2 cup white chocolate chips

In a medium mixing bowl, stir together the dry ingredients excluding the nuts and cherries. In a small mixing bowl, whisk the eggs until beaten and stir in the vegetable oil. Pour the liquid into the flour mixture and stir until a dough forms, and stir in the nuts and fruit. On a parchment paper lined baking sheet (and I mean it - you really do want to do the parchment paper), pat the dough into a rectangle about 3-4 inches wide and 1/2-3/4 of an inch thick. The dough will spread sideways, so you'll wind up with biscotti longer than what you think. I found it helpful to lightly dust my hands in flour before shaping it to reduce the stickiness.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Allow to cool slightly so that you can handle it without burning yourself, then remove to a cutting board and slice into 1/4 to 1/2 inch wide slices. Lay the slices back on the parchment lined sheet and bake at 325 for 10 minutes each side. Remove to a rack to cool.

Melt the white chocolate chips in the microwave on medium power until smoothe, then drizzle with a fork over the bottom half of each biscotti. Allow to set up, then store in an airtight container.

**A word about cherries. All dried fruit, for that matter. Look at the label before you buy it, because many brands are processed with sulfur compounds, which in my opinion, impart a nasty after taste. I found dried montmorency cherries at Costco that were not processed with sulfur.

The sky's the limit with these. Have fun creating your own combinations. They make a great gift coupled with hot cocoa mix.

Perfect Sugared Pecans with a kick

I am often asked how to sugar coat nuts for salads. I have tried many methods, with varying levels of success. After lots of fiddling, this has become my favorite and most reliable way to do it. First, mix 2/3 cup of sugar with a teaspoon of cinnamon, a pinch of cayenne and a dash of salt.

Next, toast your nuts (a generous 2 cups worth) in a single layer in a nonstick skillet over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until they begin to smell fragrant and turn slightly more golden.

Sprinkle all but about 3 T. of sugar mixture over the nuts.

Let it sit for about 30 seconds, until the sugar starts to melt, then stir well until all of the nuts are coated and cook for about 60 seconds more until the sugar is mostly melted. Pull off the burner, and sprinkle the remaining sugar mixture over, tossing well until all the nuts are coated. Pour out onto parchment paper to cool, carefully breaking apart any that happen to still stick together.

This yields a nut that is glazed, but has a nice crystallized exterior, which also means that you don't get enormous globs of nuts cemented permanently together. Not that there's anything wrong with that...perfectly snitch-worthy, but not as pretty on a salad.

Tasty Almond Toffee

Toffee is one of those absolutely irresistable candies for me. I can pass up some things. OK, not very many things. But homemade toffee...oh goodness. I love that it uses such simple ingredients, ones that you're very likely to have on hand. Not a nut lover? Leave 'em out. Don't like the chocolate on top? (Shame on you!) Forgo that luscious melted layer of happiness. The plain and simple basic toffee is just butter and sugar with a dash of water and vanilla, cooked to the best possible state. I have used recipes that don't include the water and vanilla, but find that the water helps it homogenize more quickly.

The one downfall of toffee is that once it reaches the perfect point, you've got to be quick on the draw and get it off the heat. 30 seconds too long and it burns, rendering it nastily bitter. I actually purchased a candy thermometer this week for the first time (since I was at the store anyway to purchase a meat thermometer after I melted the old one in the Thanksgiving bird...yes, I do have kitchen disasters too), but realized once I was actually making this that the thermometer wasn't going to be terribly practical for this size of batch. It is supposed to be submerged 2 inches into the mixture, which was quite impossible in my shallow pan that only had an inch and a half at best and at full boil of sugary syrup. I guess that means I'll just have to make a double batch next time!

Anyway, the key to success with it, if you don't have a thermometer, or if you aren't going to use it like me, is to keep a close eye on it. It seems to take for-stinkin'-ever to get to the caramelization stage. As soon as it starts to deepen in color, you're very very close. The way I can tell is by stirring, then stopping for a moment. If trail behind the spoon immediately turns to a darker brown than the rest, it's done. You can verify this by dropping a bit into a glass of ice water. It should turn into a brittle thread or lump. It'll darken up a bit more after you pour it out into the pan to cool.

I got the recipe for this on the Land O Lakes website, which happens to have many other lovely looking candy recipes based on my very most favorite ingredient, butter, so I'm sure I'll be back for some more browsing. Without further ado, here's the recipe:

Almond Toffee

1 cup sugar
1 cup butter
1/4 cup water
1/2 t. salt
1 t. vanilla
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup slivered almonds

Prepare a jelly roll pan by lining with parchment paper and laying down 3/4 of the slivered almonds in an even layer. In a heavy 2 quart saucepan, heat the sugar, butter, water and salt over medium heat until it comes to a full boil. Continue cooking, stirring occasionally, for 18-22 minutes until mixture reaches 300 degrees on thermometer or hard crack stage. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla and immediately pour mixture over the almonds. Let set for 1-2 minutes, then sprinkle the semisweet chips over the hot toffee and let stand for 5 minutes, then spread the chocolate around evenly. Sprinkle the remaining slivered almonds on top and let cool until the chocolate is set. Break into chunks and store in an air tight container.