I try to keep my fridge stocked with the basics - eggs, milk, and butter. The jar of white flour should be full, and there should be extra whole wheat flour stashed away somewhere. I keep sour cream or yogurt around because I tend to cook with it, but I try not to keep multiple packages of cream cheese around. Its dangerous!
So what to do when I just have to have cheesecake? (these are the important questions)
Yes, cheesecake. Very dangerous. Very rich.
It turns out, you don't need to use cream cheese. There are recipes for cheesecake which use a variety of other cheeses - like ricotta, or farmer's cheese. The beauty of using Farmer's Cheese, of course, is that you can make it yourself, and flavor it however you like while making it.
I tried this recipe using cheese made from apple cider vinegar and sprinkled with cinnamon and topped with applesauce. Awesome.
Ingredients
Filling
- 1 gallon Milk
- 2-3 tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar
- 1 tsp Cinnamon
- 4 whole Eggs
- 1 Egg White
- 3/4 cup Sugar
- 1/2 cup Sour Cream
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
Crust
- 1 3/4 cup Flour White
- 1/2 cup Confectioners Sugar
- 3/4 tsp Baking Powder
- 1/4 tsp Salt
- 1/2 cup Butter
- 3 Egg Yolks
- 3 tbsp Sour Cream
Servings: people
Instructions
- Pour your milk into a large pot, and gently warm until it is frothy. Use the apple cider vinegar to separate the curds from the whey and drain. Add cinnamon if desired. (this is just the standard Farmer's Cheese recipe adapted; you can find more details here.
- Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a medium sized bowl. Cut in butter, as if you were making pie crust dough.
- Beat 3 egg yolks and 3 tablespoons of sour cream together, and then add to the flour mixture. Mix until it forms dough (again, resembling pie crust dough). Roll out and place in pie plate.
- Beat the 4 eggs and one egg white at high speed until frothy. You will probably want to use an electric beater!
- Put farmer's cheese, granulated sugar, 1/2 cup sour cream, and vanilla extract in a blender. Blend well. The Farmer's Cheese will be naturally rather granular when first made; it should be chopped up until very fine and liquid. Add some of the egg mixture if necessary.
- Fold together the farmer's cheese mixture and egg mixtures. Pour into the pie plate.
- Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 40 minutes. The cake will rise in the oven, turn golden, and set.
- Cool for a few hours in the refrigerator before serving. Enjoy!
Recipe Notes
One thing I like about this recipe is that it does have instructions on making its own crust. You could definitely still do a typical graham cracker crust with this, but if you don't keep graham crackers around either, this makes it simpler.
As long as you have eggs. Lots of eggs.
Based off of Country Cheesecake.
Share this Recipe
Biscottis are just the cookie for the holidays. They are hard, but soften when dipped into coffee. Mmm. . .breakfast. . .
This recipe can be adapted to any flavor combination you like. Pure Almond, Chocolate, Chocolate Chip, Cranberry, Cherry. . . you name it. The result is a substantial cookie.
If you buy biscottis at the store, you'll notice that they're very light and almost always fall apart when introduced to coffee or hot cocoa. These will not immediately fall apart. They are also not -quite- as hard. Both of these traits are pluses as far as I'm concerned.
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 Cups Flour All Purpose
- 1 1/2 Tsp Baking Powder
- 1/2 Tsp Salt
- 1/2 Cup Butter One Stick, Room Temperature
- 3/4 Cup Sugar
- 2 Whole Eggs
- 1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1 Tsp Almond Extract
- 3/4 Cup Chocolate Chips
- 3/4 Cup Almonds Sliced
- 3/4 Cup Cranberries Dried
Servings: Loaves
Instructions
- Cream your butter and sugar together until smooth. Add eggs, vanilla extract, and almond extract. Mix well.
- Add dry ingredients - flour, baking powder, salt. Combine into a soft dough.
- Add your chocolate chips, almonds, cranberries, or other chosen biscotti ingredients. Mix until they are evenly dispersed through the dough.
- Form your dough into two loaves. Place the loaves a few inches apart on a medium baking sheet, and bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. The loaves should be lightly brown.
- Let the loaves cool for about 10 minutes (or longer, as desired), and then slice into inch thick slices. Slice diagonally for larger biscottis.
- Lay the slices out on baking sheets, and bake again for 15 minutes. This will dry out the cookies. For a harder biscotti, bake longer (but don't burn them!).
- Enjoy with coffee!
Recipe Notes
You will get awkwardly shaped end pieces from each loaf. You should absolutely eat these to test your biscottis during the baking process.
Share this Recipe
Every so often, I find myself in the terrible predicament of strawberries going bad. An entire carton of strawberries going bad in the fridge is a horrible thing.
And sometimes, the solution is cookies. Strawberry cookies.
Strawberry cookies have a bit less sugar than ordinary cookies, but the sweetness and goodness of strawberries - and maybe a bit of chocolate!
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup Butter softened
- 4 oz Cream Cheese or Farmers Cheese
- 3/4 cup Sugar
- 1 whole Egg
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1 1/4 cup Flour all purpose
- 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
- 1 dash Salt
- 1 tbsp Flour
- 1 1/2 cup Strawberries chopped
- 1 cup Chocolate Chips optional
Servings: cookies
Instructions
- Chop up your strawberries into nice small cookie-sized chunks. Lightly cover with a tbsp of flour. This will keep them from sticking together too badly.
- Cream together your butter, cream cheese, and sugar. Add egg and vanilla. Mix.
- Add your dry ingredients - flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix well.
- Carefully fold in your floured strawberries. Mix in chocolate chips, if desired.
- Place heaping tablespoons of cookie dough on a cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 15-20 minutes, or until light brown.
Recipe Notes
This recipe was inspired by Strawberry Cookies with White Chocolate Chunks. You could, of course, add white chocolate to this recipe too, though I generally make the cookies without chocolate chips and they taste wonderful.
Share this Recipe
Its fall, and I happen to have quite a bit of pumpkin. I have my favorite favorite pumpkin recipe, but why not branch out? So this year, I decided I would experiment with a few other uses for pumpkin.
These scones are the result of several failed attempts at pumpkin bready things - including pancakes (they didn't cook properly), and an overly hard set of biscuits. At last, I think I have found the correct ratio of pumpkin to scone ingredients!
Please note - I always think of scones as sweet due to the "scones" for sale at grocery stores, and some bakeries. These are not particularly sweet.
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. You may want to sift the flour, though I have been happy with the results of non-sifted flower.
- Cut the butter into the dry ingredients, until it resembles coarse sand.
- Add the pumpkin, milk, and egg to the dry ingredients. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry until fully combined.
- Turn the dough out onto a floured surface. Roll or press the dough out until its about an inch thick.
- Use a round cookie cutter or the rim of a glass to cut out individual scones. I used a short glass and got about 10 scones. Form the left over scraps of dough into rounds by hand.
- Cook for 10-15 minutes, or until golden brown.
Recipe Notes
Based on Pumpkin Scones the Old Fashioned Way.
Share this Recipe
Carrot cake is great. Its nice, and moist, and cakey. But it has a veneer of healthiness. After all, it has carrots! And. . theoretically less sugar!
Its cake. And veggies. And cake!
Ingredients
- 2 Whole Eggs
- 1/2 Cup Olive Oil or other vegetable oil
- 1 Cup Sugar
- 3 tbsp Pumpkin Puree or Applesauce
- 2 tbsp Molasses Blackstrap
- 2 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1 Cup Flour do half all purpose, half whole wheat
- 1 tsp Baking Soda
- 1 tsp Baking Powder
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 2 tsp Cinnamon
- 1 tsp Nutmeg
- 2 Cups Carrots grated, or mashed
Servings: pieces
Instructions
- Prepare your carrots. Finely grating them in fine, but so is cooking them down and mashing them. Put to the side.
- Beat your two eggs. Add in oil, sugar, pumpkin puree, molasses, and vanilla extract. Mix well.
- Mix together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg in another bowl. Combine your wet and dry mixtures.
- Add carrots to your batter. Mix well. Pour the carroty mixture into a buttered 8x8 baking pan.
- Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about one hour. Make sure the cake is done by inserting a knife into the center; it should come out clean.
Recipe Notes
Its fairly common to cut the oil required in a carrot cake recipe with applesauce, but pumpkin puree works well too! Its especially practical if you've been cooking down a lot of pumpkin recently.
Blackstrap molasses actually tastes acceptable in this cake - possibly because it is not the main sweetener, it just gives the cake a nice brown color. You could probably also use brown sugar and no molasses.
This cake is good enough to be dessert for sure, especially if you ice it with cream cheese frosting. But I like to leave it plain and have it for breakfast with my morning coffee. Yum!
Share this Recipe