Tag: recipe

Peppermint Cheesecake Brownies

Writ­ten 12/31/24, updat­ed 12/31/24

Recipe from Real Sim­ple Mag­a­zine. NOT veg­an (and not rec­om­mend­ed as veg­an). Pep­per­mint infused and as a top­ping

Materials

Ingre­di­ents

1 pkg Fudge Brown­ie Mix

16 oz Cream Cheese, soft­ened

½ cup Gran­u­lat­ed Sug­ar

½ cup Sour Cream

½ tsp Vanil­la Extract

½ tsp Pep­per­mint Extract

2 ct Large Eggs

⅓ cup+ Crushed Pep­per­mint Can­dy

Option­al: ½ cup Choco­late Chips

Option­al: ⅓ cup Heavy Cream

Sup­plies

Muf­fin Trays w/Liners OR Bak­ing Pan OR Spring­form Pan

Parch­ment Paper

Bak­ing Spray

Mix­ing Spoon

Sil­i­cone Spat­u­la

Large Mix­ing Bowl

Mea­sur­ing Imple­ments

Tooth­pick

Elec­tric Beat­er

Cool­ing Racks

Kitchen Mal­let

Serving and Time

Serv­ing: 24 Brown­ies

Time: 20 minute Brown­ies + 20 minute Prep + 15 minute Bake + 1.5 hour Cool + 10 minute Set = 2–3 hours TOTAL

Directions

Brown­ies

  • Pre­heat oven to 350F
  • Pre­pare Brown­ies accord­ing to pack­age
  • Either line a Muf­fin Pan (12 count) with lin­ers OR grease/parchment paper a Bak­ing Pan
  • Pour brown­ie bat­ter into bake­ware
  • Bake for about 20 min­utes until tooth­pick comes out clean­ly
  • While per­form­ing next steps, let cool

Prep

  • In a large mix­ing bowl, use an elec­tric beat­er on medi­um speed to work Cream Cheese (16 oz) until smooth, about 2–3 min­utes
  • Add Sug­ar (½ cup), Sour Cream (½ cup), Vanil­la (½ tsp), and Pep­per­mint Extract (½ tsp — a lit­tle more if you want more of pep­per­mint fla­vor, but not too much lest it be bit­ter)
  • Beat on medi­um-low speed
  • Add Eggs (2 total), 1 at a time until all com­bined
  • Fold in Pep­per­mint Can­dy (⅓ cup – more if desired for more pep­per­mint)

Bake

  • Make sure oven is at 350F
  • Spread pre­pared mix­ture over top the brown­ies
  • Bake about 15 min­utes, until cheese­cake is set
  • Cool in the pan on top of cool­ing racks for 30 min­utes
  • Refrig­er­ate uncov­ered for at least 1 hour up to 24 hours (if longer than 4 hours, cov­er)

Top­ping (Option­al)

  • Right before serv­ing, using a microwave-safe bowl, add Choco­late Chips (½ cup) and Heavy Cream (⅓ cup)
  • Microwave for 30 sec­onds
  • Stir
  • Microwave for 30 sec­onds
  • Stir until smooth
  • Microwave more if need­ed
  • Spread over top the cheese­cake and gar­nish with Crushed Pep­per­mint Can­dy (desired amount)
  • Refrig­er­ate for 10 min­utes until set

SERVE and Enjoy!

Notes

  • Do NOT do this as a veg­an recipe!! It’s not good! I tried mak­ing veg­an cheese­cake 6 times and it is nev­er good despite using a vari­ety of dif­fer­ent cream cheeses
  • 2024: Made the mis­take of mak­ing brown­ies in a dif­fer­ent pan and then try­ing to cut it out in the shape of the spring­form pan I was using. NOT a good idea. Just bake it in the pan first. Oth­er­wise the bot­tom is weird. If I were to do it again, I would add more pep­per­mint as a whole as I couldn’t real­ly taste it in the cheese­cake. Did not do the option­al frost­ing top
  • Recipe calls for soft pep­per­mint can­dy. I used can­dy canes. The soft­er can­dy prob­a­bly would  melt bet­ter
  • Try­ing it in a muf­fin pan is not a bad idea

Daifuku (Red Bean Mochi) Recipe

writ­ten 12/8/24, updat­ed 12/8/24

What

Japan­ese dessert. It’s mochi (sweet gluti­nous rice flour), a chewy rice cake, wrapped around a fill­ing, usu­al­ly anko (sweet red bean paste). Can be filled with oth­er ingre­di­ents like mung bean, fresh cut fruit, ice cream, or cus­tard, and col­ored with pow­ders (such as matcha pow­der), fresh fruit puree, or food col­or­ing.

This recipe is made in the microwave for ease, but can also be steamed

*See Notes for more details

Ingredients

1 Cup Shi­rata­mako or Mochiko Sweet Rice Flour (*See Notes)

¼ — ½ Cup Sug­ar (more or less as desired)

1 Cup Water

1 Cup Anko (sweet red bean paste, bought or made)

Katakuriko (pota­to starch or corn­starch as need­ed for dust­ing)

Supplies

Heat-proof bowl

Sil­i­cone Spat­u­la

Sil­i­cone Whisk

Plas­tic Wrap/Microwave Cov­er

Parch­ment Paper

Bak­ing Sheet/Tray

Time and Serving

Time: 5 min­utes com­bine + 2 min­utes microwave + 20 min­utes shap­ing = 30 min­utes

Serv­ing: 8 pieces

Directions

  • Pre­pare your Anko fill­ing
  • On a tray or bak­ing sheet, do the same thing and set aside (this is where you’ll put the formed dai­fuku)
  • Whisk togeth­er Flour (1 Cup) and Sug­ar (¼ — ½ Cup, to your desire)
  • Add the Water (1 Cup) and com­bine with the sil­i­cone spat­u­la until it forms a smooth bat­ter
  • Cov­er with either plas­tic wrap or microwave lid
  • Microwave for about 1.5 min­utes
  • Remove and stir well
  • Return to microwave for anoth­er 1.5 min­utes
  • It should have formed a shiny, smooth dough, a some­what hard lump, dif­fer­ent from the bat­ter from before
  • If not, then return for 30 sec­onds at a time, stir­ring in between
  • Dust your parch­ment paper work­space with either pota­to starch or corn­starch
  • Scrape the dough out onto your work­space (Be care­ful, it’s going to be HOT)
  • Sprin­kle starch as need­ed to make it less sticky
  • Divide the hot dough into equal por­tions
  • Roll them into flat disks
  • Put your Anko fill­ing into the mid­dle and pinch the ends to close them
  • Place it seam side down on your pre-dust­ed tray
  • Con­tin­ue to make the rest
  • This is best enjoyed right away, or cov­er and refrig­er­ate up to 2 days

Notes

Clean-Up Tips

  • Soak your bowls and imple­ments in water to help loosen it up
  • Try not to dump the wet flour down the drain if you don’t want to deal with a clog
  • If it’s being stub­born even after soak­ing, use the sil­i­cone spat­u­la to scrape the wet dough into the trash­can

Katakuriko = pota­to starch

Mochi vs Dan­go

  • Dan­go: term for ball-shaped foods
  • While these days the lines have blurred between the two desserts’ ingre­di­ents, tra­di­tion­al­ly, the dif­fer­ence is that Mochi was made from steamed gluti­nous RICE (grain) and pound­ed in a pes­tle, while Dan­go was made from non-gluti­nous rice FLOUR, mixed with water, knead­ed, then steamed or boiled.
  • Dan­go is made like boba, where the lit­tle balls are boiled

When made the same way (Flour, sug­ar, and boil lit­tle balls) tapi­o­ca starch (cas­sa­va) will make boba, while rice flour will make dan­go.

Mochiko vs Shi­rata­mako

  • Both flours are sim­i­lar to each oth­er but dif­fer in pro­cess­ing
  • Both can be used in oth­er dish­es like bak­ery goods and as thick­en­ing agents in savory dish­es
Mochiko
  • Ground when rice is dry
  • Less work­ing time until hard­en­ing
  • Sticky, chewy tex­ture
  • Stronger fla­vor
  • Fine­ly ground flour
Shiratamako
  • Ground when rice is wet, then dried
  • Stretch­i­er, even when cool
  • Smoother tex­ture, more del­i­cate
  • Good for refined desserts
  • Coarse, gran­u­lar tex­tured flour