Japanese Soft Cotton Cheesecake

With DW on the road to recovery & JD having recovered fully from her fever, I feel alot more relaxed and am up to baking again! Last weekend, I tried baking another cheesecake, this time Jap style.

Overall I thought the texture was slightly harder than what we usually buy from the shops. Gotta research & try to find a way to get around this.. but definitely I will only go the au naturel way, no chemicals, no essence. Only the best, the purest ingredients!

Choc Chip Cheesecake

Tried my 2nd cheesecake last weekend as DW had requested me to bake one for his birthday. It turned out pretty ok, not as heavy & sweet as my 1st one as I had searched for a different recipe with less cheese & sugar content.

But because of me trying to prevent too much air from entering during the mixing process, I may not have whipped the mixture long enough and this may have resulted in a "not as soft as it should be" cheesecake.

Oh well, as what my mom says, you will need many many tries to bake the perfect cake. Can't doubt her on that... she IS the master of baking...

AND, because it had chocolate chips, JD refused to eat it :( I know my little girl hates chocolate but I had assumed that little dots of brown would still be acceptable to her but apparently NOT! Sigh, At least I still had my dad & dw devouring it!

Next up, strawberry cheesecake! :) JD loves strawberries, so I'm sure she's gonna enjoy this one!

Shepard's Pie

It's been ages since I've had a decent Shepard's Pie. Frankly I think the best ones I've ever had were the ones at Gab's parties during our college days. Recently those I've eaten pales in comparison, especially those commercially made ones sold at the shops. No matter how authentic the claims are, they just somehow do not make the mark. So much so, that I promised myself to make my very own. I trawled through tons of recipes online, and finally found 2 that seemed tasty enough and combined the best parts of both to create my very own Shepard's pie!

And so I did. Not the best I admit but it's good enough for my family to enjoy. JD came up to me with her thumbs up and my mom & helper (both of whom are not into overly sweet nor salty stuff) were enjoying up to their last bits.

I'm very encouraged to make a 2nd attempt, to make it slightly saltier the next round. DW says the beef & potato could be a little tastier. I did cut back on the salt by ALOT (almost non existent) as being the ever health conscious me, I thought the butter & sweetness of the ingredients would more than sufficiently make up for the blandness. But apparently not... I'll just opt for the healthier version: pan salt :)

Cheesecake

Took some time off last week to bake a cheesecake. Perhaps it was due to the hot weather and the adding of so many ingredients, that by the time the cake was ready to be consumed, I was too burnt out to have the appetite for it.

Dw & dad loved it, why shouldn't they? This contained 4 packs of Philly Cheese! No joke, it's a super expensive and a super high fat dessert. Now I'll willingly pay $6.50 for a slice of good cheesecake, anything less, will most probably contain less than satisfactory ingredients. I know that for a fact as I've spent about $50 on the ingredients, not including the flour, eggs which I "borrowed" from my mom.

I'm not sure if I will bake a 2nd one in the near future, but if I do, I will cut the biscuit crumbs by 50g (that means less sugar too) and will leave the cake to cool in the oven 1st to minimise cracking.

Chocolate Chip Soft Cookies

The 1st reaction from my mom upon her 1st bite was: wa rau, so sweet! Next time knock off 10-20g each from the white & brown sugar.

Dw & colleagues say they're yummy!

Changes to be done for the next batch:
1) Less sugar
2) Less beating after eggs are added
3) Much much smaller dough scoops
4) MORE chocolate chips!!

Brownie

Since I was on leave this week and Jilliane is now better behaved, I decided to start baking again. Tried out this new recipe for brownie, was supposed to be the best recipe ever, crispy on the outside and moist in the inside. Well, I think overall the taste was ok, but the inside could be a little bit more wet & softer. So I'll cut the baking time to 20 mins instead of 26 mins.