12 | 52 Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Cheesecake Bars

Phew. I mean. Could this name be any longer???

But it all boils down to this:

Peanut butter - yes, please! 

Chocolate Chip Cookie - always!

Cheesecake - yum!

Any more questions?

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Cheesecake Bars

From A Pinch of Yum

114 g (1 stick) butter, room temperature

100 g (1/2 cup) white sugar

70 g (1/3 cup) packed brown sugar

130 g (1/2 cup) peanut butter

1 egg

140 g (1 cup) flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teapsoon salt

50 g (1/2 cup) rolled oats

230 g (2 cups) chocolate chips

230 g (8 oz) cream cheese

70 g (1/3 cup) sugar

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

• Preheat oven to 160°C (325°F).
• For the cookie dough, beat together butter, sugars, and peanut putter until smooth. 
• Add egg and beat to incorporate. In a small bowl, mix flour, baking soda, and salt, and slowly add it to the butter mix. Stir in oats and chocolate chips.
• For the cheesecake filling, cream together cream cheese, egg, sugar, and vanilla.
• Put half (or a bit more) of the cookie dough in your pan (square 22 cm / 9 in) and press to the bottom. Pour the filling on top of it. Crumble remaining cookie dough over the filling.
• Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Remove foil and bake for another 20 minutes.
• Serve warm or cold. Store leftovers in the fridge.

My modifications:

I had to change some things because I didn't have everything at home.

I used 60 g coconut oil (1/2 cup) instead of the butter. I reduced the white sugar to 75 g (1/3 cup) in the dough and 55 g (1/4 cup) in the cheesecake filling. I only used 200 g of chocolate chips (and even that is quite a lot!). 

The taste:

What can I say. It's as finger lickin' good as you would think it is. Definitely a keeper!

And my cookie bottom and top even tasted a bit more like cookie dough (unbaked), which I love. But that might just be because of my modifications. 

What's your favorite recipe with a long (or complicated) name?

10 | 52 Russischer Zupfkuchen / Russian Plucked Cake

A couple of weeks ago, pictures of 'Russian Plucked Cakes' seemed to pop up everywhere I looked. And the more pictures I saw, the more I knew I had to make it.

And don't be fooled. As far as I know, this so-called Russian cake is actually German.

Not that it matters much, right?

If you like a chocolate crust with a cheesecake-like filling, topped with plucked chocolate crust -
this cake is for you. 

Russischer Zupfkuchen

From Chefkoch.de

Crust and topping:

300 g (2 1/4 cups) flour

180 g (3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons) sugar

40 g (1/3 cup) cocoa powder, unsweetened

1 paket (1.5 tablespoons) baking powder

200 g (1 3/4 sticks) butter

2 eggs

Filling:

70 g (1/3 cup) butter, room temperature

500 g (1.1 lb) quark

200 g (7 oz) heavy cream

3 eggs

150 g (3/4 cup) sugar

1 paket vanilla sugar (or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract)

pinch of salt

• Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F).
• For the crust, combine flour, sugar, sifted cocoa powder, and baking powder in a big bowl. Add butter and eggs and knead well. Put about 1/4 of the dough away for the moment and use the other 3/4 to make the crust in a round springform pan (bottom and sides all the way up).
• For the filling, beat butter until creamy. Add all remaining ingredients and stir together well. Pour filling on top of the chocolate crust. Pluck pieces off the remaining crust dough and distribute on the filling.
• Bake for about 60 minutes. Let cool completely.

My modifications:

None.

The taste:

Very good. Because of the quark in the filling, it tastes like a traditional German cheesecake but a bit creamier. And needless to say but the chocolate on the bottom, sides, and top add to the overall yumminess.

What's you favorite Russian (real or not) recipe?

2*52 Chocolate Cheesecake

Chocolate. 

I think we already agreed that there is always room & time for chocolate.

Also in cheesecake. Like this one:

Chocolate Cheesecake

Adapted from Leila Lindholm's Noch ein Stück (English edition: One more slice)

400 g (14 oz) whole wheat butter cookies (or graham crackers)

150 g (2/3 cup) butter

600 g (1 lb & 5 oz) cream cheese

250 g (8 fl oz) Quark (10%) (curd cheese)

120 g (2/3 cup) sugar

2 teaspoon vanilla sugar (or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract)

4 eggs

100 ml (3.5 fl oz) heavy cream, liquid

150 g (1/3 lb) semisweet chocolate

3 tablespoons espresso

• Preheat oven to 175°C (350°F).
• Crush the cookies or crackers until you have (more or less) fine crumbs.
• Melt the butter, mix with the crumbs, and press onto the bottom of a buttered springform pan. Pre-bake for 10 minutes, let cool.
• Turn down the oven to 130°C (270°F).

• Mix together cream cheese and quark. Add sugar and vanilla (sugar). Add one egg at a time, then finish with adding the liquid cream.
• Melt the chocolate and mix with espresso. Add chocolate to half of the cheese mix. 
• Pour half of the white cheese mix onto base. Pour half of the chocolate-cheese mix on top. Add the rest of the white mix, and finish with the last half of chocolate mix. Make swirls with a toothpick.
• Bake for 85 minutes until the cake is completely set. Let cool and serve warm or chilled from the fridge.

My modifications:

None. But I did have a problem with mixing the espresso with the melted chocolate. Maybe you know what happens when you mix a liquid with melted chocolate: the chocolate clumps. I didn't really like that because those clumps were in the finished cake as well but I'm not sure what to do differently next time.

The taste:

Good! But - maybe due to the espresso-chocolate - the texture wasn't like my usual favorite cheesecake texture. I probably won't bake this again. But it wasn't bad, so please do try it yourself. And let me know if you solve the clump problem...

What is your favorite cheesecake? Plain or mixed with different flavors?

16/52 Blueberry Cheesecake

New York Cheesecake is my absolute favorite! I just felt that you should know that before I continue...

It was my friend Martina's birthday last week and I told her that I would bake her any cake she wanted. So after some thinking, she decided that she wanted a cheesecake. But not the NY kind...
It is hard to believe but there are actually people out there who do not like NY cheesecake! And Martina happens to be one of them. She likes the German version that uses 'Quark' (curd cheese or fromage blanc).

Since I promised to bake whatever she likes, I grudgingly had to give in... But not before trying to convince her to at least add something to the filling, like tangerine slices (very good in cheesecake) or chocolate chips (never tried that but imagine it to be good, too). So she gave in a little as well and decided for blueberries.
Fine by me.

Blueberry Cheesecake

Adapted from here

For the base/crust:

200 g (1.6 cups) flour

75 g (1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon) sugar

75 g (1/3 cup) margarine

1 egg

2 teaspoons baking powder

For the filling:

125 g (1/2 cup) margarine

225 g (1 1/8 cup) sugar

1 packet vanilla sugar (or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract)

1 packet (= 40 g) vanilla pudding powder (or: 4 tablespoons corn starch + 1 teaspoon vanilla extract)

3 eggs

500 g (2 1/4 cups) quark

200 g (0.87 cup) sour cream

200 g (0.84 cup) heavy cream, fluid

250 g (1 2/3 cup) blueberries

• Preheat oven to 180°C (360°F).
• Mix all ingredients for the crust and quickly combine them using your hands, until you have a smooth dough.
• For the filling, mix together margarine, sugar, vanilla sugar (or extract), pudding powder, and eggs. Add quark and sour cream. Beat heavy cream until stiff and carefully fold into the quark-mix.
• Spread out crust into greased springform pan (and don't forget to pull it up the sides as well). Using a fork, put some holes in the crust bottom and arrange blueberries on it.

• Pour cheese filling on top and bake for about 1 hour.

• When done, leave oven door open for a couple of minutes before taking out the cake so that it doesn't collapse too quickly. Be prepared for it to collapse though, that's how it's supposed to be!

My modifications:

The original recipe does not include any fruit or other additions to the filling.

The taste:

I love New York Cheesecake. Wait... did I mention this already?
But - I have to admit that this cake is delicious! It looks perfect and it tastes perfect. You should definitely try it!

Oh, and in case you're wondering why I know how it tasted if I made it for Martina - we agreed that we will split the cake so she got half and I got half. That's fair, right?

Do you like cheesecake? Which is your favorite version?