Maple Caramel "Beavertail" Cheesecake

Even though this recipe was meant to make you think of Winterlude, it all began at Costco. 

Mini Caramel Pumpkin Cheesecakes

This past weekend was Thanksgiving here in Canada. I knew I wanted to make something with pumpkin (shocking I know) and when I saw the Share Your Sweets theme for this week was cheesecake, I knew pumpkin cheesecake was it. I had never made any kind of pumpkin cheesecake before so I went looking for the perfect recipe. Turns out I couldn't find one that had all of the things I was looking for so I mashed a bunch of them together and came up with my own. 

I'm dying to make a "real" cheesecake but there are two main things stopping me: 1) they're really expensive to make because most call for at least three packages of cream cheese, and 2) I try to share my treats with as many people as possible and walking to work with a whole cheesecake seems daunting. Therefore, I made minis. A quick note - I actually made 12 super huge minis. I wrote the recipe below for 16 to 18 because there was more than enough crust and filling to make more than 12.

Mini Caramel Pumpkin Cheesecakes
makes 16 to 18

For the crust:

1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons sugar (brown or white)
1 tablespoon maple syrup
2 tablespoons melted butter (measured after melting)

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees and put 18 liners into your muffin tins.
• Mix together all ingredients and put about one tablespoon of crust mixture into each liner and pat down to compress.
• Bake for 10 to 12 minutes until golden brown.
• Let the crust cool a bit while making the filling.

 For the filling:

8 oz cream cheese (I used light)
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons maple syrup
2/3 cup of pumpkin puree
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/3 cup caramel or dulce de leche

• Using a stand or hand mixer, combine cream cheese, sugar, maple syrup, and pumpkin puree until combined.
• Add the eggs, vanilla, and pumpkin pie spice.
• Fill prepared crust about 3/4 full.
• Add about one teaspoon of  caramel to the top of the filled crusts and swirl through the batter with a toothpick or skewer. 
• Bake at 350 degrees for 22 to 25 minutes until just slightly jiggly in the middle.
• Let cool on a rack and then refrigerate for at least two hours before serving. 

Crust

Batter

Dulce de leche from Costco - only $3.99! Find it near the peanut butter and jam

Adding the dulce de leche

After the swirl

Out of the oven

These were delicious. The crust was a bit too crunchy for my taste but otherwise, fantastic! I think that the crunchiness might have had something to do with the maple syrup and extra sugar in the crust. I haven't had anyone else taste test them yet but I anticipate they'll be a hit. These are a great alternative to pumpkin pie if you're not a huge fan. The texture is a bit firmer than pumpkin pie and I know that texture is an issue for some people. I'd never thought of combining pumpkin and caramel before but I'd certainly try it again.

Fellow Canadians, what did you have for dessert with your Thanksgiving dinner? 

Bites From the 'Burg: Cheesecake at the Foolish Chicken

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of having dinner with friends at the Foolish Chicken here in Hintonburg (on Holland Ave near Armstrong). Besides having one of my favorite pulled pork sandwiches in town, they also have delicious desserts that are made in house. I have been there many times over the last few years and I'm never disappointed in either the meal or dessert.

On this particular evening I had a piece of the chocolate coconut cheesecake. The restaurant offers a number of gluten-free options on the menu and when I realized this cheesecake didn't have a traditional crust, I contacted the restaurant to confirm that this was one of those options, and I was right. Natalie responded and let me know that all of the gluten-free cheesecake options are made with a nut crust, instead of a traditional graham cracker base.The cheesecake was nice and chocolaty with a great smooth texture like all great cheesecake should have. The coconut crust is a nice change from the usual. A good contrast to the smooth texture of the cake and a nice hit of coconut flavor. 

I've tried a few other cheesecake flavors and also the homemade Snickers pie. All have been delicious. If you're in need, the cheesecakes are also available for order from the restaurant via the Cheesecakes to Go page on their website. If you find yourself in the 'Burg with a hankering for cheesecake, make sure you check out the Foolish Chicken.

Cows Ice Cream: Take 2

While I was back home in PEI for my second trip this summer, I made a point to go back to Cows Creamery and try out some more great ice cream. While I was at the main location I got a chance to go on the factory tour with my brother and one of my cousins. I'd never been on the tour before so I was excited to see what it was all about. 

The tour started out with a short video to explain some of the history behind Cows, most of which I've covered here. First stop on the tour was a glimpse at the t-shirt printing presses. All of merchandise for all of the stores is made right here. Each arm of the machine puts a different color through the screens and onto the shirts. I thought that was pretty impressive. It looked too simple to be able to print as many items as they go through in a season.

 

Appropriately enough (for those who know me) they were printing the "Justin Beefer" shirt while we were there. 

 

There were huge prints of some of the most popular shirt designs hung on the walls. 

 

A reference to Anne of Green Gables for those not familiar.

I missed my opportunity to snap a picture of the room where the ice cream is actually made. I was sort of astounded to find out that all of the ice cream for all Cows locations for the entire season is made in this one (not very big) room over three days a week by three guys, one batch at a time.

Next stop on the tour was a view of the cheese room where they age their award winning cloth-bound cheddar for about 18 months at a very specific temperature and high humidity to replicate the environment in the caves where this kind of cheese is typically aged. The video also showed how they turn Island milk into thousands of pounds of delicious looking butter. Mmm...
 

On with the ice cream! Over the course of the trip we had four different combinations between us. Moo Crunch/Mocha Almond Fudge was my first cone. The Moo Crunch (chocolate ice cream with Cows-made "Skor" bits and peanut butter cups) was absolutely delicious. Soooooooooooo many peanut butter cups in this particular scoop. The Mocha Almond Fudge wasn't like I remembered it. It was one of my top three back in the day when I worked in Cavendish and was scoring the unofficial staff cones. However, I remember it having whole almonds and a more distinct mocha flavor than this scoop had. Could be a batch thing.  

Moo Crunch and Mocha Almond Fudge

Next up, my cousin had PEI Blueberry and Moo Crunch. She had nothing but good things to say about the blueberry. I also tried a sample and it was quite good. I'm not a huge fan of fruity ice cream but I think it would be really good if that's your thing. Sadly, she wasn't super impressed with her Moo Crunch. While the scoop I'd had a few days before was loaded with peanut butter cups, her scoop only had one. Sad. She had chosen that particular flavor because she wanted the peanut butter. 

PEI Blueberry and Moo Crunch

My brother chose Moo York Cheesecake (cheesecake base with Oreos) and mint chocolate. He really liked the mint with chocolate chunks. He also liked the cheesecake but he was expecting it to have a bit more of a distinctive cheesecakey flavor. 

Moo York Cheesecake and Mint Chocolate

For my second cone of the trip I went with Cookie Dough and Fluff 'n Udder (chocolate ice cream with marshmallow and peanut butter cups). The cookie dough was really good. I had tons of cookie dough chunks in my scoop and they had good flavor and texture. 
Sadly, my scoop of Fluff 'n Udder didn't live up to the deliciousness of the scoop I had last month. There was a good bit of marshmallow but only a single peanut butter cup.

Cookie Dough and Fluff 'n Udder

Overall, I think we were all happy with our selections. The only comment we all made was the inconsistency between scoops. Some were LOADED with mix-ins and some had none. I think it's a consequence of the way the ice cream is made. As we saw on the video during the tour, the ice cream and mix-ins are kind of layered in the container. I guess if I could make one suggestion to Cows it would be to find a way to mix things up a bit more. Nothing is worse than getting all excited for a scoop full of whatever and then finding you got none. Ice cream should be a happy experience! Regardless, I will certainly be back and I enjoyed introducing my cousin (from Boston) to a true Island experience.


What's your absolute favorite flavor of ice cream? 


*Thanks to Cows for providing me and my family with the Factory Tour and the delicious ice cream!

Share Your Sweets: Fruit

The theme for this week's Share Your Sweets on Serious Eats is fruit. It just so happened that one of my very good friends was celebrating her birthday this weekend (happy birthday Kristen!) and I was going to attend her birthday party. I offered to bring something sweet and managed to  incorporate fruit into her tasty birthday treats. I know she loves lime so, after much back and forth, I decided to depart a little bit from my typical cupcake and I made mini lime cheesecakes with sour cream and raspberries. 

I started off with this recipe for key lime cheesecake pie from Kraft Canada. I kind of merged it with this recipe for coconut cream mini cheesecakes from the same site. They were my inspiration for the individual portions, sour cream topping, and I used it to figure out the baking time for the scaled down size. All in all the whole process was pretty simple. I started off with the crust (obviously). I had some ginger cookies kicking around in the cupboard so I threw some in the mini processor and added the cookie to replace about half of the graham crumbs in the crust. The recipe was very simple - 1 1/2 cups of cookie crumbs and 1/4 cup of melted butter. One slight mistake I made was adding 1/4 cup butter, melted instead of 1/4 cup of melted butter. Sounds minor but the mix came out a bit greasier than I would have anticipated.

One tablespoon of crumbs went into each cup. I portioned it out into 24 cups but I ended up only having enough filling for 20. If I were to make these again I would reduce to 18 cheesecakes and have a little more crust and filling for each one. I also doubled the amount of lime zest and juice that went into the batter. I generally find citrus recipes don't include enough to really be able to taste it so I always increase the amounts.

Out of the oven

The finished product

When I first tried one of these, I thought it was still a bit too tangy so I doubled the amount of sugar in the rest of the sour cream. I thought it helped a bit without making the dessert overly sweet. I thought they were quite delicious. Everyone at the party seemed to enjoy them. I would definitely make some other variation of these again. A good number of portions with minimal ingredients and they look great on the plate!

Are you a cheesecake fan? If so, what's your favorite flavor? If not, why?