Pumpkin Ricotta Cheesecake

Looking for an elegant alternative to pumpkin pie? Want to enjoy the holidays without ruining your waistline? I have the recipe for you and a book to recommend. Marisa Churchill, a contestant on Season 2 of Top Chef and San Francisco resident, has recently published an inspired collection of low calorie desserts, called, Sweet & Skinny: 100 Recipes for Enjoying Life’s Sweeter Side Without Tipping the Scales.
Click on the book to purchase it at Amazon.com.

I recently spent an evening with her since we share a mutual friend, and she told me that the Pumpkin Ricotta Cheesecake in the book is one of her favorites, so I made it for my annual Halloween Dinner Party (more recipes to follow from that event). It was divine. The flavor of the cheesecake is subtle and sophisticated. It’s not too sweet, but it still retains the yummy flavors reminiscent of your favorite pumpkin desserts.

Marisa Churchill

The book is full of fabulous recipes and Marisa really takes the time to explain the techniques. She provides sugar-free alternatives for each dessert as well as all of the nutritional information you need to stay on track (calories, grams of fat, etc.) and stay healthy. Get this book in time for the holidays! There are lots of cookie recipes to satisfy all of your Christmas cookie-baking needs!

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Pumpkin Ricotta Cheesecake
Serves 12
From the book, Sweet & Skinny: 100 Recipes for Enjoying Life’s Sweeter Side Without Tipping the Scales

Ingredients

For the Crust
Nonstick pan spray
6 oz honey graham crackers (about 10 cookie sheets)
2 Tbsp 1% or 2% milk

For the Cheesecake
8 oz (1 cup) reduced-fat Kraft cream cheese
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup nonfat sour cream, at room temperature
2 large eggs, at room temperature
2 egg whites from large eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2/3 cup canned pumpkin puree
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1 cup plus 2 Tbsp reduced-fat ricotta cheese
2 Tbsp large pecan pieces, toasted for garnish (I used hazelnuts)
2 Tbsp pomegranate seeds for garnish

Method

For the crust

1. Coat 9-inch springform pan with pan spray. Break up the graham crackers and process them in a food processor until they are reduced to very fine crumbs. Add the milk and process for 30 seconds, or until the crumbs hold together when you squeeze them in your fist.

2. Transfer the mixture to the prepared pan. Press the crumbs firmly over the bottom and slightly up the sides of the pan, using your finger-tips to compress them.

For the cheesecake

1. Preheat the oven to 325˚F with a rack in the lower third of the oven.

2. Using an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and sugar on medium speed for 2 to 3 minutes, until it is completely smooth and well blended. (If using a standing mixer, use the paddle attachment). Add the sour cream, eggs, egg whites, and vanilla; mix for 2 to 3 minutes longer to blend well. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add the pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, salt, and cloves and mix for 1 minute longer. Add the ricotta and mix just until it is incorporated.

3. Pour the batter over the crust and bake for 50 to 60 minutes, until the cheesecake jiggles only slightly in the center when you gently shake the pan. (If the cheesecake browns too quickly or begins to crack, tent a piece of aluminum foil over the top, without touching the filling, for the remaining baking time).

4. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let it cool for 1 hour. Then run a knife around the edge of the pan if needed to loosen the cheesecake, remove the outer pan ring, and transfer the cake, on its base, to a serving plate. Cover the cake loosely with plastic film and refrigerate for at least 3 hours or overnight.

To serve: Cut the cheesecake into 12 wedges, and garnish them with the toasted pecans and pomegranate seeds.

Refrigerate any leftover cheesecake, tightly covered, for up to 3 days.

Nutritional Information:
Calories per serving: 221
Grams of fat: 9.5g

Watch Marisa whip up a Chocolate Mousse with Olive and Sea Salt:

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

There’s nothing likely whipping up a little quick bread (muffin, cupcake, bread, whatever) to satisfy the baking need. Mix the wet ingredients. Mix the dry ingredients. Put them together without overmixing, bake and voila! A sweet, sumptuous little treat in no time.

October = pumpkin for me, in case you didn’t know. Psst. There are like 40 pumpkin recipes in this blog. I’ve done pumpkin-chocolate chip cookies before, but never pumpkin chocolate chip muffins (or cupcakes as the case may be). Some people love the combo, and I am one of them. These are equally good with or without the icing, I think. So if you can’t be bothered with the icing, don’t be!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
Makes 18-20 cupcakes

Ingredients

4 eggs
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 cups canned pure pumpkin
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup vegetable oil
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
pinch ground cloves
1 tsp salt
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

For the frosting:

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups confectioners’ sugar

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350˚F. Prepare muffin tins by either spraying them with cooking spray or lining them with paper liners.

2. In a large mixing bowl, beat together the eggs, white sugar, brown sugar, pumpkin, vanilla extract, and vegetable oil. Set aside.

3. In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt.

4. In three batches, add the flour to the wet ingredients and stir to incorporate. Don’t overmix, but incorporate thoroughly.

5. Fold in the chocolate chips. Fill muffin cups at least 3/4 of the way full. I like to create a big muffin top, so I fill them almost all the way.

6. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown on top and a knife inserted comes out clean. If you have to have two layers of tins in your oven, rotate them halfway through the cooking time for even baking.

To make the icing:

1. While the muffins are baking, you can make the icing. With an electric hand mixer, cream together the cream cheese, butter, vanilla and confectioner’s sugar until completely smooth, Allow to chill if need be.

To ice the cupcakes:

1. Once the cupcakes come out of the oven, they will need to cool before you can ice them. Once they are cooled, you can fill a pastry bag with your icing and pipe it out into large concentric circles.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

Blueberry Cobbler

Blueberries are in season and therefore, they’re on sale at Trader Joe’s for just $6.99 for a 2 lb basket. Time for cobbler when that happens.

I wanted to see if I could toss a bunch of fresh blueberries into pie plate with as few other ingredients as possible and come out with a tasty cobbler half an hour later. The answer is yes. Yes I can.

I use less sugar and butter in this recipe than most recipes out there, because I know that these berries can stand on their own. And I don’t stew them first, because I want them to maintain their structure. You can see in the photograph that the berries are still berries. That’s just how I like it.

See if you like it too. Subtract some berries and add peaches if you’ve got those lying around too.

Blueberry Cobbler: Fast, Fresh and Easy
Serves up to 9

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups Bisquick baking mix
2/3 cup reduced fat milk
4ish cups fresh blueberries
1/4 cup of sugar
2 Tbsp butter, cut into little pieces

Method

1. Preheat oven to 400˚F.

2. Put 3.5 – 4 cups of blueberries in a pie plate. Sprinkle 1/4 cup sugar (or a little more to taste) over the berries. Sprinkle the slices of butter around, evenly, on top of the berries.

3. If the oven is ready, put the pie plate with just the blueberry mixture into the over for 10 minutes to get the mixture heated through.

4. While berries are heating, mix together the Bisquick and the milk and stir until dough forms. Let sit for remaining time. (No kneading, no rolling – these will be like drop biscuits on top).

5. Remove berries from the oven at the end of 10 minutes. Increase the oven temperature to 425˚F. Drop the biscuit dough on top of the blueberries, trying to drop 8 dollups in a circle plus one in the middle. Bake uncovered for an additional 15 minutes or until biscuits are golden brown.

Serve immediately, if possible. Also sits well in the oven at low temperature. Cobbler is great with a scoop of vanilla ice cream too!

Blueberry Cobbler w/Bisquick Biscuits

Sharffen Berger Fudgy Brownies

You know, chocolate is a funny thing. It comes in so many flavors and textures and each person knows just how they like it. Me? I like rich, dark chocolate. Sharffen Berger gets my kind of chocolate just right. So I was lucky when the company just happened to sponsor a Food Blogging conference I attended and the goodie bag we got was filled with lots of Sharffen Berger baking chocolate. Like the 70% cacao bittersweet chocolate, which is the basis for these fudgy brownies. This recipe comes directly from the source. Sharffen Berger publishes this and lots of other recipes on their site. These are definitely the fudgiest, most decadent brownies I’ve ever had. Enjoy!

Sharffen Berger 70% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate

Sharffen Berger Fudgy Brownies
Makes 9 two-inch square brownies
Ingredients

6 tablespoons (3 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into cubes, plus more for the pan
8 ounces SCHARFFEN BERGER 70% bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1/3 cup all-purpose flour

Method

1. Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 325°F. Cut an 8 by 16-inch piece of parchment paper. Lightly butter an 8 by 8 by 2-inch pan and line it with the parchment, allowing it to extend evenly over the opposite sides. Butter the parchment including the paper on the sides of the pan.

2. Place the chocolate and butter in a large heatproof bowl set over a pot of gently simmering water and stir occasionally until melted and smooth. Remove from the heat.

3. With a large rubber spatula or wooden spoon, beat the sugar and salt into the chocolate mixture. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Add the flour and mix vigorously until the batter is very glossy and pulls away from the sides of the bowl.

4. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and tap the pan bottom on the countertop to level the batter. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a skewer in the center comes out moist but clean.

Let cool in the pan on a cooling rack for 10 minutes. Remove the brownies from the pan using the parchment “handles,” and cool completely on the rack before cutting into 2-inch squares.

Cardamom Spiced Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream

Pumpkin is kind of a thing around here if you haven’t already noticed. What better way to put canned pumpkin to good use than to make it into ice cream? Well, making it into sorbet maybe if you’re vegan or lactose-intolerant. I’ll have to try that next, but for now, I just couldn’t resist making a full-throttle, (read full-fat) ice cream.

Hey, do you know about Cardamom? It’s a Indian spice with an aromatic flavor. It’s a truly unique taste. You can buy it in pods, which keep longer, or you can buy it already ground. I used the ground version in this recipe for simplicity’s sake. It’s on the pricy side (actually, it’s the most expensive spice on the market, even more than Saffron. Isn’t that cool)? It can be left out, but if you want to try something new, you can also use it in this recipe for Pumpkin Cardamom Crackle Custard and in lots of Indian dishes.

This is kind of a 2-day process unless you start early in the morning, so be prepared to wait to sink your teeth (ouch)! into this ice cream.

Custard in the Ice Cream Maker

Starting to freeze

Ice cream churning

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Cardamom Spiced Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream
Serves 8? or 2
This recipe was inspired by David Lebovitz’s Pumpkin Ice Cream post, but then I kind of changed it. He adapted a recipe from the book The Craft of Baking: Cakes, Cookies, and Other Sweets with Ideas for Inventing Your Own by Karen DeMasco & Mindy Fox.

Ingredients

5 egg yolks (large eggs)
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup 1% milk (it’s what I had)
1/3 cup plus 2 Tbsb granulated sugar (the white kind)
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg (I like nutmeg. You could cut back on this)
1 whole cinnamon stick
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 cup pumpkin purée

Method

1. In a small bowl, beat the egg yolks and set aside.

2. Make an ice bath (ice and water in a big bowl) and place another bowl in it.

2. In a medium sauce pan, mix together the heavy whipping cream, milk, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, nutmeg, cinnamon stick, and salt. Gently heat until the edges are bubbling. Add about half of the liquid to the egg yolks, stirring constantly. Pour that mixture in a steady stream (stirring all the time) back into the saucepan. Continue heating and stirring until mixture thickens and coats the back of a spatula. If you have a thermometer, the temperature of the liquid should be about 160˚F – 170˚F. Pour mixture through a fine strainer into the bowl nestled in the ice bath. Add the brown sugar and stir to mix and dissolve. Allow to cool and then cover and refrigerate for several hours or overnight. Chill the canned pumpkin too while you’re at it. Make sure that the bowl of your ice cream maker freezes overnight too.

3. Mix together the chilled custard, the pumpkin and the vanilla. At this point, you could press the mixture through a fine-meshed strainer (David Lebovitz did), but I skipped that step to see if I could and it came out great. Pour the mixture into the ice cream maker and run for about 25 minutes or until ice cream stops looking like a custard and starts looking like ice cream. Remove immediately to a storage container and continue to freeze in the freezer.

Cardamom Spiced Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream

Strawberry Sorbet

It’s day six of my blogging event: “How to host an elegant, flavorful, vegan, gluten-free dinner party” in which I feature recipes created by the wonderful Viviane Bauquet Farre of food and style. With husband and friends avoiding meat, dairy and gluten, I knew I needed to turn to my friend Viviane if I was going to pull off an elegant birthday celebration. Not all of her recipes are vegan or gluten-free, but she consistently uses fresh, seasonal produce to create inspiring, yet simple dishes. Today’s installment features the final course: dessert.

Strawberries are in season again in California so I was able to purchase an entire flat of strawberries at the Mill Valley Farmer’s Market for $20 bucks. That’s 12 pints, people. Love it. So I made strawberry sorbet, strawberry ice cream, strawberry sandwiches, you name it.

Strawberries

To make the sorbet, I had to take a plunge I’ve been contemplating for years. I bought a Cuisinart ice cream machine.

I’ll be able to make sorbet, ice cream, frozen yogurt and other frozen desserts (remember sherbet)? This is going to yield fun all summer long. And I can’t wait to make pumpkin pie ice cream next fall.

But back to the sorbet.

I learned a few things about my new ice cream maker. The insulated “chilling chamber” needs to be in the freezer overnight before using it. The model I purchased (click on the photo above) came with two chilling chambers and at first I thought, “What do I need two for?” Well, as it turns out, it’s helpful to have two because if you use one to make ice cream, then it’s at least a day before you can use it again. Even still, I thought, when am I going to need to make more than one batch of ice cream in a 24-hour period? Well, for the dinner party (12 guests), I felt compelled to make two batches and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the extra chilling chamber.

Viviane demonstrates how to make the sorbet in this video. She uses a food processor to purée her strawberries, but I did it in a blender.

Strawberry Sorbet with Grand Marnier

I held off on adding Grand Marnier. The flavor of the strawberries jumped out of the dish all by themselves. The maple syrup made it just sweet enough. I served mine with a little piece of dark Sharfenberger chocolate: the perfect complement.

Strawberry Sorbet with Grand Marnier
A recipe by Viviane Bauquet Farre of food and style
Reprinted with permission
See her original post here.

makes 3 to 3 1/2 cups

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs ripe strawberries – washed and hulled
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 cup Grand Marnier
2/3 cup maple syrup (grade A or B)
Mint leaves as garnish

Method

1. Place the strawberries, lemon juice, Grand Marnier (optional) and maple syrup in the bowl of a food processor (I used a blender). Process at high speed with a steel blade until ingredients are very smooth, about 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer to a bowl, cover and refrigerate until well chilled, about 2 hours to overnight in the refrigerator or 45 minutes in the freezer.

2. Pour the chilled strawberry purée into the ice-cream maker and freeze according to the instructions of your ice-cream machine.

3. Scoop sorbet in glass bowls or cocktail glasses and top with fresh mint leaf. Serve immediately. (Or put in an airtight container and store in the freezer. You may need to allow the sorbet to soften for about 10 minutes for trying to scoop it and serve).

Strawberry Sorbet

Cranberry Kuchen

With all of these fresh cranberries at the grocery store right now, I’ve been inspired to try out some new recipes. This one comes from an old, out-of-print, Martha Stewart cookbook I have, called Martha Stewart’s Quick Cook: 200 easy and elegant recipes from the author of Entertaining.

I’ve had this book for almost 20 years and it is still a “go-to” for me. Back then, it was the first cookbook I used when attempting to host elegant dinner parties for my friends (at the ripe old age of 20). The fact that this was her version of a 30-minute meal was lost on me. It all seemed so over-the-top. Menus like: Chicken Paillard, Risotto with Porcini, Hot Salad of Escarole and Pancetta, Italian Flat Breads and Oranges in Red Wine don’t exactly evoke the thought, “quick and easy,” but indeed, while these recipes are very elegant, they’re not sooo time-consuming.

Like this cranberry kuchen for example. Basically, you make a compote in one pan, whip up a batter in a bowl, pour them both in a cake pan and bake. If you have an oven-proof, decorative, round pan, then definitely bake it in that. Then you’ve got oven-to-table ease. A springform pan would be another way to go. I currently have neither of those, so I ended up cutting the cake into bite-size pieces and serving them on a platter, which would be a good way to present it on a buffet table. It’s definitely best served hot from the oven. That way, the cake part is moist and fluffy and the cranberry compote is warm and comforting. It’s almost like a cobbler in that state. You can also serve it with cream and a sprinkling of sugar.

Martha’s recipe calls for the juice and zest of an orange. I decided to try it with a grapefruit and compensate with a little extra sugar. It was fine, but an orange might be better. Try it and let me know what you think.

The other substitution I made was to substitute Oikos Greek Yogurt for the sour cream that is called for in Martha’s version. The nice people at Stonyfield Farms recently sent me a few free sample coupons, so I’ve been using it in recipes that call for sour cream and it’s great. It has absolutely NO fat in it. Amazing.

Stonyfield Farms Oikos Greek Yogurt

Cranberry Kuchen
(Adapted from Martha Stewart’s Quick Cook)
Makes one 9-inch round cake

Ingredients

Topping
12 oz bag of fresh cranberries
1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp sugar
1/4 cup water
Juice of 1 grapefruit

Batter
2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 cups milk
3 Tbsp Stonyfield Farms™ Oikos yogurt
Grated rind of 1 grapefruit
Fresh grated nutmeg to taste

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Spray a 9-inch round baking pan with nonstick cooking spray.

2. In a small saucepan, combine all of the ingredients for the topping. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and cook until the cranberries are soft, about 10 minutes. Set aside.

3. In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer. Add the eggs, one at a time, stirring well to incorporate.

4. Sift together the flour and the baking powder. Stir the flour into the butter mixture, a little at a time, alternating with the milk and the yogurt. Stir in the grapefruit rind and nutmeg.

5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and top with the cranberry mixture. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove and serve immediately with cream and a sprinkling of sugar.

Apple Streusel Cinnamon Swirl Cupcakes

Day 8 of 14 Days of Apple and it’s time for celebration, because this is my 100th post! Celebrations call for cupcakes, right? The other day, I stumbled across this cupcake cookbook in the children’s section of the library. Published in 2005, it came out long before the current cupcake craze and before the more famous Hello, Cupcake!: Irresistibly Playful Creations Anyone Can Make. I always like an underdog, so I am happy to feature this book with its beautiful photographs and varied recipes.

These cupcakes are divine. They absolutely melt in your mouth. Although the recipe called for grating the apple, I purposely diced the apple finely so that there would be little apple chunks and I don’t regret that decision at all. I like having the little bursts of apple flavor. What really bursts through though is the cinnamon-sugar flavor – the “streusel” itself. By the way, “streusel” is German for “sprinkled topping.” I like the fact this “sprinkled topping” of butter, cinnamon and sugar, makes it unnecessary to make icing.

Cinnamon Sugar in the middle turns to swirl

Apple Streusel Cinnamon Swirl Cupcakes
Makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

Swirl & Topping
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon

Cupcakes
1 cup grated, peeled apple (1 large apple)
2 Tbsp cinnamon-sugar (from above)
1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs
1 cup1/2 cup canola or corn oil (see comments)
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted

Method (rewritten by me)

1. Preheat oven to 350˚F and line a dozen cupcake tin cups with paper liners.

2. Using an apple peeler/corer/slicer (or by hand), peel, core and slice one apple and then dice into small bits. In a medium bowl, toss the apple with 2 Tbsp of the cinnamon-sugar. Set aside.

3. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt. Make a small well in the center and the eggs, oil and vanilla. Mix until just blended and smooth. Stir in the apple/sugar mixture, as well as any apple juice that was released.

4. Drop 2 Tbsp of batter into each muffin cup. Spoon 1/2 tsp of cinnamon-sugar on top of the batter. Drop another scant 2 Tbsp of batter on top. Then brush or dollop melted butter on top of the batter in each cup. Sprinkle the remaining cinnamon-sugar on top of each cup of batter.

5. Bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cupcake comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool for 10 minutes. Then carefully remove cupcakes from tin to cool completely. You can do this picking them out individually (careful not to burn yourself) or flipping them out by inverting them onto a wire rack and inverting them again.

Apple Streusel Cinnamon Swirl Cupcakes

Apple Carrot Cupcakes

Day 3 of 14 Days of Apple and I decided I wanted to make an apple muffin/cupcake. I was looking around at different recipes for inspiration and guidance when I found one I like at MarthaStewart.com. That recipe calls for shredded apples and something about imagining myself taking an apple to a grater made me think of shredded carrots. I still have a scar on my thumb from shredding a carrot a little too aggressively when I was 12, but that’s another story. Anyway, I decided to split the four cups of shredded apples into two cups apples, two cups carrots et voila.

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Pumpkin Pudding

It’s day 30 of 31 days of pumpkin, my friends, and I’ve gone back to basics and back to the book that inspired me as a young home cook so many years ago. My mother gave me this book when I was a junior in college and I cooked from it religiously back then. Now it’s funny. Some of the recipes feel a bit dated. There’s even a recipe in there for a pumpkin mold: a kind of custardy, pudding-like thing that you chill in a bundt cake pan and turn out. I didn’t have the energy to actually make it, although I considered doing so just for the retro appeal and possible shock factor of the resulting photograph. (Tastestopping, here we come)! It will have to wait until next year.

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