Strawberry White Chocolate Cheesecake Bites

This recipe is for 24 mini cheesecakes.

(Adapted from this recipe from www.thatskinnychickcanbake.com)

Ingredients

Crust:

• 2 tbsp butter (melted)
• 2 tsp fine sugar
• 3/8 cup graham cracker crumbs
• pinch of salt (NOTE: omit the salt if you’re using salted butter)

Filling:

• 1 pkg cream cheese (softened)
• 1/4 cup fine sugar
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp white chocolate chips (melted)
• 1 large egg

Topping:

• 1/4 cup white chocolate chips (melted)
• 24 fresh strawberry slices

Directions

1. Line a mini cupcake pan and preheat oven at 315°F
2. In a small bowl, mix cracker crumbs, butter, sugar, and salt to make the crust. Spoon about 1 tsp of crust into each cupcake liner.
3. In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla with a handmixer on low speed until blended. Don’t overbeat the mixture.
4. Add the egg to the mixture and beat on low speed until blended.
5. Slowly pour the melted chocolate into the mixture and beat on low speed until blended. Scrape along the side of the bowl to ensure that the ingredients are blended well.
6. Pour the mixture over the crust, distributing evenly among the cupcake liners.
7. Bake for about 16 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through.
8. Let the cheesecakes cool before adding the toppings. Pour a few drops of melted chocolate on top of each cheesecake, and then add a slice of strawberry on top.
9. Refrigerate before serving. (Or freeze the cheesecakes if you don’t plan on serving them within the next 2 or 3 days.)

Macaron Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Hollows

As I continue to master the macaron, something strange (and terribly annoying) started happening – I started getting hollow macarons! <Insert sad face here>

I don’t know what exactly changed. It could be that the weather fluctuates so much in my city which causes rapid changes in humidity (which affects baking, or so I’m told). When I first started baking french macarons, they were just right. My macarons were full and chewy on the inside, and crisp on the outside.

But then, one day, I started getting hollow macarons. The large pocket of air inside each macaron made my macarons very fragile. My poor hollow macarons lacked the full, chewy goodness that macarons are supposed to have.

I researched this problem and found out that I’m apparently not the only person who has encountered this annoying issue. Many bloggers have documented this issue and have found their own ways of troubleshooting it. I’ve tried some of their troubleshooting tips, and after four attempts, found a way to deal with the hollow macaron fiasco that was occurring in my kitchen.

Here are the things that I started doing differently:

• Use a stainless steel bowl to whisk the egg whites and sugar, instead of using a plastic bowl. Plastic bowls are porous, thus they don’t allow the meringue to reach its full volume.
• Add just a pinch of cream of tartar to the egg whites before whisking. This will stabilize the meringue.
• Cut down on the whisking time. Instead of whisking the egg whites and sugar for a total of 5 minutes, I cut the time down to 3 minutes, thus whisking in less air into the meringue.
• Lower the oven temperature to 275°F and bake the macarons for an extra 2 minutes. If the macarons become too hot too quickly, the top will puff up quickly, but the bottom part doesn’t rise to produce the perfect feet that you want.

Pistachio White Chocolate Icing

This icing is to die for! I just want to eat all of it by myself.

peeled pistachios

white choco chips

mixing icing

perfect macaron

(This recipe makes enough icing for 3 cupcakes or for a batch of french macarons.)

Ingredients

•  1/2 cup icing sugar
• 2 tbsp butter (room temperature)
• 2 heaped tbsp white chocolate chips
• 2 tsp milk
• 1 1/2 tbsp ground pistachios

Directions

1. Cream butter and icing sugar in a small bowl.
2. In a microwave-safe bowl, melt the chocolate chips.
3. Add the melted chocolate to the butter and sugar and mix well.
4. Add the milk to the mixture and mix well.
5. Fold in the pistachios.

~

If you find that the icing is still really thick, add another 1/2 tsp of milk.