Rasberry Coffee Cake

I've been trying to stick to a healthy diet. But it's so damn hard! While eating more fruits, whole wheats, and less fats, I've managed to sneak in TONS of chocolate. This is bad. Yesterday, I had two snickers, pieces of some fancy dark chocolate/ginger bar, and a bag filled with chocolate chips and Quaker Oatmeal Squares cereal. I got home from work and felt TERRIBLE. I was laying in bed thinking, "I've put myself into yet another sugar coma." Seeing as how all the sugar made me sick, I've decided I'm done with chocolate and high sugar foods. For now.

Months and months ago, I made this amazing coffee cake. Found it while browsing around Joy of Baking. There is something about fruits and cream cheese that make me go nuts. This cake is super soft and springy with the perfect amount of cream cheese and fruit. The recipe originally called for blackberries, but all I had was raspberry preserves. Love raspberries, love preserves. It worked out for me. Not to mention streusel completes my life. This statement does not help my previous paragraph at all, but you get the idea.

Raspberry Coffee Cake
Streusel:
1/3 cup AP flour
1/3 white sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 cup cold butter, cut into pieces

Cream Cheese Filling:
8 oz cream cheese, at room temp
1/4 cup white sugar
1 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp lemon zest (I left this out, but I'm sure it would taste much better with it)
1 tbsp AP flour

Cake:
1 cup AP flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/8 salt
1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temp
1/2 cup white sugar
1 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup milk
1 cup fresh raspberries, blackberries, or whatever berry OR 1/2 cup preserves

Preheat over to 350F. Butter a 9 in. springform pan and line the bottom with parchment paper, my best friend, your best friend. Set aside.

For the streusel: Mix together the flour, sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. Add the butter, cutting with a pastry blender or face smash with a fork until you get crumbs. Set aside.
For cream cheese filling: Beat the cheese until creamy and smooth. Add the sugar, egg, vanilla, zest and flour until well mixed and smooth. Set aside.
For the cake: Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt if using. In a larger bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla, scrape down sides as necessary. Add the flour mix, alternating with the milk twice. Beat only until combined. You don't want to over mix.

Spread the batter on to the bottom of the pan and slightly up the sides. Then spread the cream cheese mix on top of that. Then scatter the berries over, or dot the top with preserves, try to get an even finish. Lightly swirl with a knife if you have to, but try to not to let it interfere with the cake/cream cheese layer. Top with streusel. Bake for about 45 minutes or until the streusel is golden brown and passes the toothpick test. You may want to let this thing cool for a couple hours if you are using preserves.

Rant #1

You ever sit down to do something, and in that process of doing something your mind wanders off? You begin to think about something completely unrelated to what you were about to do. For instance, you sit down at your laptop, ready to hit the 'sign in' button to your email because you're hoping you've gotten something from Federal Student Aid; this excites you. After about half a millisecond you click that button, you think about sitting on a makeshift stool, milking cows. Then you start wondering about it, look back at your screen then think about why you were checking your email. You HATE that you do this. You hate that this happens. You then start to hate your laptop, and wonder why it's such a piece of crap. I mean, you spent $1500 on this thing, and yet it runs slow as shit. Then you feel a strange pressure in your bowels. Well this is completely unrelated to that.

I realized today how pathetic my life is so far.

I've waited about five months to get into school, which has been turning out the way I planned minus the timing. Yesterday, I received a phone call from a woman, whom I'm sure is annoyed with me; she told me that I have been admitted. Literally speaking here, I jumped and screamed not only because I was happy, but because I was so happy, I felt crazy. JUST like David after dentist. I know my parents aren't too excited about my leaving the state [zooms to mom and dad in the kitchen *crickets*]. It'll be worth it. So, now, down to a little less than a month, I have NOTHING to do with my life. I bake. I text two-three people. I play wow, again. Sigh. And I work. My job keeps me crazy occupied. I think I scored with my work at this point in my life, which is sad because my life plays out like this: work > social life. Because social life, DOES NOT EXIST. Why? Because of my one friend. Actually no, because I'm picky. It's hard to find friends here in south San Diego. I still blame this one friend though, she doesn't get away with shit. There is a possible second friend here, but she's in FUCKING OKLAHOMA. I love you Marie.

So not only do I rely on a kiddy pool of social networking, but I've found that entertaining myself through trolling people I don't know and don't like has been high on the list of interest. Example: Facebook. Who? I'd rather not say, but this person is someone I don't exactly care for. Why? Because he's in love with me. Why?...again? Well, it's not as bad as it sounds; I'm not explaining the story. Like I said, my life is pathetic. I've no one else to give my time to, so it will be given those people who ask, probably not in the most gracious of ways. I feel like an asshole. But hey, I'm happy. Real happy. It's been a while.

My oldest brother came to visit a couple days ago. He lost so much weight; I was so proud of him. There was no starving, no surgery, no crazy pills, just healthy eating and Muay Thai. I love that he's gotten into this fighting style. We talked for a long time about his whole change. His trainer is named Waachim Spiritwolf. I kinda flipped. Spiritwolf? Are you kidding me? That has to be one of the best last names ever. My brother mentioned how he was Native American. Then he mentioned that WE were part Native American. I have never heard this news and refused to believe it. That changed when I was looking for my parents tax forms from 2008. I found my dads birth certificate and looked it over. Then I saw that Grandma Edna was from freakin Canada. What does that mean? I'm 1/4 Canadian. How the hell?!?! Why are there so many things my parents decide NOT to bring up. You can't exactly specify on some application that you're American/Filipino/Canadian/Native American, but it's still nice to know.

As much as I'd like to keep this going (we have something good going here) I HAVE to sleep. Because I'm OLD now. AGE is GREAT. I think I've said enough here anyway.

Pumpkin Cheesecake

I used to have so many issues making cheesecake. I could never figure out how long to wait before eating it. In the middle of the last week I worked at American Apparel (hated it there), we were having a Christmas party that weekend. I volunteered to make mini oreo cheesecakes. And my god, it was the worst idea ever.

A few days before the party, I made the filling and had it chilled over night. The next morning, I put everything together, baked and put back in the oven. The day after that, I tried one. It. Was. Terrible. Didn't taste like cheesecake, oreos, or anything edible. That also happened to be the day of the party. Knowing myself pretty well, I freaked out and assumed I messed up the ingredients somehow. So after the stupid rummage sale I signed up for, I sped to the closest grocery store, and made another attempt. I still had about 4 hours till the party started when I set it in the fridge to chill. After those four hours, I tried it again. AND AGAIN IT WAS FUCKING TERRIBLE. I raged, stomped over to Vons, picked up a boston cream pie, and drove my angry ass to work.

The next couple days, I noticed that no one had thrown out the cakes. My mom came into the kitchen and told me the cheesecake came out really good and insisted that I eat one. I refused. I didn't want to know if they tasted good or not. Either way, I would have raged. So hard. After this, I learned that the longer the cheesecake is chilled, the better the flavors combine, thus resulting in tasty goodness. Not to mention, you probably don't want to calculate all the unhealthy goods in this recipe, but nonetheless, it's adapted from the amazing Paula Dean. Southern Cooking is for the win.

Pumpkin Cheesecake
Crust:
1 3/4 graham cracker crumbs
3 tbsp light brown sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup melted butter

Filling:
3 packages of 8 oz cream cheese
1 can of 15 oz pureed pumpkin
3 eggs plus 1 yolk
1/4 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground cloves
2 tbsp all purpose flour
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350F. In a medium bowl, combine crumbs, sugar and cinnamon. Add melted butter.
Press mixture down into a spring form pan. Set aside.
In another bowl, beat cream cheese until smooth. Add puree, eggs, yolk, sour cream, sugar and spices until combined. Then add flour and vanilla until well combined.
Pour on to the crust and spread out evenly. Bake for an hour, depending on your oven, or until the cake is set. Remove from the oven and let it sit for about 15 minutes. Now you MUST chill this thing for a good chunk of hours; 4 is recommended, but hell, I'd go for 2 or 3 days.

Peanut Butter Amazing-ness

So last night, I realized how much parchment paper is my best friend. I would be a sorry baker had I not ever known about this paper. This thing has saved my ass countless times. There is no need to wipe down or rinse off sheets. Was I late to work the other day? No. Why? Because of parchment paper. Thank you parchment paper.

Lately, I've been eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, every morning over the past week. EVERY morning. I was looking at the jar of PB I had, then was sparked to try make a delicious, creamy PB cookie. I usually go to Baking Bites for all my sweet cravings, but I couldn't find an interesting recipes. So I turned to All Recipes, where I found an amazing PB cookie find. Though I had to tweak it a little, some ingredients didn't make sense to me, but then again, what does? I was actually somewhat disappointed with myself when I took these out of the oven. For some reason, I decided to hide chocolate chips in some of the cookies while I was spooning on to the sheet. And because of that, I had to play with my luck and hope that I grabbed the chocolate filled ones. Out of 6, I found 1. Again, disappointed.

This cookie isn't like average PB cookies. Definitely not crunchy or flat like the old-fashioned ones. I made them with creamy PB and used a cookie scoop to get a nice thickness. They don't spread out a whole lot, so you can pack them on to your sheet. Oh, and a cup of milk IS required. These things are packed with tons of peanut butter flavor. If that's not how you roll, you can cut out the 1/4 cup. I halved the recipe here because I didn't have enough flour, but I managed to get 2 1/2 dozen using my little cookie scoop.

Soft Creamy Peanut Butter Cookies
1 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 baking soda
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 375F. In a medium bowl, sift (or whisk, or whatever you prefer) flour, baking powder and soda, and salt.
Cream together butter and peanut butter. Add both sugars. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Then add vanilla.
Add dry ingredients to wet, in two rotations. Refrigerate batter for 1 hour. This will make the cookie thick, though you don't have to if you can't wait. I surely didn't.
Scoop 1 tbsp balls on to lined baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes, depending on your oven. I went to 11-12 minutes, waiting till the sides browned up a bit.