German Cheesecake
I can't believe I have NOT posted a recipe yet from the german cheesecake. Oh boy, I will do now.
It's impossible to keep you guys from this. I mean, it's one of Germany's most popular cakes.
The big difference between an american and a german cheesecake is --- the cheese. Yes, americans use cream cheese. We use Quark. I assume that you don't know what that is. I explained it and how
to make quark in the "Buttermilk" recipe. If you don't want to make Quark for the cheesecake,
a full and plain greek yogurt is a wonderful substitute. But make sure its plain and has at least
10% fat.
This is what you need:
For the dough:
- 100 gr Sugar
- 200 gr softened unsalted Butter
- 300 gr Flour
- 1 Egg
For the Filling you need:
- 1000 gr (1kg) plain full greek Yogurt or Quark
- 100 gr Sugar
- 6 Eggs
- 1 pack of Vanilla pudding to cook (or 49 gr Corn starch and 1 TSP Vanilla Extract)
- Lemon Extract or the zest of 1 lemon
- 12 inch spring Form
This is how you do it:
Preheat the oven to 320 degrees. In a bowl add the sugar, butter, flour and egg for the dough and kneed it with your hands until you have a smooth dough. Put it in the fridge to rest.
In the meantime, you make the filling. In a big mixing bowl add the sugar, eggs and the vanilla pudding (or mix corn starch with Vanilla extract) and mix it well with either a hand blender or
the Kitchen aid. Now add the greek yogurt and the around 1/3- 1/2 TSP Lemon extract and again,
mix it well until you get a smooth but liquidy filling.
Spray or brush the spring form well with oil/butter. Take just enough of the dough to cover the
bottom, pushing it down with your fingers. It should be around 1/4 inch. The rest of the dough,
put in clinch wrap and freeze. You can use it for another batch. Now add the filling in the
Spring form.
Place the cake on a baking sheet and in the preheated oven for 90 min.. When it's done, do not
remove the cake from the oven. When you see the top to be a golden color to light brown, it's
done. Turn the oven off and either, leave the door closed with the cake inside or, if your oven is cooling slower, open the door just far enough to put a wooden cooking spoon in. My oven is cooling
pretty fast. Sometimes I put the spoon in and it's cooling even faster, making the cake fall back into
itself. The cheesecake doesn't like sudden temperature changes. It will fall into itself. It's still going
to be really good though so don't worry
Guten Appetit
Mousse au Chocolat
This is a classic french dessert. But it is very popular in Germany. I tried it for the first time to
make it by myself and it wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. I tried the white chocolate
version but you can also use dark chocolate with no issue.
This is what you need:
- 150 gr. of white (or dark) chocolate drops
- 3 medium sized eggs
- 1 pinch salt
- 3 pieces of Gelantine (or a half bag of powder)
- 40 gr Sugar
- 14 gr. Vanilla Sugar (or just add 14 more gr sugar and add 1/2 TSP Vanilla Extract)
- 2 TBSP Rum (or 1/2 TSP Rum Extract)
- 200 ml Heavy Whipping cream
- Cinnamon (for the white version) optional
This is how you do it:
If you have Gelantine letters, soak them for 10 min in cold water. If you have the powder Gelantine, do as the package says)
Melt the chocolate in a hot water bath. Simply add the chocolate drops in a metal bowl and place this bowl in a bit bigger pot full with hot water. So the Chocolate can melt slowly.
Seperate the egg whites from the egg yolks. Whisk the egg yolks with the Sugar and the Vanilla Sugar until its smooth and color changes to a light yellow.
Now add the melted chocolate and the Rum to the egg mixture (Rum only in the white chocolate version). Mix it well.
Melt the Gelantine in a small pot on low heat. Then add it to the chocolate mixture and mix well.
In 2 seperate bowls, whisk the egg white with the pinch of salt until stiff peaks. Whisk the heavy cream until you have whipping cream.
Slowly add the whipping cream into the chocolate mixture. Do it in 2 patches. Repeat the same with the stiff egg white. Be careful not to over whisk this. You want the air bubbles.
Fill the mixture in a bowl and place it in the fridge for a min. of 3 hrs.. There it will set. Don't peak, I know its hard.
To serve, take 1 or 2 TBSP and form little boats. Enjoy
Guten Appetit
Schweinelende in Pfeffersauce
Pork Tenderloin in Pepper sauce
Pork Tenderloin is a very good, lean and expensive piece of meat. But people are scared to make
it because they don't know how. In the united states I have seen people making it in a whole. But
actually you can cut them in nice 1 inch pieces and then its a lot faster and you can control how
you want to cook it. In Germany its very common to make a good and exclusive cream sauce with
the expensive meat. I used to love the Instant Maggie Fix for that but its very hard, almost
impossible to get it here in the united States. So I googled, found 2 recipes I liked, wrote them together and while cooking I adjusted it with some of my herbs. This recipe I came up with and I must say, it is very similar to the Maggie Fix I love so much. Here we go....
This is what you need:
- 20 gr Butter
- 1 small Onion
- 1 TSP dried black and white Pepper corns
- If you find multi colored Pepper corns, go for it
- 6 TBSP White Wine
- 2 TBSP Cognac (Hennessy, Remy Martin)
- 200 ml beef broth
- 200 ml heavy cream
- 2 TBSP dark Balsamic Vinegar
- salt, Pepper
- 1/2 TSP Paprika
- 1/3 TSP ground Piment
- 1/2 TSP smoked Salt
- 1/2 - 1 TSP Vegeta
This is how you do it:
Finely dice the Onion. On low Temperature, melt the Butter and cook the Onions until they are translucent. Add the White Wine and the Cognac and let it reduce for a min.. Then add the Broth and half of the heavy cream and let it simmer for about 10 min..
Add the rest of the heavy whip and all the spices. If the sauce is to thin for you, make a slurry with
Water and Corn starch. You also may filter out the onions to get it like a real smooth sauce. In his picture here I didn't but I like it better when the onions are actually out. It's up to you how you prefer it. If you leave the onions in the sauce, you may add the crushed Pepper corns now. For this just put them in a Mortar and crush slightly. Not to fine. If you don't want the Onions in, you might want to filter them out before you add the Pepper corns.
The Pork Tenderloin I just cut in 1 inch pieces, push them down slightly, salt and pepper them and pan fry them for a couple of min on each side to get them a nice sear.
Usually we serve Croquettes with this dish and some Vegetables or Salad as a side. You will find the recipe for the Croquettes on my blog.
Guten Appetit
