Lemon Lavender No-Bake Cheesecake

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Maybe it was winter, but my cooking/recipe slump feels like it is finally ending and I’m feeling the inspiration! Maybe the summer like weather here the past week has helped? 90 degrees in the first part of May. What!?

While re-testing a recipe for an upcoming event for work (I’m making my Lemon Lavender Energy Bites), I brought in the samples to co-workers and they correctly noted that the energy bite dough would make an awesome crust for cheesecake. I made a mental note of this and then went forward to try and determine if a baked or no-bake cheesecake would be best for this. No-bake was the obvious answer since the crust is also meant to be mainly raw. The filling is slightly tangier than a normal cheesecake, so you could just call it a tart, but I’m going to stick to my guns on this and say cheesecake. 🙂

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The base of the crust is ground, roasted pistachios and almond butter (in addition to the flavors of lemon and lavender) but a small difference from the regular energy bites is that I incorporated some coconut oil and less almond butter. I think the coconut oil hardens up a bit better and allows the crust to keep more of its shape when cooled. (Ignore the crumbs below – I was a bit over zealous in diving in for a bite.)

A bit about the food grade lavender. I get mine from a local farm, Los Poblanos, but the great thing now is that they ship nation-wide and have a whole bunch of other boutique body products. And another side note – their restaurants is super super delicious – I’ve been for breakfast, brunch, and dinner and always want to go back. They built a new restaurant onsite and just re-opened in the new place within the last year. If you have a chance to visit  Albuquerque, NM, I totally recommend visiting their Farm Shop for the lavender and restaurant, Campo, just to eat… and I suppose stay overnight in their inn too if you can.

But back to the food.

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Lemon Lavender No-Bake Cheesecake

Makes 2-3 mini cheesecakes or one larger pie

Ingredients

Lemon Lavender Crust

  • 1/2 c raw, unsalted, pistachios (meats, shelled)
  • 1 tsp grated lemon
  • 1/2 cup almond or coconut flour
  • 1 T turbinado sugar
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 T creamy almond butter (do not use peanut butter – it will overpower the other flavors)
  • 3 T coconut oil
  • 1 tsp whole culinary lavender (add an additional 1/2 tsp based on strength of lavender flavor)
  • 1/4 c honey
  • 1/2 tsp lemon extract
  • 1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Cheesecake

  • 8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
  • 1/3 c powdered sugar
  • Pinch of salt
  • 1/2 c plain Greek yogurt, room temperature
  • 1/2 c heavy cream
  • 1/2 -3/4 tsp whole culinary lavender, crushed
  • 1 tsp lemon zest
  • Favorite lemon curd for topping

Directions

Crust

  1. Place nuts and flour in the food processor first. I used a 2 cup food processor or small option if using a larger processor. Pulse until nuts resemble a course meal.
  2. Add in sugar, salt, lavender, and extracts. Process for another 3-5 second or until well combined.
  3. Lastly, blend in almond butter, coconut oil, and honey. Pulse until well combined and the mixture holds its shape when pressed together. Add additional honey 1 T at a time until mixture holds a shape without crumbling.
  4. Divide the crust mixture between your three mini spring form pans or press into the bottom of a glass pie plate for a larger dessert.
  5. Place in refrigerator to cool while making the filling.

Filling

  1. In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese on medium-high speed until light and creamy. Beat in sugar, lavender, lemon zest, and salt until evenly incorporated.
  2. Add in the Greek yogurt and beat until evenly incorporated.
  3. In a separate bowl, whip heavy cream until stiff peaks form. Carefully fold the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture with a spatula.
  4. Add your filling to the mini spring form pans or pie plate, evenly spreading the mixture over the top.
  5. Cover and refrigerate for at least 5 hours. Served chilled, topped with lemon curd and sprinkles of lavender and additional lemon zest if desired.

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Lavender and lemon just scream spring and summer to me, but when I went to the store looking for some lemon curd (and you can totally make your own BTW), I was told it was seasonal – Thanksgiving. Hmmm. For me lemon can be used all year round, but is particularly bright like summer. I guess you learn something new everyday. 🙂

Enjoy and I’m glad to be back in the realm of creating recipes again!

 

Peach and Ricotta Crostini

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It might be fall, but I’m still obsessing over peaches, especially the ones I can grow in my own back yard! That’s right, we have a fabulous peach tree that grow giant peaches – like the kind you need to grab with two hands. Even though I massively hacked and pruned the tree earlier that year (like I thought nothing would grow back and we’d have this ugly stumpy looking tree), but it still branched out all over the place and we had peaches everywhere – even after C took half off at the start of their growing. We removed some so the others get more nutrients and grow bigger.

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So after having a refrigerator full of peaches, I thought why not do some sort of appetizer with them – I had some left over ricotta and we always have honey, so a super easy snack was born. 🙂

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Peach and Ricotta Crostini

Serves as many as you’d like

Ingredients

  • 1 long baguette
  • Part skim ricotta (it has more protein)
  • Fresh peaches
  • Honey
  • Aged balsamic vinegar

Directions

  1. Slice the baguette on a diagonal and arrange on a parchment lined baking sheet.
  2. Toast baguette slices under the broiler for 30 seconds to a minute or until toasted to desired toastiness.
  3. Slices peaches (can leave skins on or off if you prefer).
  4. Spread each toast with 1-2 T of ricotta.
  5. Arrange peach sliced on toast and drizzle with your choice of honey or balsamic vinegar. If you’re using vinegar, make sure to have the kind that is aged and really think. If it’s not already thick, you can place it in a pot on the stove over a simmer and reduce down to desired syrup consistency.

Eat and enjoy! Preferably with some wine.

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It’s my 4th summer in this house and each year I’m enjoying the fruit produced more and more – peaches, apples, and figs. After finishing the creation of the patio and fencing around it, I’m also enjoying the backyard more and more – when I’m out there, it really does feel like home. When everything is put away (a wind storm tore down our temporary pergola), I’ll post a video of the space – we have a waterfall too and the sound of falling water is just so relaxing!

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Cheers to the ending of summer and the beginning of fall!

Raspberry and Whipped Hazelnut Tart

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Has anyone been watching the Great British Baking Show or the Great British Bake Off if you’re from the UK? I know we’re sort of behind on the times, but Netflix just released their first season of it last year (which was actually season/series 4?) and now they’ve added 2 & 3 (or 5 &6).  C and I did some binge watching and after finishing what Netflix had, sort of freaked out that there were three seasons prior to what we’d seen and had to get them to watch. Well…. to wrap things up, if you haven’t seen it, watch it now. And their opening cake was somewhat of an inspiration for the flavors of this tart.

A couple weeks ago I made hazelnut butter. And while it was really delicious on it’s own on toast, etc. I thought, what if it was a pie or fake-ish cheesecake? And Ta-Da! Idea born.

While the filling was a no-brainer for me with the tofu – since the same style works so well with peanut butter dip, I had a more difficult time trying to decide whether to do a fully “raw” tart (which you could totally do with this crust) or something more like a short crust pastry tart. I opted to go with the short crust pastry type and used inspiration from Sally’s Baking Addiction to make a pretty standard nutty pastry crust.

Raspberry and Whipped Hazelnut Tart

Serves 12-16

Ingredients

Toasted Hazelnut Crust

  • 3/4 c raw hazelnuts
  • 1 c all-purpose flour (or flour of choice)
  • 2 T sugar
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 c butter, cold and cubed
  • 3 T ice water

Whipped Hazelnut Filling

  • 1 ½ c creamy hazelnut butter
  • 14 oz firm tofu (1 package)
  • 3 T sugar or to taste
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • pinch salt
  • 3-4 T vanilla soy milk (or other milk of choice)

Raspberry Sauce

  • 1 c organic raspberry jam
  • 2 T water
  • 1 c fresh raspberries

Directions

  1. If making your own hazelnut butter, I suggest you do that first before moving on to the rest of the recipe. Store bought is also fine, but difficult to find, and homemade is just that much better!
  2. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spread hazelnuts out onto a foil or parchment lined baking sheet. Toast until slightly darkened, about 7 minutes. Watch these like a hawk! Allow to cool down for 5 minutes. Leave oven on to bake the crust.
  3. To remove the skins of the hazelnuts (they’re kind of bitter), lay a clean tea towel on your counter, and scoop the hot hazelnuts, into a pile in the center of the towel (take care due to the high heat of the nuts). Bring the four corners of the tea towel together and gather it up in one hand, so that all of your hazelnuts are scooped up in the bottom of the tea towel. Using your other hand, squish the bottom and the sides of the tea towel so that all the hazelnuts are rubbing up against each other. Do this for a couple minutes until most of the skins are removed.
  4. Separate out the skins from the nuts. I use a slotted serving spoon – it’s big enough to get more than a few nuts at a time and the holes are small enough that the nuts won’t fall through but the skins will.
  5. For the crust:Using a food processor, pulse the toasted hazelnuts, the flour, sugar, and salt together until it reaches the consistency of coarse meal. Add the cubes of cold butter and pulse until the mixture turns into pea-sized crumbs. I used frozen butter since I was working in a warm kitchen – you don’t want it to get too soft.
  6. Transfer mixture to a large bowl. Using a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, slowly stir in 3 Tablespoons of ice water. You only want to add enough water to bring the dough somewhat together. Using floured fingers or the bottom of a flat and lightly floured measuring cup, press the dough evenly into a 9 inch tart or pie pan. (If you’re making smaller tarts, depending on the number of pans you have… I had three smaller spring form pans, reduce the recipe by one quarter.) You want it extremely tight in the pan. You’ll need to use baking beans or pie weights for the next step, so line the crust with aluminum foil or parchment paper and add pie weights or dry baking beans.
  7. Bake at 350F (with pie weights) for 18-20 minutes. Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack so it can slightly cool as you prepare the filling.
  8. For the filling: In a clean food processor, blend together the hazelnut butter, tofu (drained), sugar, vanilla, salt, and soy milk until it comes to a super creamy and fluffy consistency.
  9. Spoon filling into tart crust, creating a slight ridge around the outside that can hold in the filling, and place in refrigerator while preparing the topping.
  10. For the sauce: Mix the raspberry jam/preserves with 1-2 T water. Using a wire mesh sieve, press the mixture into the mesh to collect the seedless topping below. (You can also choose to make your our raspberry jam, I just find it to be a little bit of a time saver to by your own and tweak it.)
  11. Spread the raspberry sauce over the top of the tart, staying within the “dam”. Place in tart in refrigerator to chill and set – 4 hours or overnight. When ready to serve, line the edge of the tart with raspberries (bottoms up).

This might be my heaven. Luckily a few bites are already pretty filling, so it’s easily shared. 🙂

After making this amazing tart, I find out C doesn’t like hazelnuts. WHAT!? What crazy person doesn’t like hazelnuts? So not wanting to eat the equivalent of an entire tart by myself, I brought two of the small tarts to work. And they were a complete hit! That creamy nutty filling, the tart raspberries, and crunchy crust is what my summer dreams are made of.

Even though the recipe looks long and maybe a bit overwhelming, I promise that if done in steps, it’s super easy and almost completely fool proof.

Tofu is one of my favorite additions to all things creamy that need some sort of structure. What are some of your favorite “hidden” ingredients?

Banana Yogurt Bundt Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

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Sometimes you just want tea and cake. And you don’t care how healthy it appears to anyone else because – food for the soul, man. I bought a bundt pan after Christmas when an attempt was made at making monkey bread in the angel food cake pan with removable bottom and all of the butter ran out. But since that time I hadn’t found the perfect way to enjoy a bundt cake. Then a couple weeks ago when trying to think of what to bring to a house warming, I stumbled across some banana cakes on Pinterest and couldn’t get the thought out of my head. (I ended up bringing a veggie tray to the party, btw. Can’t always take the nutrition out of the girl.)

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Finally after acquiring a few ripe bananas, it was time to make a cake! Bundt cakes always have this sort of rustic appeal – they don’t need to be perfectly frosted, but are always moist and delicious.

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Rather than the traditional drizzle for a bundt, I opted for a thicker cream cheese frosting because really the only option for banana cake is cream cheese frosting (and you want plenty of frosting).

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There is just something about sitting down to a slice of cake and tea that’s just super peaceful. And of course the tea is black Earl Grey.

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Banana Yogurt Bundt Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Serves 16

Ingredients

  • 1/4 c softened butter
  • 1/4 c canola oil
  • 1 & 7/8 c sugar
  • 2 tsp lemon juice (keep the bananas from turning completely brown)
  • 1/2 c milk or almond milk
  • 1 c plain yogurt (full fat)
  • 3 eggs
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 3 very ripe bananas, mashed
  • 8 oz Neufchatel cream cheese
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 3 cups + more powdered sugar depending on desired sweetness
  • 2 T milk or whipping cream

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
  2. Grease and flour a bundt pan and set aside. You could also use the spray with flour but make sure every corner is reached.
  3. Mix the lemon juice into the mashed bananas and set aside.
  4. Mix together the butter, oil, and sugar in a bowl.
  5. Incorporate the eggs one at a time into the butter sugar mixture.
  6. Add in the 2 tsp vanilla, salt, milk, and yogurt. Mix well and make sure everything is combined.
  7. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour and baking soda. Then slowly add in the flour mixture to the rest of the batter.
  8. Lastly, add the mashed bananas and gently fold in to combine.
  9. Pour the batter evenly into the greased and floured bundt pan (I used a 12 cup bundt pan) and bake at 350F for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
  10. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack. When still slightly warm, transfer to a plate by inverting cake and lifting pan. Cake should come out smoothly, but you can run a knife around the edge to loosen the cake if needed.
  11. To make the cream cheese frosting, soften cream cheese to room temperature. Mix together the cream cheese, milk, and 1 tsp vanilla. Adding 1/2 cup at a time, mix in the powdered sugar. You can add additional milk to adjust the frosting consistency to your liking.
  12. Once the cake is mostly cool, frost the cake by “draping” the frosting over the top and letting it fall down the sides. You may have some left over frosting.

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Although the cake was completely delicious, I was so happy I had C to help me eat it. And just like Jack Sprat and his wife, C and I happily share more cake for me and more frosting for him. 🙂

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I think that life needs to be embraced, and we can’t be “healthy” all the time, but we can be well and balanced in body and mind – and sometimes cake is part of that. And brownies. And wine.

What is your favorite treat for keeping balance in life with both mind and body? Do you find it’s a special food treat or maybe a lounge day?

Sophisticated Your Chocolate – Sweet and Savory Chocolates

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Have you heard about the Three Pleasures – a dessert challenge that circled in 2016 challenging chefs to create healthier dessert options using the Three Pleasures – dark chocolate, fruit, and nuts? For a cooking demo I’m working on we’re using these three ingredients as a healthier dessert option for diabetics – and if you just want to be healthier in general while satisfying your sweet tooth. While thinking of dried fruit and nut options for a chocolate bark I decided to get a little crazy and thought – what if I add herbs?!

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In my humble opinion, the herbs were a genius way to go. Although I do always enjoy the peanut butter chocolate combo and find it hard to resist chocolate and caramel, the herbs have me thinking in a whole new way.

Since I only made 4 of each flavor (I can’t be tied down with only one flavor and 24 chocolates – I need variety!), they aren’t exact recipes, but I can tell you what you’ll need for each along with the base of: a dark chocolate of at least 60% cocoa, bitter sweet will also work; mini muffin tins; mini muffin papers; and non-stick spray.

I chopped and melted ~12oz of chocolate over a make-shift double boiler – glass bowl set over boiling/simmering water. Melt until just melted – don’t sit there and stir the chocolate for too long or it will eventually start to separate out and become hard because there isn’t enough fat to prevent over working. I then mixed about 2oz of chocolate with each of the described combinations. Spray your muffin paper with the non-stick spray before putting in the chocolate – it just makes them easier to remove. Let it set and then enjoy.

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Walnut and goji berry – no additional spices, just toasted walnuts and gofi berries. I started you off with and easy one.

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Lavender Blueberry – crush 1/2 tsp of edible lavender and mix in with chocolate – sprinkle top with additional lavender and top with dried blueberries. Crushing brings out more of the oils from the lavender along with the flavor (better than finely mincing).

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Chili Cherry Pecan – mix chili powder in with chocolate, about 1/4 tsp (or as spicy as you like), top with dried cherries, pecans, and dusting of additional chili powder.

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Lavender Thyme Pistachio – crush about 1/4 tsp edible/culinary grade lavender, finely mince 1/4 tsp fresh thyme, and mix with chocolate. Top with toasted pistachios and sprinkle with additional lavender. I’m also lucky that the Los Poblanos lavender farm is only a few miles away so I can get some culinary grade lavender at their store too. 🙂

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Rosemary Sea Salt – mince ~1/4-1/2 tsp of fresh rosemary and mix in with chocolate. Sprinkle with sea salt and place a sprig of rosemary for decoration – it’s a little too strong to eat with it, but looks pretty.

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Last but definitely not least – I tried my hand with some edible flower over a cluster of dried cherries, blueberries, and pecans. The flower helps to hide the lumpy shape of the cluster.

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Each chocolate is perfectly portioned for a great after dinner treat and the jazzed up flavors do make me feel more sophisticated. Each chocolate is about 1/2 oz of chocolate. Aren’t they gorgeous looking! Although I think they’re all delicious, I think my favorite at this time might be the lavender and blueberry. It just makes me think of the coming spring and makes me happy.

What are some of your favorite more “exotic” chocolate flavors? Have you ever tried to mix your own flavors at home?

Homemade Everything Smores 

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*Bonus recipe this week!*

I’m interrupting this July 4th celebration to bring you a few recipes, because you still have time to whip something together before the fireworks start this evening. Hurry, run quick!

For the past few years, I’ve been mesmerized by the idea of making my own marshmallows. I typically have a s’more maybe a couple times a year, but I am obsessed with everything s’more flavored – maybe it’s the combo of the graham and chocolate or just the toasty marshmallow. Whatever it is, I finally decided to go all out and make my own marshmallows! This time there’s nothing fancy about the flavors, just a regular vanilla, but I am pleasantly surprised that they turned out because my thermometer decided to get stuck on 200F when I needed to heat the sugar syrup to 240F before whipping in to the gelatin.

Since I’ve never made marshmallows and frankly, didn’t have the foggiest idea where to start, I turned to Alton Brown and used his recipe. They were surprisingly “easy” to make and that’s without a working thermometer and a hand held mixer rather than a standing. If you’re using a hand held mixer, I would suggest prepping the pan ahead of time to make life easier.

Now that we have marshmallows, there needs to be some s’more action – so I also followed Alton’s recipe for Homemade Graham Crackers as well. So why Alton Brown? Well, C and I have been watching some of his reruns on Netflix and I find that he really has great recipes for getting the basics down – especially if you don’t even have a clue where to start.

Ok, so the one thing I did “conceive” myself – the Cayenne Chocolate Gnache. If we’ve never met, I will try and use chocolate gnache for whatever I can and just tweak the recipe (frosting, mousse, sauce, etc.). Although it’s melty and drizzled below, the real treat about gnache is that if you store it in the refrigerator, scoop a table spoon on a graham cracker, top with a toasted marshmallow, and it will get all ooey gooey and delicious.

Cayenne Chocolate Gnache

Makes about 2 cups

Ingredients

  • 1 c heavy whipping cream
  • 1 c dark chocolate chips
  • 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (can modify based on taste preference)
  • Pinch of salt

Directions

  1. Heat cream, chocolate, salt, and cayenne in a small pot on medium heat. After the first minute whisk continually until chocolate melts into the cream and you are left with a rich chocolate sauce.
  2. Do not over heat.
  3. Pour warm over marshmallows or store in a covered container in the refrigerator until ready to use. The trick I love most about gnache is that it gets shiny again once heated and melting.

Enjoy!

What are some of your favorite summer time treats? 

Black Bean Mocha Brownies

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Achilles heel? Kryptonite? Whatever way you like to phrase your weakness, brownies are mine. I can turn away from cake; I can turn away from cookies; I can even turn away from ice cream, but put a brownie in front of me and I crumble… especially the fudgy brownies. And if they’re the crunchy top brownies, I’m finished, vanquished. With that being the case, I’m alway on the look out for a healthier brownie version; and while I’ve found some great options with almond flour gluten free brownies, pumpkin, and a few others, black bean will always be my favorite. Beans in brownies? Yes it may seem crazy, but is so so good. I stumbled upon this recipe probably 6 years ago or so – which means I honestly can’t pinpoint where the original recipe came from.

While there are a lot of black bean brownie recipes out there, this is by far my favorite and the easiest in my opinion. And because we’re replacing the oil and eggs with the beans, depending on what brownie mix you pick, they’re definitely vegetarian but can also easily be vegan as well.

Over the years I’ve ramped up the coffee in the recipe to really make them more of a mocha. 🙂 I also started experimenting with cold brew coffee, but you can use just strong black coffee or even espresso instead.

Black Bean Mocha Brownies

Serves 16-20

Ingredients

  • 1 box chocolate brownie mix with chocolate chips (the chips in there make a real difference, I use Ghiraradelli), or another rich mix
  • 1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
  • 1/2 c cold brew coffee or other strong coffee
  • 2 tsp Vanilla
  • 1/4 c additional water or coffee

Directions

  1. To puree the black beans, process in a food processor with 1/4 cup of cold brew coffee until very smooth and you don’t see large pieces of bean skin (hull?).
  2. Then mix with the rest of ingredients, remaining coffee, and last additional 1/4 cup water or coffee (depending on how much mocha flavor you want) until batter is your desired consistency. Adding a little less water will help with the texture, but the full 1/4 cup are guaranteed to make the brownies extra fudgy.
  3. Follow the directions on the brownie box, baking at about 325 for 35-40 minutes; you want to undercook them a little bit so they’re not dry.
  4. Bake in an 8×8 pan, and they’re still pretty thick. I typically use a 9×9 pan because my brain works on size of the top of the brownie and doesn’t always register how thick it is when it comes to portion sizes.

Holy yum! And I don’t feel as guilty eating one of these a day (until the pan is finished)… or maybe two? But in order to avoid the dreadful task of having to eat theses all by yourself because your partner in life, food, and fun can’t reconcile that these delicious treats are made with beans – I suggest you share with another group of fine people.

Enjoy!