When I got my own place 6 years ago, I started to pick up baking again. At that point, I started working with muffins - simple fare which did not require too many fancy gadgets and props. Then came the cupcake fever that seemed to grip everyone. All the mothers I know seem to be besotted by the cupcake and were baking up a myriads of colourful frosted cupcakes for their kids' school function. Yes, cupcakes are relatively simple things to make. Armed with the few basic cake mix. commonly divided into the Vanilla cake base,Yellow cake base, Chocolate cake base, these can be frosted with simple variations of butter cream. cream cheese and fondant to achieve spectacular wow factor.
I was there but got bored soon. Most cupcake recipe books were run of the mill and it was almost like if you've seen one cupcake cook book, you've seen them all... That was until I came across Martha Stewart's Cupcakes. I like it because her cupcakes felt more 'adult'. Even the frosted versions were more classy. Of course, at the end of the day, the baker will need to make sure that he/she would be able to reproduce them to do justice to the creator.
The Cookies and Cream Cheesecakes are single bite sized portions of creamy oreo cheesecake. Cleverly simple, the cheese cake crust is actually a whole Oreo sandwich biscuit. If you like creamy cheese cake, this is a gem. My frustration over this is that, somehow, my cheesecake takes on a yellowish hue instead of the milky white colour as shown in the cookbook. If any one of you had tried this before, please let me know if you have the same problem.
And I am having the worst day at photographing this. I thought I've finally managed to get a reasonable grip on my photos but these dark gothic morsels had me going back to my photo board 3 times. My heart plunged when I uploaded them onto my computer and had to start photographing them from scratch... It is a good thing that these don't melt and that I can still store them in the fridge. Anyway, I am absolutely discouraged by this whole assignment and have little energy left to write intelligibly. So here's sharing the extremely simple and delicious recipe with all of you.
Recipe
8 cream- filled Oreo Sandwich (whole)
3 Oreo Sandwich , coarsely chopped
227g Cream cheese
1/4 cup Sugar
1/4 tsp Vanilla extract
1 Egg beaten
1/4cup Sour cream
Pinch of salt
Method
1. Preheat oven to 135C
2. Line muffin pan with cup cake liners. Place 1 whole cookie in the bottom of each lined cup
3. Using an electric mixer, beat cream cheese until creamy. Gradually add in sugar and beat until smooth. Add vanilla extract.
4. Drizzle in egg and mix until well coporated. Mix in Sour cream and salt. Fold in chopped Oreo.
5. Scoop cream cheese mixture into each cookie filled cup. Bake at 135C for 22mins.
6. Cool down on wire rack in the muffin tray. Refrigerate for at least 4hours before removing from cup cake liner.
Posts
22 comments:
Una idea molto carina, buona giornata !
don't worry, for me, your pictures still look nice. This is look so mouthwatering.
Thanks, Sonia. I am too tired now...
I think it could be cos the cookies are very dark and the background is very white Shirley. I get the same problem when I photgraph subjects that are at each end of the spectrum. Im having a frustrating problem fotographing my scrambled eggs too. I decided nt to post. I just cant bring myself to post.
Today is the second day im making scrambled eggs and fotographing it again n yet i cld not get it right. m so disgusted with myself. LOL
the scrambled eggs wont get into focus..i have no idea why!!.
i mite try ur cheese oreo cupcake . it looks yummy.try fotographing tomorrow with a different background.
btw is it a 1/4 cup of sour cream?
Zurin, you are exactly right. When you get the light metering on the cookie, you get over exposure but if you work with the light metering of the background, you lose the details on the cookies...I need to find out from the expert how they do it. Yes, it is 1/4 sour cream. I quarter the recipe to get 8 cupcakes... :) I always make mini portions.
Shirley,
what i do is to focus on teh cookies and then bring down teh exposure setting at least 2 nothches down (negetive)if not three. because the cookies are really dark the exposure goes into high so u have to bring it backwards ( in other words...underexpose it manually). try k. :)
Thanks, Zurin. Will take note of this!
Interesting. Never saw Oreo/cookie-n-creme cheesecake presented this way. Plus, I've only had chilled type (no-bake). Never try baked one before.
K, Shirley, the following are based my shallow experience as a novice baker:
1. Sounds stupid but I'm guessing the yolk from the egg you used was not just yellow but of GOLDEN, Sunkist-orange color!?
2. It could be the chopped Oreo cookies that gave the cheesecake that yellowish hue ... though usually, that's not the case. Usually, the result should be somewhat grayish. Either the amount is too much to the point that the Oreos gave that color OR you folded the batter too much to the point you accidentally "colored" the batter with Oreo pieces!!??
Just my wild guess. You don't have to listen to me.
Agree with Zurin, it's overexposed. That's happened to me. As much as I try to not touch the exposure setting, it's good to do that sometimes. Still, I think the best is to grasp the time of the day that's friendliest to food photographers. And use diffused light, if possible. I can't now due to the design of my parents'. I used to have that luxury of using diffused sunlight when I was in the States. Btw, for me, provided there's no rain/gloomy sky, in Malaysia and Singapore(?), the best time would be 8~9-ish in the morning and 5~6.30 p.m.
Hey, Peilin, hope you are feeling better and thanks for the tips. You are absolutely right about the timing for best photography but it is not easy to catch the window all the time. I will still need to play around some more with my camera setting.... Actually I do bracket my shots...somehow still not right...
I just bought cookies today... I gonna test your recipe tonight for dinner!
M. will love that for sure.
THANKS
Gaelle
I love Martha Stewart's Cupcake book too! I love how it has everything from really fun flavours kids would love to flavours that cater to slightly more sophisticated palates.
Anyway I made these a while ago for the best friend, along with the roasted banana cupcakes for her sister and her family absolutely loved them! I'm not a fan of cheesecake so I didn't have any but I love how Martha very cleverly uses a whole Oreo cookie for the base :)
Your photos look great, the way they always do to me, Shirley!
Although I do not know about light metering, I do undertand how difficult is it to get this pic nice and clear and the oreo is so dark and the cake is so fair.
My cousin(very very fair) who married an Indian who is very very dark, gave the photographer a hard time adjusting the lighting.
I've done oreo mini cheesecakes before http://wendyinkk.blogspot.com/2009/11/mini-oreo-condensed-milk-cheesecake.html
Minis are nice to eat, no need to cut from a large cake, and best of all, quick to bake. Save electricity!!! hahaha!!
WHat a great idea using the whole cookies as the crust! The yellow hue might due to the colour of your egg yolk?
About the lighting issue, i find that pain too if your food is "darker" as compared to the background. Where's your light source? I find that for this kind of situation, it's best to have your light coming from the side instead of the back. or use your flash with a diffuser.
zurin, did you use auto-focus? 1 point auto-focus? I think cause scrambled eggs are normally in a "mess" and the surrounding colour is too similar so the camera can't find a point to focus. try to set it to multiple pt focusing or focus it manually.
Wendy, the story of your fair cousin is so funny!
Piggy, thanks for the tip. I am clueless about flash but I will try to position light differently next time... :) Alot of good feedback. Thanks.
how adorable!
I stumbled upon your blog via your comments in my friend's Dana's blog (onehauteplate). So glad I stopped by! Heading to savor a few of your other posts now :)
Amelia from http://www.ztastylife.com/
I love the photos - really caught my eye on Foodgawker. These bitesize cheesecakes look very elegant!
Each cheesecake has one whole Oreo cookie...yum yum!
Hi Shirley,
This is a nice mini cookies and crem cheesecakes. My son has been bugging me to bake oreo cheesecake for him. I was afraid there'll be too much for us to finish. Your quantity sounds really good for me to bake this for him. It's JIT! Thanks very much for sharing! :)
This is a very creative take on cookies and cream cheesecake! :)
Aww they're so gorgeous Shirley and bite sized no less! I love the innate portion control and cuteness associated with these :)
Hi..i amde these the other day and it came out awesome..have put it up on my blog..thanks a lot for the recipe.
Hi, just made this today. I used 250 g of cream cheese instead of 227 g and they were all white, not yellow. Instead of 8 cupcakes, I was able to make 9 cupcakes. It was extremely delicious. Thanks for the recipe.
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