Fridgg: What's For Dinner?

And the winners are…

Mandy and Jay! Congratulations to the winners, and your garlic sauce will be on it’s way soon!

Chocolate Chocolate Cupcakes – TWD

Chocolate Chocolate Cupcakes

Chocolate cupcakes. What’s not to love about chocolate cupcakes? Particularly when the deep chocolate cupcakes are glazed with a dark chocolate ganache.

So yummy.

I’ll say it again. Chocolate. Cupcakes.

Don’t you want one?

This week for Tuesdays with Dorie, Clara from I ♥ Food for Thought picked the Chocolate Chocolate Cupcakes. Yum, yum, yum. My favorite TWD recipe thus far!

I think I need to have another. Right now. Yum.

Caramel Apple Cheesecake – T&C

Caramel Apple Cheesecake

It’s Taste and Create time again! Wait… what? I’ve never posted about this Taste and Create thing before, what the heck am I talking about? Let me explain. Over on Sushi Day, I’ve participated in an event called Taste and Create every month for the past year. Now that I have Fridgg, I’ve brought all my non-sushi blogging over here, especially since a lot of my partners don’t seem to like sushi much. This month, I was partnered with Veronica of La Recette du Jour.

I chose to make her Caramel Apple Cheesecake because, well, I definitely love cheesecake. I had a few setbacks – no springform pan, but I borrowed one from my mom; didn’t have a dish large enough to fit the springform for a waterbath, so I just baked it a little longer at a lower temperature; wasn’t sure if the caramel would turn out well since I’ve definitely screwed up caramel before, but luckily it turned out wonderfully this time – but overall, the cheesecake turned out to be delicious.

Note: I am giving you the original recipe and directions, even though I didn’t use the water bath. I really recommend using the water bath but if you don’t, bake it at 250° for 1 hour and 45 minutes. I also omitted the toffee bits, and only used one apple for the topping, which was more than enough for me.

Just look at that yummy, gooey caramel!

Ingredients

Crust:

• 1 1/4 c graham cracker crumbs (about 8 graham crackers)
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1/4 c unsalted butter, melted

Cheesecake:

• 2 lbs cream cheese (4 bricks)
• 2 c sugar
• 2 tbsp flour
• 4 eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3/4 c toffee pieces

Apple Topping:

• 3 Granny Smith apples
• 3 tbsp butter
• 1/4 c sugar

Caramel:

• 1 1/4 c sugar
• 1/3 c water
• 2/3 c heavy cream

Cooking Directions

1. Combine the ingredients for the crust.
2. Press into the bottom of a 10 inch springform pan.
3. Bake crust for 10 minutes at 350° F and set aside.
4. Mix the cream cheese and sugar with paddle attachment on medium speed, about 3 minutes.
5. Add in the flour on low speed.
6. Add eggs one at a time, scraping down the sides and bottom after each egg.
7. Add the egg yolks and vanilla.
8. Fold in the toffee pieces.
9. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.
10. Wrap aluminum foil on the outside of the ban and bake in a water bath at 350° F for approximately 1 1/2 hours.
11. A knife inserted should come out clean when the cake is done.
12. Chill the cake overnight and then remove from the pan.
13. To make the topping: Peel and core three apples. Slice apples thinly.
14. In a heavy saucepan melt the butter.
15. Stir in sugar and cook until it starts to caramelize.
16. Add the apples and cook them until they are tender. Cool.
17. To make the caramel: Pour the sugar into the center of a deep saucepan.
18. Carefully pour water around the walls of the pan, trying not to splash any of the sugar onto the walls.
19. Do not stir; gently draw you finger twice through the center of the sugar, making a cross, to moisten it.
20. Over high heat, bring to a full boil and cook without stirring, swirling the pan occasionally to even out the color, until the mixture is medium caramel in color, 5 to 10 minutes.
21. Immediately turn off the heat and use a wooden spoon to slowly and carefully stir in the cream (it will bubble up and may splatter).
22. Top cheesecake with apples. Drizzle caramel over top of the apples.

Pumpkin Muffins – TWD

Pumpkin Muffins

Oh, pumpkin muffins. For the first time since I joined the Tuesdays with Dorie group, I didn’t screw up a single thing while making them. Although I did almost miss the posting deadline… oops. I got rather busy in the last week, so I ended up making them this afternoon.

A great accompaniment to a good book.

Yum. These are perfectly autumn-y, great with a hot cup of whatever drink you please and a good book. Although they’re slightly dry on the outside, they are extremely moist when you get to the center. Just plain delicious.

You can find the recipe on Sounding My Barbaric Gulp, or buy the cookbook here.

Yum!

Don’t forget, you have until Friday to enter my Sugoi Garlic Sauce Contest!

Contest Time – Sugoi Garlic Sauce!

Yummy Sugoi Garlic Sauce

Everyone loves contests. Heck, who doesn’t enjoy an opportunity to win free stuff? Especially when it’s awesome, free, yummy, food stuff?

You may remember almost a month ago, when I raved about Sugoi’s garlic chicken. Since they sell the sauce online, we knew we would be ordering some when we got home. Since we were ordering some for ourselves anyways we figured, why not reward our awesome readers with a giveaway?

This sauce has many different potential uses – drench fried chicken with it, use it as a marinade, it can even be mixed with mayonnaise and used as a dip or dressing. It’s entirely up to your imagination!

So here’s your chance: just leave a comment on this post by midnight PST on Friday, October 24. Make sure to leave your name and email address, so I can contact you if you win. I will randomly pick two commenters, and announce the winners next Monday. Good luck!

Note: Because of shipping costs and restrictions, I’m limiting winners to those in North America. So sorry to the rest of the world, but one of these days I promise I’ll have a contest you can participate in as well.

Garlic chicken from Sugoi… yum!