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Sunday, May 1, 2011
HCB Free Choice: Coconut Cheesecake
I made this cake back in February and have been "saving" it for a free choice.
In keeping with tradition, I feel compelled to do complicated math with this recipe, so I made 1/4 recipe, which means I need 30 grams of vanilla wafers. Not feeling like I want to buy a whole pack of wafers to use only 30 grams of it, I opted to use my stash of Rose's sugar cookies that's in the freezer.
For 1/4 recipe I used 4 sugar cookies (about 1 1/2 inch x 3 inch). I wish I had taken a picture of the sugar cookies (it was 4 bunnies), but I forgot.
Mashed the cookies, mixed them with melted butter. I skipped the flaked coconut.
For the filling, it calls for cream of coconut. I had bought a can of it at the liquor store. It took several trips to 4 different stores until I found one. When I got home, I look at the ingredients, and found several items that are questionable. Generally if I can't pronounce the ingredients I don't buy the product. And generally I checked it at the store. But I was so excited to have found cream of coconut that I skipped this habit. So instead of using the cream of coconut (it's still in the pantry today next to a bottle of dark rum), I used leftover coconut milk from the Heavenly Coconut Seduction Cake that I made the week before. (In case you are all wondering, the leftover coconut milk still smells good and tasted good after a week.)
From making the Heavenly Coconut Seduction Cake the week before, I knew that I couldn't just substituted the cream of coconut with coconut milk. Cream of coconut contains sugar, whereas coconut milk doesn't, so if using the coconut milk the sugar amount needs to be increased. Not sure what to do, I thought to have a look at the other cheesecakes in the book. The ginger cheesecake served the same number of people (10-12), and used the same amount of cream cheese. All the other variable are different (amount of eggs and sour cream) but if I look at the other cheesecakes the variable are even more different. I then decided to follow the sugar amount of the ginger cheesecake. But, hang on a minute, the sugar amount is the same. I looked at the other recipes, and the sugar amount is somewhat comparable. Not sure what to do, I decided to add 10 grams of sugar.
Aside from the drama of coconut milk and confusion of sugar amount, the cheesecake is easy to put together.
I used my mini heart silicone mold (Wilton) and I think 1/4 recipe yield 6 cheesecake. I don't remember for sure as I forgot to take notes (I know... bad! bad!)
Tasting impressions:
Though I am not a big fan of cheesecake or coconut dessert, after 2 weeks of eating coconut dessert in a row, it is growing on me! This cheesecake is really good. It is not too sweet, just enough for my taste (so I'm glad I didn't add too much sugar). The texture is great, just like a cheesecake is supposed to be. Hubby loves it. He loves coconut dessert, so he's in dessert heaven for a couple of days.
Adorable! I remember making this. People who swear they detest coconut loved it.
ReplyDeleteThis is one of Tom's favorite, up till today he still remembers it. And you are so proper.. what type of coconut cream did you buy? I usually buy coco Lopez and no issues.
ReplyDeleteOf course I'm going to mention that the little hearts are sooo cute! I'm going to break down and eventually buy them to have.
Vicki, yes this is one amazing cheesecake.
ReplyDeleteMonica, it is coco lopez. There are 4 questionable ingredients in it (out of 10 total). And yes buy the silicone mold. Then we can have cute desserts together ^_^.
As always, your creations look so wonderful! I can't wait to make this.
ReplyDeleteI am glad coconut milk worked, since I don't like all the chemicals in Coco Lopez either! A sugar cookie crust sounds delicious. Your little cheesecake hearts look perfect. Great job!
ReplyDeleteI got an email from Hanaa. This is what she said:
ReplyDeleteHi Jenn,
I was going to leave this comment on your blog but it didn't let me log in and post it, so here it is: (good thing I saved it, ha ha)
Great write-up, Jenn. Thanks for letting us know about the upcoming cakes for the continuation of HCB. I've been keeping pretty busy, visiting my family and catching up. I also don't have daily access to the internet, so it's been hard keeping my blog up-to-date. I finally baked Miette's Tomboy. Lovely cake. Texture = amazing! Won't quite declare it the best choc cake in the book but definitely going on my repeat list. Will try to post it sometime this week.
I won't be able to reply to your email very soon, if you write back. But I'll try. Great job keeping HCB going!!! :o)
Take care,
Hanaa