Rich Cherry Cheesecake

Good evening sweet ladys and gentlemen,

I am really sorry that I did not write a blogpost last Sunday... I have been to a beautiful wedding a few hours from where I live and my whole week was quite busy so I had hardly any time to do something blog related. But this today I am coming with something special! 

As it is holiday season, my husband and I had a lot of family over this weekend and I did a whole lot of baking. I find it so nice to have a lot of family around me. The air is filled with laughs and giggles and everyone is happy and excited...Candles are burning on a beautiful table setting, cakes and other sweet treats are laid out beautifully on some vintage plates and the air smells of coffee and a warm fire is burning in the corner of the room. To me, this is one of these moments that make life so worth living. Everything is perfect, everybody is happy and all worries are gone for a moment. 

The Power Of Family 

Family is, 

heaven sent from our father above, 

bonded by the power of love.

No matter what family has each others back,…

by Antony Smith - Family Friend Poems

For our afternoon tea I made different treats. One of them was a very dense and creamy cheesecake, topped of with a rich and fruity cherry sauce. The crust is made of crushed butter cookies, almonds and a lot of cinnamon. The filling contains a lot of heavy cream cheese as well as fresh vanilla which gives a perfectly rich aroma. And the cherry sauce on top, I am being honest with you guys.. It is the perfect cheesecake for the holiday season. Seriously, everybody loved the cake and it was gone within minutes. The combination of cheesecake and cherries is like a firework of flavors. The Cherries are very fruity and a little bit sour, then the cheesecake filling is soft, creamy and perfectly sweet. Not to mention the crust, whose wintery flavors like almonds and cinnamon harmonise perfectly with the other flavors of the cake.

Ingredients for the crust: 

100g butter cookies (crushed or blended)

100g grated almonds 

150g butter

2 tsp cinnamon

Ingredients for the filling:

4 large eggs

800g cream cheese

100g sour cream 

180g sugar

Seeds of 1 vanilla bean

6 tbs all purpose flour

3 tbs maple sirup

pinch of salt and cinnamon

Ingredients for the sauce:

1 glass jar cherries (about 680-700g with juice)

2-3 tbs instant galantine 

juice of half a lemon

Preparation:

Preheat your oven to 160°. Then, start by mixing the crushed cookies and almonds with the melted butter and cinnamon. Mix it all well and then, fill it in a baking tin and press it down with a spoon or your hands and put it in the fridge. Now you are ready to make the filling. Thereto, put all the ingredients in a large bowl and mix it all at once with a hand mixer. Make sure, that you don't over mix it as it should be as dense and creamy as possible and there should be no air in it. After that, you are ready to pour it all in the baking tin and bake it for about 60-70 minutes depending on your type of oven. Just make sure it is a little bit brown on the sides and cooked in the middle.

Now, let the cake cool completely. In the mean time, pur the juice from the cherries in a small sauce pan, then stir in the galantine with a whisk. As it thickens, add the cherries and stir them gently. 

Now you are ready to pur them on top of the cake and place it in the fridge until you serve it. 

Cinnamon and Cointreau Chocolate Almonds

Hello my sweet ladys and gentlemen,

this weekend my husband and I went to a really nice winter market. We had so much delicious food and the best blueberry mulled wine with awesome spices in it. The atmosphere was so nice and I really enjoyed wandering around the streets with all the little market stands, fairy lights all over and the sweet scent of hot wine punch, gingerbread and roasted almonds. It was all so perfectly cozy and magical. I loved it!
And of course we had to get some delicious chocolate covered almonds...but why not try to make some at home? It couldn't be that difficult. So I searched through the internet and read thousands of recipes. Then, I came to a conclusion and created my own personal recipe.
First, I turned on some relaxing Michael Bublé music. Then, I roasted some almonds in Contreau Orange liqueur. After letting them cool, I melted some milk chocolate and added vanilla extract and cinnamon in a pan. After that, I poured the delightfully smelling almonds in the sweet chocolate melt and stirred them in there until they were all completely covered in chocolatey goodness to then, roll them in an awesome composition of powdered sugar and different spices...
Seriously, this is amazing. You can create your own custom made Chocolate Almonds and you can decide what ever flavor you want.
Surely, it makes a little mess but why not dare to try something new and discover the joy of a home that smells like a winter fair itself?

Ingredients: 

500g plain almonds

3 tbs Cointreau Orange liqueur

100g chocolate

pinch of salt

a few drops of vanilla extract

100g powdered sugar 

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp anise

1/2 tsp nutmeg 

Preparation:

Pour all the almonds in a medium sized pan and then, pour the liqueur over them. Now, roast them until they are lightly brown and it smells kind of roasty. Set them aside and let them cool completely. Then, in another pan, melt the chocolate and add the 1 tsp of cinnamon, a pinch of salt and vanilla extract. Now, you are ready to pur the almond in there, remove the pan from the heat and stir until all the almonds are covered completely.
Then, put them one after another on a lined baking tray and let it cool.
Now, yore ready to put powdered sugar, 1 tsp of cinnamon, 1tsp anise and 1/2 tsp of nutmeg in a large bowl and mix it really well together. After that, put all the almonds in there, place a lid on top of the bowl and now shake and swing the bowl around until all the almonds are rolled and covered in the coat of winter flavors.



 Now have some fun and scare the winter blues away! :)