Cinnamon Bread

Pin It This is a recipe for a favorite quick bread of mine.  I usually have all of the ingredients in my kitchen and home made bread fresh from the oven is one of life's simple pleasures.  I could not find the original recipe and over the years, I have added some other additions to this recipe, such as adding the sprinkle of sugar and cinnamon between layers and adding a sort of strusel on top.

Ingredients

2 cups flour
1 cup brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 and 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup applesauce (I put in almost half cup)
2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

2 TBSP sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 TBSP butter (cold)
1 TBSP oats


Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Measure flour, and put sugar, baking powder, baking powder, soda, cinnamon, salt in a bowl.

In a separate mixing bowl, mix buttermilk, applesauce, eggs, and vanilla. 
Add flour mixture and mix until just combined.

In a small bowl add the 1 TBSP sugar and cinnamon together.  In the pan, add 1/3 of the dough.  Sprinkle a dusting of the cinnamon sugar mixture. 

Add more dough (another 1/3) and sprinkle another cinnamon sugar dusting. 

 Add the rest of the dough. Then add in the little bowl, add the rest of the sugar, butter,and oats. Cut up butter and mix up the sugar and oats with the butter. Sprinkle on top of the dough.  Bake for 45-50 mins.

Peach Cheesecake, Asian style :)

Over Thanksgiving, my dad's friend brought over a cheesecake. Now this was not just any ordinary cheesecake, it was an Asian style cheesecake. What does that mean? It means it doesn't really taste much like your usual slice of American cheesecake. It is a little more light and fluffy and not quite as dense. I really liked the taste of this cheesecake and especially liked the fact that the texture was lighter and it seemed a little healthier than your usual cheesecake but yet had a great taste to it. So I asked my dad's friend for the recipe and decided to make it over Christmas. The recipe was in metric measurements so I converted it here so that is why the measurements seem a little unsual at times.

Ingredients

For crust

Gingerbread cookies (you can use graham crackers too if you would like)
3 and 1/2 TBSP butter (melted)
1 and 3/4 TBSP sugar

Filling

8 oz cream cheese (I used 1/3 fat free)
 1 pint whipping cream
1/2 TBSP Gelatine powder
3 and 1/2 TBSP sugar
8 oz diced canned peaches
1 and 1/3 tsps water





My dad really likes a heavy crust so I used about 25-30 gingerbread cookies. I used the bag the cookies came in because it was a tough material and I used a mini rolling pin to roll over the cookies in the bag.

 

Line a 7 inch round pie pan with a sheet of wax paper.  Refrigerate a large bowl.  Leave cream cheese at room temperature until soft.  For crust, mix butter with sugar.  Add cookie crumbs.  Press mixture into the wax paper in the pie pan.  Refrigerate and set aside



 

Pour whipping cream into the refrigerated bowl.  Beat until stiff with an electric mixer. ( I used my dad's kitchen aid mixer and I am not sure if the amount of whipped cream was too low for the mixer to reach but I found that using the kitchen aid mixer wasn't really working so I used my back up mixer....my dad.  (my fav chef in the world!) 

I asked my dad why he even bothered getting a kitchen aid mixer since he himself was just as good, and better than a kitchen aid mixer!

And here we finally have whipped cream!  Refrigerate the whipped cream.

Put 1/2 of the diced peaches into a blender with 3 tsp of water.  Dice remaining peaches.  Beat the cream cheese with an electric mixer.  Add sugar and beat until smooth.  Stir in peach puree.  Mix well.


Mix gelatine powder wtih 1/2 TSP of very warm water.  Add gelatine solution into cheese batter.



Stir whipping cream and diced peaches into cheese mixture.

Pour in the cream cheese batter into pan.  Refrigerate until set.

Serve!

This was my first time making this cheesecake.  My dad's friend doesn't mix in the peaches with the cream cheese, she layers the peaches at the bottom so the cheesecake part is smoother.  I think next time I make this cheesecake I will try that as well so that the texture is more smooth and silky.  The end result was still pretty tasty!  This cheesecake tastes more like a whipped cream cake instead of the traditional style of cheesecake.