'Botched' Baked Cheesecake

We celebrated M's birthday over the weekend. Was too busy and tired to bake anything. Originally wanted to order a cake but because of the public holidays it was all too late. M requested for baked cheesecake - darn, had difficulty finding a decent bakery that sells them. Chilled cheesecake is much easier and faster to make compared to bake but guess M was making it hard for me so that we would not have to celebrate her birthday - naughty girl!!

Got the ingredients only to discover last minute that I ran out of dark chocolate and had to resort to commercial ones. If you've ever try melting these, you'll agree with me that they are in fact much harder to melt and even trickier to pipe!!

Then used the wrong whipping cream - used dairy instead of non-dairy which kind-na melts away as fast as you pipe them out!

Anyway, out of the whole experience, I learnt something. Other than to make sure you got the right ingredients on hand but also the trick of trying to cover up a bad decorating job!! Ha ha...crushed oreos, toasted nuts, cocoa powder, sparkles/sprinkles or in my case, grated chocolate. Sprinkle them all over the cake and no one will notice the earlier botched job you did earlier :) Besides, they'll be secretly hoping to get the slice with the most chocolate sprinkles, he he he.

Don't scrutinize the cake too closely ok, failed badly at decorating the cake :(

Recipe for New York Baked Cheesecake (my version)

For the base
150g digestive biscuit, crushed
60g unsalted butter, melted

1. Mixed the ingredients well before pouring into the base of an 8-inch cake tin. Level and pat down firmly the crushed cookie onto the base of the cake tin.
2. Bake at 165 degrees for 10-15 min. Cool and set aside.


For the cheese filling
500g cream cheese, room temperature
3 large eggs
100g caster sugar
70g whipping cream
50g white chocolate, melted
1 vanilla bean, scrape the seeds out (and recycle the pod for vanilla flavoured sugar or your homemade vanilla essence) Can substitute with 1 tbsp of lemon juice and finely zest of 1 lemon.

3. Preheat oven to 170 degrees. Beat cream cheese for 5min before adding sugar.
4. Slowly beat in eggs one at a time.
5. Stir in whipping cream, melted chocolate and vanilla bean.
6. Pour into prepared cake tin.
7. Bake cake in hot water bath at 160 degrees for 40 min. Make sure you wrap aluminium paper around the cake tin to avoid water seeping into your cake.
8. Remove water bath and continue to bake for 25 - 30 min.
9. Cool and refrigerate.

For the topping
120g sour cream
60g whipping cream
2 tbsp icing sugar, shifted

10. Mix together all the ingredients.
11. Pour onto the top of the chilled earlier baked cake.
12. Bake at 200 degrees for 5 min.
13. Cool and chill well before serving.

So as you can tell, this baked cheesecake takes a lot more effort but it was definitely yummy. *Fingers crossed* Hoping there's still a leftover slice!! Lolz

M informed me later that MP had 5 slices of this cake in total, that is equivalent to almost half the cake!! Of course he didn't do it all in one sitting :) Guess MP enjoyed M's birthday cake most!!

Reindeer Holiday Cookies

Actually wanted to do more for this festive month but one thing lead to another and so instead here I am hoping I can post my first Xmas bento sometime soon!

In the meantime, will leave this with you...some reindeer cookies, made two ways. Hope you will give these a try as they are just so cute, aren't they? :)

Reindeer style no. 1

Personally prefer these flat ones as they were crunchier.


Here's how I made them, using a triangle food cup to shape the face, pretzels for the antlers, M&Ms for the nose and choc chips for the eyes.

Can use other cookie cutters for the face and if it is larger, you can actually use two pretzels as the antlers instead.

If you can get hold of green and red coloured M&Ms (should be easier in this season), they'll probably look a lot more festive :)

Reindeer style no. 2

Remember the 'Horlick Dogs'?

Yes??? Anyway, swap the Koko Crunch ears for antlers and there you have it.....snow buddies!!! Ha ha ha

Here's how I packed them to share with friends. Probably much prettier in a nice box but was too lazy to get any so re-used plastic boxes instead.

Btw, if you are wondering, used the Honey Cookies recipe found here. You can also use the Horlicks Dog cookies recipe if you wish.

.....Just in case I'm caught up an unable to blog as much as I wish, wishing everyone Merry Xmas, Happy New Year, Happy Holidays and basically the whole bag of warm wishes from MP, DH and I :)