The Secret Recipe Club: Healthy Apple Oats Cheesecake Bars

I am excited to be participating in my second month of The Secret Recipe Club.  This month I was assigned Elana's blog, Cook Book of Trial of Error.  This blog is filled with lots of tasty-looking recipes. Unfortuantely for me, I have an aversion to baking with yeast and Elana likes to bake!  She had so many tasty looking breads and rolls, but I just wasn't ready to challenge myself to make them quite yet!  I like how Elana rates each recipe by taste and by difficulty (both out of 5).  Since I had just made Banana Chocolate Chunk Nutella Muffins last month I had to control myself not to make Crunchy Nutella Bites.  For savory dishes, this Red Curry Salmon with Coconut Brown Rice caught my eye, as well as Chicken with Pecan Cream & Mushrooms.  In the end though I decided to go with a sweet dish and made these Healthy Apple Oats Cheesecake Bars.  They had a rating of 4 out of 5 on taste and a difficulty of 1.....my kind of recipe!  My family loves cheesecake and I just don't make it enough.  This was definitely an excuse for me to whip up a special treat for us but it isn't too bad, because "Healthy" is right in the title!  I made a few changes to the recipe on the blog.  The first one being that I used cream cheese instead of cottage cheese.  I don't make cheesecake enough for me to try to make it healthy!  Although I occasionally eat cottage cheese, when I'm on a healthy eating kick, it's not one of my favorite foods.  And I just couldn't see it being as tasty as cream cheese.  My daughter does not like nuts so I omitted the walnuts from the base/streusel.  Based on Elana's  afterthoughts I ended up using an 8"x8" pan.  I should have used less oat mix in the cookie base and saved more for the streusel topping.  The base was thick and I had barely any streusel topping.  While she thought the crust was a little salty I actually enjoyed it.  I might possibly cut it down to 1/4 teaspoon next time but I enjoyed the salty/sweet mix. I'm sorry for this not-so-stellar pic, but please don't let it deter you from making these great bars!

Healthy Apple Oats Cheesecake Bars
recipe slightly adapted from Cook Book of Trial and Error, which was adapted from Cooking with Chopin, adapted from The Pajama Chef

Ingredients:

For the base / streusel:
1 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda + 1 tbsp lemon juice
1/3 cup honey
1/4 cup cold butter, cut into small pieces

For the cheesecake layer
8 oz bar cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup honey
2 tbsp all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1 1/2 cups apple sauce

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 8"x8" baking dish.

2. Prepare the cookie base in a large bowl. Use a wooden spoon to stir together the oats, flour, salt, and baking powder. Pour 1 tbsp or lemon juice over the baking soda, mix until bubbly and add to the bowl. "Cut in" the butter pieces with two knives or with a pastry cutter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Then stir in the honey with the spoon. Set aside 1/4 cup of the cookie base. Press the remainder of the mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan and bake for 10 minutes.

3. For the cheesecake layer, while the crust is baking, beat cream cheese until smooth.  Add the other ingredients, except apple sauce and process until combined.

4. After the cookie base has baked for 10 minutes, remove it from oven. Spread cheesecake filling over the partially-baked crust. Then spread the apple sauce on top. It will most likely sink partially, so you will have swirls rather than 2 separate layers. Sprinkle the reserved cookie topping over the apple sauce and bake for 30 minutes, or until topping is golden brown.

5. The cheesecake must cool down to room temperate (or even be refrigerated) before removing from the pan and cutting, otherwise it will break and sag.

6. Store in the fridge.

Family Rating: 1 1/2 thumbs up.

Rice Cheesecake with Praline Sauce

Last Saturday was our supper club dinner.  This month's theme was rice.  Everyone had to make a dish using rice, in any form....rice, rice flour, etc.  I quickly claimed dessert and then jokingly said I'd make rice krispy treats.  I do love them but they're not quite supper club caliber material!  I didn't want to make rice pudding because I had made that for our Indian themed dinner a couple of months ago.  I found this recipe on the Riceland Foods website.  In the picture on their site it looked like the rice sunk to the bottom, almost like a crust, with the cheesecake on top.  In mine, the rice stayed mixed with the cheesecake which gave it a texture that I didn't like.  Everyone else seemed to enjoy the cheesecake and I did really like the praline sauce.  This was something different but I probably won't be making it again. 

Rice Cheesecake with Praline Sauce
recipe from Riceland.com

Yield:  16 servings

Ingredients:

FILLING:
3 pkgs. (8 oz. each) cream cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 cup half-and-half
2 tsp. vanilla
2 cups cold cooked Riceland Plump & Tender Medium Grain Rice

PRALINE SAUCE
1/2 cup margarine or butter
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 Tbsp. light corn syrup
1/2 cup half-and-half
1 cup pecan halves

Directions:
Heat oven to 325F. Spray 10-inch springform pan with nonstick cooking spray. In large bowl, beat cream cheese until smooth. Gradually add sugar, beating until smooth. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating after each addition. Add 1 cup half-and-half and vanilla; beat until smooth. Stir in rice. Pour into prepared pan. Bake 50-60 minutes or until set. (To minimize cracking, place shallow pan half full of hot water on lower oven rack during baking.) Cool cheesecake to room temperature on wire rack. Remove sides of pan. Refrigerate 1-2 hours. To prepare sauce, melt margarine in medium saucepan. Stir in brown sugar and corn syrup. Bring to a boil; boil 1 minute stirring constantly. Gradually stir in 1/2 cup half-and-half; return to a boil. Remove from heat; cool. Stir in pecans. Serve with cheesecake. (From our "Riceland Collection" cookbook)

Family Rating: 1 thumb up.

Cheesecake Cups

To know how far behind I am on posting, I made these Cheesecake Cups for dessert for Christmas Eve.  Yes, that was almost a month ago!  Every Christmas Eve we go to my cousin's house in CT.  She asked me to bring dessert.  My other cousin's wife always brings some cookies, so I didn't want to make more.  But I also didn't want to bake a cake.  I ended up making an Eggnog Pie and these Cheesecake Cups.  I know my family loves cheesecake so they would get eaten. I thought that with the cookies and pie, these cups would be small enough that everyone could sample a little bit of everything and not feel like they had to eat a whole piece of cheesecake.  The store was out of regular Nilla Wafers so I ended up buying mini ones and used mini cupcake wrappers.  I left the original recipe amounts and cooking time below though.  These were a hit!  Everyone enjoyed them and they were really easy to make.

Cheesecake Cups
recipe slightly from allrecipes.com, courtesy of LOOPDHERB

Ingredients:
16 vanilla wafer cookies
2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 can cherry pie filling
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Directions:
1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line muffin pans with cupcake papers.

2.Place one wafer cookie in the bottom of each cupcake paper. In a medium bowl, cream together cream cheese and sugar. Beat in eggs and vanilla until smooth. Pour over wafers in cupcake papers.

3.Bake in preheated oven 15 minutes, until golden and set.

4. Add either cherry pie filling or mini chocolate chips to top.

Family Rating: 2 thumbs up.

Crazy Cooking Challenge: Oreo Cookies and Cream Cheesecake Bars

It's time again for the Crazy Cooking Challenge hosted by Tina at Moms Crazy Cooking.  This month's theme was cheesecake.  I remember growing up I loved cheesecake.  As I've gotten older, I enjoy cheesecake, but it's definitely not one of my top favorite desserts.  So I don't really make cheesecake.  When I heard the theme I knew I was going to make a cheesecake bar of some sort.  To me, bars seem more casual and easy to eat.  After thinking about it I thought I'd try an oreo cookies and cream cheesecake bar.  I found my recipe at Thats so Yummy a new blog that I came across in my search for a recipe.  Boy am I glad that I made these bars!  They were really good and the kids were super excited since they don't get to eat Oreos very often!  Plus, they love cheesecake.  So these were definitely a hit in our house.

Oreo Cookies and Cream Cheesecake Bars
recipe from Thats so Yummy

Ingredients:

CRUST:
1 lb package Oreo cookies
4 Tbs (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted

FILLING:
Three 8 ounce packages cream cheese, at room temperature
3/4 cup (5.25 ounces) granulated sugar
3/4 cup sour cream, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
3 large eggs, at room temperature

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325°F. Line a 9 x 13-inch pan with foil, leaving a 2-inch overhang on two sides, spray with cooking spray.

Place 28 Oreos in a food processor and process until finely ground (or crush in a ziplock baggie with a can of soup like I did!). Pour the crushed Oreos into a large bowl.

Melt 4 tablespoons of unsalted butter in a small bowl. Add the melted butter, and stir crumbs and butter are all combined.

Place the cookie-crumb mixture in a foil-lined pan. Using your fingers, press the mixture firmly and evenly into the bottom. Bake for 10 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack while you make the filling.

Crush up the remaining Oreos in half, so that your oreos are roughly chopped.

 Combine in a large bowl the cream cheese and sugar. Beat the combo with an electric mixer on medium speed for about two minutes. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl with a spatula and beat again until uniform. Beat in sour cream, vanilla and salt. Scrape down the bowl and mix again.

Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. After beating in the last egg, scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl and beat one more time, to make sure the mixture is fully combined.

Pour in the chopped/ crushed oreos into the filling mixture. Stir in chopped Oreos with the same rubber spatula. Pour the cream cheese mixture over the baked cookie crust. Smooth the top with the rubber spatula, and bake for 40 minutes or until the filling is set around the edges but still slightly wobbly in the center.

Remove the pan to a wire rack to cool to room temperature, about 1 hour or longer.

When the cheesecake has set and cooled cover it with aluminum foil and place in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours or more.


Family Rating: 1 1/2 thumbs up.

 

Cheesecake-Marbled Brownies

While I was making the Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes for the adults for my parent's St. Patrick's Day celebration I needed a child-friendly dessert.  I recently discovered that my kids love cheesecake.  I already knew they loved brownies.  So, I found this recipe in my stash of recipes torn out of magazines from long ago and decided to give these a try.  I put a drop of green food coloring in the cheesecake batter to make it look more holiday-ish.  Overall, I thought they were okay....really, have you ever eaten a bad brownie?  I think if I had my choice, I'd rather keep the two treats separate.   

Cheesecake-Marbled Brownies
from Gourmet, June 2007

Yield:  16

Active Time: 15 minutes
Start to Finish: 50 minutes (not including cooling)

Two adored classics come together in this dessert lover's superbrownie.

Ingredients:

For brownie batter:
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
2 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2/3 cup all-purpose flour

For cheesecake batter:
8 oz. cream cheese, well softened
1/3 cup sugar
1 large egg yolk
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Make brownie batter:
Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Butter an 8-inch square baking pan. 

Heat butter and chocolate in a 3-quart heavy saucepan over moderately low heat, whisking occasionally, just until melted.  Remove from heat and whisk in sugar, eggs, vanilla, and a pinch of salt until well combined.  Whisk in flour until just combined  and spread in baking pan. 

Make cheesecake batter and bake brownies:
Whisk together cheesecake batter ingredients in a small bowl until smooth.  Dollop over brownie batter, then swirl in with a knife or spatula. 

Bake until edges are slightly puffed and center is just set, about 35 minutes.

Serve warm or at room temperature.

Family Rating: 1 thumbs up.

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