Cheesecake Fruit Flan

For other desserts we tried to make healthier alternatives to some standard dishes. But in a complete turn-around, we proudly present today's dish, one that's pretty much as bad for you as anything else you care to make. Sure, we cut the sugar and used whole-wheat flour instead of white. Plus we have real fruit. But that's not going to make up for all the fat and calories that we left in.

Still, it tastes great and is easy to make. And it looks divine. Should we do it? Da Original Gangstur says "yea!"

This recipe makes enough for a rectangular flan pan that's about 25 x 40 cm (10 x 15 inches), which is a fairly large pan. We cut the quantities by about a third for our smaller pan that is about 25 cm in diameter.


Ingredients

Crust

• 500 g (2 cups) whole-wheat flour
• 2 ml (1/2 tsp) cream of tartar
• 10 ml (2 tsp) baking soda
• 125 ml (1/2 cup) icing sugar
• 125 ml (1/2 cup) butter
• 125 ml (1/2 cup) vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 2 ml (1/2 tsp) vanilla extract

Filling

• 250 g (8 oz) package cream cheese, softened
• 30 ml (2 tbsp) white sugar
• 2 ml (1/2 tsp) vanilla extract

Fruit toppings

• Just about any kind of fruit you want. We used strawberries, blackberries, a kiwi and an apricot. Also good are other kinds of berries, mandarin segments and even banana slices. Try to get an assortment of colours so it will look yummay.

Glaze

• 15 ml (1 tbsp) cornstarch
• 30 ml (2 tbsp) white sugar
• 125 ml (1/2 cup) water
• 125 ml (1/2 cup) orange juice
• The juice of half a lemon

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 175 C (350 F). Grease the pan with butter.
2. Crust: in one bowl, sift together flour, cream of tartar and the baking soda. In a larger bowl, cream together the sugar, butter, oil, egg, and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and blend well. Spread the dough evenly on the bottom of the greased pan. Bake until golden brown, 10 to 12 minutes. Put the pan on a rack and cool to room temperature.
3. Filling: cream together the cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla. Spread on the cooled crust.
4. Fruit toppings: slice and arrange the fruit on the flan.
5. Glaze: mix the sugar and cornstarch in a small saucepan. Add the water, orange juice and lemon juice. On medium heat, boil slowly for one minute. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature. Spoon or brush the glaze evenly over the fruit.
6. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

And Bow-Tie Calico approves. Of course she does.

Simple and Easy Blueberry Muffins

This week's recipe is all about simple and easy.  And delicious.

The new season brings lots of fresh berries and the blueberries looked particularly appetising so we decided to give them a go.

Once again, we tried our best to make this a healthier version of bad-for-you food by decreasing the sugar and using whole-wheat flour instead of the regular alternatives.

This recipe makes a dozen muffins.  You can cook as many at a time as you want, and put the rest of the uncooked dough in the refrigerator in a sealed container.  It'll keep for a week.

You can also make more at once and freeze any leftovers.   If you do manage to freeze any then you're doing better than the three of us because, once again, they all disappeared right away.

If you have any unused cups in your muffin pan, be sure to fill them with water while baking.  This prevents your muffin pan from warping.




Ingredients

Dry

• 300 g (2 cups) whole wheat flour
• 25 ml (2 tbsp) sugar
• 25 ml (2 tbsp) baking powder
• 3 ml (1/2 tsp) salt
• 175 ml (3/4 cup) fresh or frozen blueberries (don't defrost frozen blueberries)
• 5 ml (1 tsp) grated lemon zest.  About 1 lemon

Wet

• 2 eggs, beaten
• 250 ml (1 cup) milk
• 50 ml (1/4 cup) butter, melted

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 200C (400F)
2. In a larger bowl, stir together the dry ingredients
3. In a smaller bowl, combine the wet ingredients
4. Add the wet ingredients all at once to the dry ingredients.  Stir quickly until the ingredients are barely mixed together and may be still lumpy in places.
5. Put paper muffin liners into the muffin pan, or grease the muffin cups very well
6. Fill the muffin cups to about 2/3 full
7. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.
8. Remove from pan and serve warm.

It's best to put the cooling muffins on a rack and cover with a soft cloth until they're ready to serve.

And Bow-Tie Calico approves once again.