I feel so bad that all my recent photos are so unattractively lit. I am doing the best I can with the type of light I get in my house during these winter months, but it really isn’t good enough. I should build myself a lightbox, or just do all my baking or cooking on bright Saturday afternoons. At least I’m somewhat comforted by the fact that we have about 30 more days left of this early darkness.

This tropical cheesecake lets in a little warmth and light into the kitchen though! Even in the dark, cold winter, the cake lets you have a badly-needed taste of the tropics. I made this for my mother’s birthday at the end of January. I wanted to remind everyone that it can’t be winter all the time, and because my parents were heading off in a few days to sunny Mexico, so why not have a preemptive taste of it?

This cheesecake is perfect in every way. Even Soli loved it, claiming it to be one of his favourite cakes, and he is not one of those cheesecake people. The filling uses plenty of cream cheese, and a whole can of coconut cream, not to be confused with coconut milk. Coconut cream is about $4 more expensive, and is a thick, amazingly sweet more condensed version of coconut milk. I could’ve sat down with the can and a spoon and been happy! I didn’t add any coconut to the filling, as I wanted a smoother texture, but I added extra coconut to the crust, and toasted up some more to sprinkle on the top before serving. All in all, the cake wasn’t at all overly coconuty, and it was in fact an understated flavor. I am happy I didn’t use sweetened coconut. The buttery graham cracker crust was heavenly.

The roasted pineapple I made and spooned on top before serving was a perfect touch and shouldn’t be skipped! I got the basic idea from the Bon Appetit: Desserts cookbook, and while some online reviews said this topping was cloyingly sweet, I didn’t find that at all! I did reduce the sugar and not use any rum, so the true sweetness of the pineapple popped out, and it was a juicy, light touch to an otherwise pretty rich dessert. Also, I definitely recommend buying a fresh pineapple and roasting that…don’t try to cheat using the canned ones!

In the end, this was a perfect cheesecake and a great taste of the tropics for a birthday cake in January.

Coconut Cheesecake with Honey-Roasted Pineapple
Adapted from Food Network and Bon Appetit: Desserts

COCONUT CHEESECAKE
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
2 cups usweetened shredded coconut, toasted
1 tablespoon fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 pounds cream cheese, room temperature (4 8-0z packages, I used 2 regular and 2 light)
4 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup unsalted butter melted
1 15oz can cream of coconut (such as Coco Lopez)
1 cup whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Juice of 1 lemon

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Wrap outside of 9 inch diameter springform pan with with foil.

2. For the crust, mix graham cracker crumbs, 1 1/2 cups coconut, 1 tablespoon lemon juice and butter in small bowl. Press mixture onto bottom and up sides of pan.

3. For the filling, beat cream cheese and sugar in large bowl until well blended.

4. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add cream of coconut, cream, vanilla extract and lemon juice and beat until well blended.

5. Pour filling into crust. Bake until puffed and set in center, about 1 hour 25 minutes. Transfer to rack and cool completely. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

6. Cut around pan sides to loosen cake. Remove pan sides.

7. Sprinkle remaining coconut around edge of cake and top each slice with some honey-roasted pineapple.

HONEY-ROASTED PINEAPPLE
1 extra-sweet pineapple, peeled, cut into 1/2-inch-thick rounds, cored
1 cup water
1/4 cup honey
2 tablespoons dark rum (optional; I did not use this)

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Place pineapple rings on large rimmed baking sheet.

2. Boil remaining ingredients in small saucepan 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.

3. Pour syrup over pineapple. Roast pineapple 12 minutes. Turn rings over; roast until tender and syrup thickens, turning rings every 5 minutes, about 20 minutes longer.

4. Cool pineapple on sheet. Cut into 1/3-inch cubes; transfer pineapple and syrup to bowl. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Chill.)

Way, way back, when Tuesdays with Dorie first started, I was a member and baked along with everyone else. However, it soon became a little daunting and quite costly, both in the monetary sense and the calorie-count sense, as we were baking something every week. I stopped baking along after some time, though I continued to follow the blog and everyone else’s creations.

For Christmas, I received the Baking with Julia cookbook. Imagine how happy I was when I read that the new Tuesdays with Dorie group was not only beginning to bake from this book, but that the rules had relaxed, and now members only had to bake a selected recipe every two weeks. Not only that, but this cookbook is a bit more lenient on the waistline, as the cookbook is not only a slew of desserts, but also includes many bread recipes, which I wanted to get more experience baking anyway! All in all, this is a perfect situation for me, and I am excited to be involved with the group and to have something to motivate me to bake regularly!

I loved the first recipe we baked: White Loaves. It’s a great way to start, as it’s a simple, easy enough, plain bread. Making these loaves reminded me just how easy it actually is to bake bread. Granted, it is a bit time consuming, so you are sort of stuck in the house while the dough rises and then rises again, but if you’re planning on being home anyway, why not bake a couple of loaves of bread?

These white loaves are definitely easy, and call for few ingredients. It seems a lot of people were fancying them up, adding cheese and cinnamon swirls and other delicious things. I decided to start off simply, and just make the bread the way the book tells me the make the bread, and see how that goes before going all creative. I ended up with two loaves of amazing white bread, perfectly risen, with a slightly crispy, slightly buttery crust. I enjoyed eating slices just as is, nothing gspread on, not toasted, nothing! I can only imagine cheese or cinnamon swirls would’ve made this bread even more closer to perfection.

The only “problems” I had was with my standmixer and the baking time for my first loaf. The recipe makes enough dough for two loaves, but my mixer couldn’t quite handle all that dough! While it was “kneading” the dough, the hook kept getting stuck and stalling, so I ended up taking out half the dough, putting it aside while the machine kneaded the other half. I kneaded the put-aside dough, then switched…it was a long process, but I think it ended up working out, because the loaves had the ideal texture, density, crumb, everything!

The second (slight) problem was that my first loaf wasn’t baked all the way through. I couldn’t help but cut into it about 30 minutes out of the oven, and I saw its middle was definitely underbaked. I popped it back in the oven (as my 2nd loaf was still baking), and baked for another 10 minutes. Then it was fine. I also added 10 minutes to the 2nd loaf, and it came out wonderfully baked.

I’m not only looking forward to continuing to bake with the Tuesdays with Dorie group, but I am also excited to keep making this bread recipe. Nothing beats a simple bread, baked right!

For the recipe, check out the hosts’ page, Laurie’s blog slush or Jules’ blog Someone’s in the Kitchen, or better yet, buy the book, Baking with Julia!

I had been craving a batch of chocolately homemade cookies for quite some time. Unbelievably, I don’t think I’ve made any cookies since the summer, so the craving turned into obsession and I could no longer ignore it. I flipped through the big, fat and beautiful Bon Appetit: Desserts, looking for a cookie recipe I’ve never tried and that didn’t have any ingredients I didn’t already have in the house. The winner was the Chocolate Toffee Cookies, which I adapted into what is now Chocolate-Cinnamon Caramel Cookies.

I made a few changes to the cookies. We fortunately had a little bottle of rum we had been sipping from that evening, so I splashed the 1 tablespoon of rum the recipe called for in the batter. When I turned my back, Soli generously threw in another tablespoon or so more. This made for a definite hit of rum with every cookie…I was actually a bit nervous eating one of these things for breakfast (What? I know everyone eats cookies for breakfast sometimes!).

I didn’t have any Skor or Heath bars, but I did have these super tiny chocolate-covered caramel cup chips…I can’t really think of a better way to describe them. They were a great addition, I think! The cookies didn’t have that crunch that I’m sure the Heath bar would’ve given it, but were instead studded with soft pockets of sweet, luscious caramel and dark chocolate. I didn’t add the nuts either, so the cookies were soft and moist the whole way through, with a slightly crispy edge. The texture was just amazing, and I don’t know if I would’ve even wanted any crunches to disrupt that.

The last thing I did differently, and that I wholeheartedly recommend, is adding a little bit of cinnamon to the cookies. I didn’t add so much that the cinnamon became a dominant flavor; in fact, some people who tried the cookie couldn’t quite place what it was they were tasting. I thought it pushed the cookie over the edge, making it change from super-great cookie to a super-great-amazing-favourite-cookie-ever. How can a soft, tender chocolate, cookie, filled with caramel and hints of rum and cinnamon be anything short of perfection?

Chocolate-Cinnamon Caramel Cookies
adapted from Bon Appetit: Desserts

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1 large egg
2 tablespoons dark rum
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups mini chocolate covered caramels (the original recipe calls for crushed chocolate-covered English toffee, such as Heath, Skor bar; about 7 ounces)
1/2 cup chopped almonds (optional; I did not add any nuts this time)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Beat the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy.

3. Add the egg, the rum and the vanilla and beat again, until everything is blended together.

4. In a small bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Stir the dry ingredients into the butter mixture.

5. Stir in the chocolates or toffee and nuts, if using.

6. In large spoonfuls, drop batter into an ungreased baking sheet about two inches apart. Bake for about 10-12 minutes, or until the cookies start cracking on top but are still soft.

7. Let them cool on the baking sheet for 1 minute, then place the cookies in a rack to cool completely.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies