Apple Cheesecake Bars

I had exactly 3 apples in my fridge and they were glaring at me everytime I opened the fridge door. I was researching recipes online for Apple Muffins and I landed on Apple Streusel Cheesecake Bars. It's a Betty Crocker recipe that calls for boxed cookie mix and canned pie filling. I was not digging that. I wanted to go homemade all the way. So I whipped up an oatmeal cookie recipe for the crust portion, I semi-followed their cheesecake recipe, and made a homemade apple sauce for the filling. It seems like a lot of work, but it truly wasn't that bad. It helps that I've started to master the art of time management, at least in the kitchen, haha. I hope you guys enjoy it!

Crust:
2 1/2 cups oatmeal
1 1/2 stick butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tbsp ground cinnamon

Cheesecake Filling:
2 8 ounce packages of cream cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
2 eggs

Apple Filling:
3 apples, peeled, cored and diced into small pieces
1/2 cup apple juice
1/2 cup water
1/2 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 13x9 baking dish. In a large mixing bowl, cut butter into oatmeal and brown sugar until crumbly and combined. Add in egg, vanilla extract, flour, baking soda and cinnamon until well mixed. Press crust into bottom of prepared baking dish. Bake in preheated oven for 10-12 minutes.

While crust is cooking, prepare apple filling. Place apples, apple juice, water and lemon juice in sauce pot. Cook on medium-high heat for 7-10 minutes, until apples are softened. Drain water/juices. Add brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Allow to cook on low until crust is done.

While apple filling is simmering, prepare cheesecake filling. Beat cream cheese and sugar together until smooth. Add in vanilla extract, almond extract and eggs until well combined.

Remove crust from oven. Pour cheesecake filling over top. Pour apple filling over top of cheesecake filling. Bake in oven for another 35-40 minutes. Set in refridgerator for 2-4 hours to set. Enjoy!

Stuffed French Toast Casserole

Hey there!

So I'm sure you all have noticed by now that a good majority of my recipes are stovetop recipes. For some reason, I don't really use my oven too much besides finishing off the meal or baking. My very first blog post was for an Amaretto French Toast. Jon asked for french toast the other day and I was just not feeling standing over the stove flipping 12 pieces of toast, y'know? So I decided I would make it a casserole, which I've done before and we loved. It comes out kind of like a breakfast bread pudding. We love stuffed french toast, so I stuffed the bread with a cream cheese icing. The recipe is similar to my regular french toast, minus the amaretto. I'm sticking with what I know tastes good on this one. Hope you guys enjoy this!

12-14 pieces sweet bread
2 cups milk
4 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 cup brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
1/2 tbsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
Filling:
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1 lb powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
Glaze:
1 stick butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 tbsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease casserole dish with butter. In large mixing bowl, combine milk, eggs, flour, brown sugar, vanilla extract, almond extract, ground cinnamon, and ground nutmeg. Whisk together until smooth.

In a separate medium bowl, beat cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla and almond extract until smooth.

Spread cream cheese icing on bread and sandwich together. Cut "sandwiches" into 6-8 small squares. Lay half of the pieces in casserole dish and pour milk and egg mixture over top of first layer. Layer rest of pieces on top and pour remaining batter over top. Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes.

While casserole is baking, melt stick of butter on medium heat on stove. Whisk in sugar, maple syrup and cinnamon until combined. Lower heat to low to keep warm while casserole finishes.

After the 25 minutes, remove casserole from oven and pour brown sugar sauce over casserole. Place back in oven for another 5 minutes. Serve with any additional cream cheese icing and brown sugar sauce drizzled over top.

Tip: when you put the casserole back in with the brown sugar sauce, it may be a good idea to put a baking sheet under casserole dish to make sure the sauce doesn't bubble over into oven.

Twice Baked Sweet Potatoes

Every holiday, my parents usually serve up Twice Baked Potatoes. They are so delicious. I decided to try and make it a little different with some sweet potatoes.

Twice Baked Sweet Potatoes

6 sweet potatoes, scrubbed and patted dry
1 stick butter, softened
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place sweet potatoes on baking sheet and cook in oven for about an hour. Take out of oven and allow to cool until able to handle. Cut potatoes in half lengthwise. Using a spoon, scoop out middle of all potatoes. Reserve skins. Combine potatoes, butter, cream cheese, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in mixing bowl. Fill potato skins with potato mixture. Place back on baking sheet and bake in oven for about 20 minutes, until golden brown.

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

This recipe was kind of an accident. I mean, I purposely decided to make a Pumpkin Whoopie Pie but I messed up the recipe a tiny little bit. Usually when I do recipes I label the filling ingredients. Well the recipe I decided to base my first pumpkin whoopie attempt at didn't do that. So I started adding in the filling ingredients right into the pie portion! Yikes! It wasn't until I got to the part where they have a second vanilla extract addition that I put two and two together. I should have read the instructions, but I was way too excited for these bad Larrys!

Anyways, it ended up working out! All of the times before when I made whoopie pies, they always seemed to come out dry. This time they were super moist and delicious. I decided to do a Ginger Cinnamon Cream Cheese filling. Um, yum!

Sorry the picture is cell phone quality. I hereby solemnly swear I will buy a DSLR sometime in the I-hope-not-so-distant-future.

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

Pie: adapted from this recipe
2 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 tbsp heavy cream
1 tbsp honey
1 15 oz can Libby's pumpkin
2 eggs + 1 egg white
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tbsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tbsp ground ginger

Filling:
3/4 cup cream cheese
1 cup shortening
2 tbsp heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground ginger

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray baking sheet(s) with cooking spray.

Using electric mixer, combine sugar, oil, cream, honey, pumpkin, eggs, vanilla and almond extract. In a separate bowl sift together flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. Slowly incorporate dry mixture into wet mixture until fully combine. Use an ice cream scoop to divide batter into cookie sizes on baking sheet(s). Allow to cook for about 11-12 minutes, until fork inserted comes out clean.

Meanwhile, use electric mixer to beat cream cheese and shortening together until well combined and fluffy. Add in remaining ingredients until fully combined. If needed, add another 1/2 tbsp of heavy cream to reach desired consistency of filling.

Makes about 16 whoopie pies!

Apple Crumbler

Hey Everyone!

I am SO excited about this post. Last night, I was craving something sweet. I was going to attempt to make an apple pie and then realized I didn't have a pie dish. So, I moved onto the next best thing, Apple Crisp. I looked up recipes online and nothing was jumping out at me. So, I moved onto Apple Cobbler, nothing jumped out again. The same happened with Apple Crumble recipes. So, I decided I would just throw elements from each together and make what I'm calling an Apple Crumbler. It was amazing.

I was born in October in New England which is Apple pickin' season, so I am programmed to love anything apple. Especially around this time of year, even living in Hawaii, I get crazy cravings for apple dishes. I've never attempted an apple dish at home before, I wish I had tried sooner! To make mine a little different, I added some maple syrup to the filling and made a glaze for the top. The glaze isn't too sweet because its balanced out with some lemon juice.

If you guys have been reading this blog but don't know which recipe to try, start with this one. It was easy to throw together and so tasty. Send me your feedback: cookingwithcait@gmail.com.

Apple Crumbler

Filling:
3-3 1/2 cups apples peeled, cored and diced into small chunks
1/4 cup maple syrup
2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tbsp all purpose flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
Crumbler:
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup oats
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 stick butter, room temperature
Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 1/2 tbsp milk
1/2 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients for filling. Spread into 8x8 baking dish. Set aside.

In same mixing bowl as filling (you will pick up some of the yummy spices and juices) combine all ingredients besides butter until incorporated. Using an electric mixer, beat in butter until dry ingredients have stuck to it and made a crumbly texture topping. Spread this topping over apple filling until fully covered.

Bake in oven for 35-40 minutes. While it is baking, prepare glaze.

Combine all ingredients for glaze in small mixing bowl and whisk together until smooth.

Pour glaze over top of crumbler as soon as it gets out of the oven. Serve with some vanilla ice cream and enjoy!