Starting off the week with some Strawberry Cheesecake Muffins. Except that I didn’t have any actual strawberries, just strawberry jam. What to do? I made some cheesecake filling (cream cheese, egg yolk and sugar), chilled it and then added some of the jam. Result: muffin-y outside, creamy strawberry cheesecake filling. Delicious! And a new trick when berries aren’t at hand!
It’s been an uninspiring period and I haven’t been feeling well but now that my tum tum is better, I feel like cooking and baking again. Comfort food on the menu, so I made this Ukrainian-style Potato Cabbage + Leek Tart as my weekend lunch food. The pan was actually the inspiration — I found it at a thrift store and just said “Ukraine” to me (go figure, with those colors!) What came first — the recipe or the pan? Sort of like what came first — the chicken or the egg!
Staying on my “Hand Pie” kick, here is a recipe for making a whole lot and freezing them. It’s a “from scratch” recipe — meaning first make your curry, then make your hand pies, but you can easily just make hand pies from any leftover curry that you might have. Just the other day, I purposefully saved some butter chicken to make some additional hand pies. Easy and always great to have in the freezer for a quick lunch.
I did a (not-baking-related) training event yesterday and it was pretty intense which means I had a hard time sleeping last night. Insomni-baking at it’s finest came up with this bundt cake recipe. That I (maybe surprisingly, maybe not) had the ingredients at hand was amazing and its a very nice breakfast this morning.
Today is a very important holiday. I mean, critically important. Yes, it’s Lunar / Chinese New Year, but no, that isn’t it. It’s National Croissant Day! See, told you it was important. 🙂
I decided to mark the occasion not by making croissants — I have made them before and they are a lot of effort — so I decided to make something with croissants instead: this Croissant and Custard Casserole. Essentially it is an overnight French toast casserole or a fancy bread pudding made with croissants. Great for breakfast as you can assemble the evening before, and have it all ready to bake up in the morning. With the buttery croissants, this is a totally decadent breakfast dish.