A sweet end to Christmas dinner

I always like to make a special dessert for Christmas dinner, and this year I was feeling confident so I decided to bake one of my German grandmother's famous cakes: Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, or, by American standards, Black Forest Cake.

First of all, the recipe I have is in German, which makes it a little harder than your average recipe. Secondly, my grandmother's handwriting is extremely hard to read. But, the most difficult aspect of all when making this cake is that the recipe is, in fact, no recipe at all. It is the bare minimum of a recipe: a list of the ingredients and how much one needs of each item.

Needless to say, it was an interesting day in the kitchen at my house. Two cakes later, and I had enough cake to make a three-layer cake.



It all worked out for the best though, thankfully, and I was able to present a beautiful Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte to my family for Christmas. Although it was a little dryer than I would have liked, my mom said it tasted just like my grandmother's, and that says it all.

Everyone loves cheesecake...right?

My mom recently had a Christmas party for her friends from work, and guess who was recruited to help with the food?

Well my main responsibility was desserts, so I decided to make one of my personal favorites, cheesecake. I didn't make my usual recipe, however. This time I wanted to make cheesecake bites, even though my mom wanted me to make a pumpkin spice cheesecake.

I decided to please both of us and went ahead and made cheesecake bites in three different flavors, one of which was pumpkin. The other two flavors I decided on were chocolate with an Oreo crust and raspberry swirl with a graham cracker crust.

I used a base recipe that I found online, which I will provide, and just separated it into thirds before creating each flavor. I bought a pack of disposable cake pans (it conveniently came with three pans) that were short in height. After they finished baking I simply cut the cakes into tiny, bite-size squares. Although the squares weren't as pretty as I wanted them to be, the flavor definitely made up for it.



Cheesecake Bites (base adapted from Peggy Epstein's contribution to ehow.com)

6 8-oz. packages cream cheese, softened

6 large eggs

1 cup granulated sugar

Mix all of these ingredients together and you have your base to work with.

For the pumpkin flavor I used about half of a 15 0z can of pumpkin puree, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and ground cloves. I just mixed it all into the cheesecake base with my mixer. For the crust I ground a sleeve of graham crackers in my food processor and added about 4-6 Tbsp. of melted butter, and a bit of cinnamon and brown sugar.

For the raspberry swirl, all I added to the base was about 1/2 tsp. vanilla. For the crust, I once again used my food processor to grind up a sleeve of graham crackers, but this time all I added was the melted butter. For the raspberry sauce I pureed a package of fresh raspberries and strained it through a sieve to collect the seeds. After I poured the cheesecake batter into the crust, I poured the raspberry sauce on top in straight lines across the cake and used a toothpick to create a swirl effect.

Lastly, for the chocolate cheesecake I melted 6 oz of chocolate chips and 2 Tbsp. of butter in a double-boiler and used my mixer to incorporate it into the batter. The tip here is to take a little of the batter and mix it in with the chocolate before you add it to the rest of the batter. This way it cools the chocolate down a little bit before you mix it in. For the crust I ground up about half of a package of Oreos and added melted butter to that as well.

I then cooked the cakes in a 325 degree oven for 20-25 minutes. Another key thing to remember is that after the cakes bake, you need to let them cool in the OFF oven, with the door cracked open for another 20 minutes. This prevents the cheesecake from cracking on the top. This is a necessity when making ANY kind of cheesecake, not just bites.

After cooling in the refrigerator overnight, voila! I had a delicious and easy to eat dessert perfect for a party.

Gyro Grill

Apparently Ocala's cultural identity is expanding...somewhat.

I noticed, recently, that we now have a Mediterranean restaurant out on Highway 200 just past Airport Road in the Jasmine Plaza. The Gyro Grill serves up affordable Turkish and Greek food including gyros (of course), Falafel, Spanakopita, stuffed grape leaves, baklava, etc.


I heard that there is a Gyro Grill in The Paddock Mall now too, but I haven't seen it for myself so I cannot be 100 percent certain that it is still there, or ever was for that matter.

Anyways, the food is pretty tasty and inexpensive, and is definitely worth a trip out to that side of town.

I tried a gyro, stuffed grape leaves, Falafel, Hummus, Tabouli and a tamarind flavored Turkish soda. All of the food was good, but the Tabouli was by far the best part of the meal. It was probably the best Tabouli I have ever had; it was fresh and garlicky and everything that the wheat dish should be.



The part that I didn't really care for was the soda. I have never been a fan of tamarind, which I have tried before in Mexican products, like Jarritos sodas, and this Turkish soda did not change my mind. It left a strange metallic aftertaste in my mouth after every sip and actually made me thirstier as I drank it.

I was kind of bothered by the fact that the eatery sold canned sodas. I think that fountain drinks make a huge difference in a restaurant's credibility and appeal, plus they save the owner money in the long run.

So, here is my advice to you: visit the Gyro Grill and eat whatever you want, I am sure it will be great, but don't go in expecting a cold fountain soda, and avoid the Turkish soda at all costs if you are wary of tamarind.

New restaurant alert!

So, I don't know how I missed this, but there is a new restaurant downtown and it is already open!

The restaurant, Filet and Fin, was opened by Chef Daniel, who has a catering service and once operated a French restaurant downtown in the bottom floor of the Ocala National Bank Building. That restaurant, closed mysteriously earlier this year after being open only a few months.

Seems to me that this chef is full of mystery. However, I am excited by the menu of Filet and Fin and can't wait to try it! A full review will be posted soon.

A link to the new eatery:

http://www.cdcateringocala.com/

Snickerdoodles

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/2 cup shortening
2 eggs
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
6 Tbsp. Sugar
6 tsp. cinnamon

• Heat oven to 400 degrees
• Mix 1 1/2 cups sugar, butter, shortening and eggs in a large bowl. Stir in the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt.
• Shape dough by rounded teaspoons into balls. Mix the remaining sugar and cinnamon, and roll the balls in the mixture until coated. Place about two inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet.
• Bake until set, eight to 10 minutes. Immediately remove from cookie sheet to cool.

Makes about 6 dozen cookies

The verdict is out

I have to say that, unfortunately, the fruit pizza did not live up to its description.

While the instructions had microwave and oven cooking directions, and I knew that the oven would produce crispier results, I decided to test the method most people would probably use: the microwave. Plus, unless you are using a toaster oven, it would be a HUGE waste of energy to heat up an oven to 400 degrees to cook this little hockey puck of a pizza.

Even though the packaging comes with one of those little crisping trays to use in the microwave, it did not crisp-up by any means. The crust was sloppy and lifeless in my hand.

I have to say that the "pizza" would have been much better if the crust was crisper, actually the crust had the best flavor. The strawberry pieces tasted like, well, frozen strawberries and some pink yogurt concoction was used to glue the fruit and granola to the crust.

I would like to try cooking the new Eggo concoction in the oven, as well as try the other flavor before I totally rule it out, but for now I would have to say that you won't be missing out if you pass this one up.