Banana Cheesecake Roll with Chocolate Dipping Sauce

One day I watched Food Network Channel. There was a restaurant that was interviewed by Guy in his Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives show. One of their signature desserts is this Banana Cheesecake Roll. I don't exactly wrote down the recipe from the show. But I kinda remember how it made. And of course, this is not the exact recipe that they are using. I just use my own Cheesecake recipe and do that. But it really tastes good. It is a different kind of way to eat Cheesecake. The crispy spring roll wrap replaced the tradition cheesecake crust. And you just pick and eat. Serve individually. 2 bites size. Perfect!

Cheesecake Recipe: (8" round pan)

Ingredients:

• 3 medium bananas
• 1 lemon (juice of)
• 3 eggs
• 240 grams fromage frais (sieved, or quark or use all cream cheese)
• 300 grams cream cheese
• 100 grams caster sugar

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2.  Mush bananas with two tablespoons of lemon juice, then beat in the other ingredients until well combined.
3. Pour the filling onto the biscuit base and bake for an hour. Turn off the oven and leave the cake in for another hour.

Chocolate dipping sauce (Pic 8):

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup dark chocolate 
• 1/4 cup cream
• 1 Tbsp Butter (optional)

Method:

1. Heat cream in saucepan.
2. Once it starts to boil. Remove from heat. Add chocolate and whisk until well combined.  Add butter and stir until butter is melted and chocolate sauce is smooth.

Banana Cheesecake Roll Recipe:

 Ingredients:

• Spring roll wrap
• Egg wash (Beaten Egg)
• Cinnamon Sugar
• Cheesecake (Pic 1)

Method

1. Defrost spring roll wrap. Place on plate (Pic 2)
2. Add a Tablespoonful of cheesecake on the centre of spring roll wrap. Sprinkle some cinnamon sugar. Then wrap it into a roll. (Pic 3)
3. Spread egg wash to seal the roll. Then apply a bit more on the outside of the roll. (Pic 4 & 5)
4. Take out a saucepan and heat oil. Prepare oil to 3 inch deep. Once it reached 365 °F. Deep fried the prepared Cheesecake roll. (Pic 6)

       5. Please on rack until it turns brown. (Pic 7)

      6. Serve Banana Cheesecake Roll with Chocolate Dipping sauce. (Serve hot)

Macaron Pops with Blueberry White Chocolate Ganache

August 31 is my friend Christine's birthday. I made her cake and birthday treats in last two years. And this year, I also made her something for her birthday. I made this Macaron Pops in brownie served in a small shot cup. I did that because we went to a beach BBQ picnic at Spanish Banks. This birthday treat do not need to refrigerate and it is easy to eat. No need to cut and to serve. 

              

I placed macaron pops into brownie cake base. Each cup provided with a mini spoon

                                              

 

Recipe: (can make around 80 shells. That is about 40 macarons)

Italian Meringue Macarons

200g almond meal or ground blanched almonds
200g confectioners’ sugar
200g sugar
50g water
150g egg whites, divided into two 75g portions

Directions:

1. Stack two baking trays on top of each other. Line with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper.
2. Process almond meal with confectioners’ sugar in a food processor. Sieve out any large bits of almond.
3. Combine sugar and water in a saucepan. Heat on medium until all the sugar is dissolved.
4. Meanwhile, place 75g of egg whites in a mixer bowl with the whisk attachment.
5. Continue cooking until the sugar syrup reaches 118 C/245 F. While the sugar is cooking, begin whisking the egg whites. They should reach stiff peaks by the time the syrup is at 245 F. If it whips too fast, turn down or turn off the mixer.
6. Turn the mixer speed to low. Carefully pour the sugar syrup in a slow stream into the mixer.
7. Turn the mixer speed to high and let the meringue for several minutes until it has cooled and appears glossy and firm.
8. In a large bowl, combine the almond meal mixture with the remaining 75g of egg whites until partially combined.
9. Scoop the meringue on top of the almond meal mixture. Using a spatula or dough scraper, carefully fold the meringue in, trying not to deflate it.
10. The final batter should be thick and flow slowly like magma. Do not overmix.
11. Scoop the batter into a piping bag fitted with a ½” diameter plain tip.
12. Pipe 1 ½” rounds of batter onto the prepared baking sheets. Let the sheets sit for about 20 minutes to let the shells harden.
13. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 160 C/320 F.
14. Bake one set of macarons for 15 minutes, rotating once.
15. Let tray cool for a few minutes before removing from the silicone mat. Let finish cooling on wire racks.

Blueberry White Chocolate Ganache

1 cup blueberries
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup cream
150g white chocolate

Directions:
1. Cook blueberries and sugar over medium heat and mix until juice reaches a syrup like consistency
2. Strain the blueberry juice through a fine mesh strainer (This mixture should yield 3 tbsp of liquid)
3. In a small saucepan, heat the cream at lo-medium heat and bring it to a simmer. Remove from heat
4. Add white chocolate and stir frequently until smooth (Picture 2). If the mixture is too runny, add a bit more chocolate to thicken it a bit. (Picture 3)
5. Add 2 tbsp of the blueberry syrup to the white chocolate cream mixture and combine
6. Store in fridge until it is thicken.

To Assemble:

1. Take out a lollipop stick and dip a bit of ganache and place on one of the macaron shell. (Picture 1)
2. Spread or pipe ganache to the other macaron shell. Combine them and make a macaron pop.

White wine Clam fresh from the beach (Clam digging picnic lunch) 美國半天掘蜆野餐旅遊

  

August 26, 2014: This is the last week of Summer before school starts. And we planned to have a clam digging trip since the first day of summer holiday way back in June. The closest clam digging beach is Birch Bay at Blaine in Washington state just across the border from Vancouver Canada. There was a red tide/biotoxin warning since the first day of summer break until Aug 21. Finally we can go and have our first time clam digging experience with kids before school starts. It is only an hour travel time from Richmond, Canada to Birch Bay, Blaine US if you have a NEXUS card (like us) to save border waiting time. 

To check for Red Tide warning and Washington state shellfish harvest area, you can go to their Shellfish Safety Map Website: https://fortress.wa.gov/doh/eh/maps/biotoxin/biotoxin.html

 For tide table in Blaine, Washington: http://www.dairiki.org/tides/monthly.php/bln

Tide predictions for other areas in Washington state: http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/tide_predictions.html?gid=259#listing

For non US resident, one day shellfish license is $20.15. My friend told me that annual pass is just $35 and you can go unlimited clam digging all year round in any State of Washington beaches. Kids under 15 also need a license but it is free. 

Clams are located 4-5 inches deep down from this rocky beach. You will need a big shovel for faster and easier harvest.

There are restrictions on bringing live and raw shellfishes back into Canada, therefore we brought a BBQ stove and a Hotpot stove for cooking our harvest on site.

We went to Bay Centre Market for shellfish license and also some food for BBQ and ingredients for cooking clams. We bought wiener sausage and a loaf of garlic bread. For cooking the clams, we bought butter, white wine, lemon, lemon and pepper seasoning, and cilantro. I prefer dill but they don't have any fresh herbs except Cilantro. It is better to have garlic too. Unfortunately I cannot find any in the market :(

Today's low tide happened at 12:34 PM.  Perfect time to catch some clams for lunch. We did not dig many because we did not bring proper tools. We only brought some gardening tools and it takes longer time to find good number of clams. Next time we will bring a bigger shovel for more and easier harvest. 

We also grill portions of our harvest. It tasted good too!

Birch Bay State park has washrooms, picnic tables and water all along the beach. It is very convenient.  We wash the clams there and put the clams in bucket of clean water. Leave it for half an hour and let them have enough time to spill out the sands.

 

We got 3 kinds of clams and a few mussels there. Cockle Clams taste the best. But the Manilla Littleneck and butter clams are also delicious.

 

Ingredients:

White wine

Butter

Lemon

Lemon and Pepper seasonings

Garlic (But I cannot find that in market)

Cilantro or dill

Directions:

 Prepare a pot, melt the butter

Sauteed crushed or minced garlic

Put in clams and stir

Pour in White wine, add lemon and cilantro/dill.

 Covered until white wine boiled.

Open cover and stir the clams. Cover again and turn to medium heat.

Served when clams are cooked and opened up.

 

How to clean and cut Live Sea Urchin 如何清潔和切活海膽

At Richmond Steveston Fisherman Wharf, we love to buy fresh prawn and live sea urchin there. We can buy live sea urchin at price $10 for 3. The price did not raise over the last few years. My first Sea Urchin blog post was in year 2011. Second one is year 2013. Last one posted in year 2014 (Scramble eggs with sea urchin). Usually it is hard to have all three perfect one. Some of the uni are dark yellow colour with some dark spots (Pic B). Some perfect ones are orange just like the title picture of this blog. This time I got 2 out of 3 that are perfect orange colour. Not bad. Here I would like to post again the procedure of cleaning an sea urchin.

How to clean live sea urchin (pic 1)?

• Prepare a bowl of sea salt water. Around 1L of water + 1/2 tbsp sea salt. (Pic 2)
• Please wear thick rubber gloves, you will also need a pair of scissors and a spoon. (Pic 3)

1. Take a large knife or thick scissors and cut a hole around the X (the mouth). (Pic 4)

2.  Carefully separate the pieces of shell. Take the X (mouth) out and shake out all the guts, dirty stuffs and water. (Pic 5)
3.  If you cannot scoop the uni out from the hole. You can try to break the shell but pulling them in half from the hole toward outside (Pic 6). Scoop the extract the pieces of yellow or orange Uni by spoon (pic 7).

4.  Pick all guts and bits of partially digested seaweed off the Uni. (Pic A)

5.  Take each piece of Uni and individually wash each one very gently in the salt water***.(Pic B)

7.  Dry them by placing the Uni on paper towel (Pic 8)

8. Serve

The photo on the right is an example of bad grade of uni meat.

*** must wash with Sea Salt water. Place it on paper towel and you can keep it fresh in fridge for one or two days fresh! If you rinse it under normal tap water, the Uni will melt and become watery.

Blueberry Cheesecake Ice cream 藍莓芝士雪糕

From my previous blog post, I already mentioned that we had blueberries u-pick with my friends last week. I made Blueberry Jam for bread spread by using the fresh u-pick blueberries. Please refer to my Blueberry jam blog post for recipe. And here I use the blueberry jam to make blueberry cheesecake ice cream.

Recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1 cups whole milk
• 5 tbsp condensed milk
• 1 cup whipping cream
• 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup fresh blueberries jam (you can also add whole blueberry to ice cream if you wish)
• 2 teaspoons lemon zest (optional)

Instructions

1. Process the first 6 ingredients in a blender until smooth. Cover and chill for at least 2 hours.
2. Pour mixture into the container of an electric ice cream maker and process according to the manufacturer's instructions. Mine usually churns about 25 minutes.
3. While the ice cream is churning, add the blueberries jam and lemon zest (and whole blueberries if you want) during the last few minutes of churning.(If you add whole blueberries, mash them a little bit before adding to ice cream mixture).
4. Place churned ice cream into a freezer-safe, lidded container, and freeze for an hour prior to serving.

Recipe adapted from Kitchen Meets Girl Website