Tag Archives: orange

From Baking Overdose to Sweet Salvation

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An orange and a coconut walk into a bar….

Hahaha, apologies for the bad dad joke. I just couldn’t resist. My humor isn’t as sharp as usual – I’ve been a baking machine over the last few weeks and it’s left me a little delusional. The cause for my baking overdose? Well, a good friend and I just launched Jo&Jo – an LA-based florist/bakery partnership. Like any new project, it’s a ton of fun but there’s a lot of growing pains so we’re learning a lot along the way. Between catering a baptism for a very popular baby and getting all of our Mother’s Day packages out, I’ve been a brownie/cookie/muffin machine and consequential social hermit. Let’s just say that my oven and I are getting pretty intimate, which isn’t really how I pictured my mid-twenties.

Furthermore, baking the same recipes over and over again is putting a definite damper in my baking swag. My tried and trues are definitely that, but I miss the experimentation and the well-deserved / much anticipated bliss earned from the first bite of a new recipe. And then I made these glorious guys:

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Suddenly, my baking mojo was back! Using no recipes, no cookbooks – just me, my appliances and what was left in the fridge. Hey, it was more romantic than it’s sounds. And h-o-l-y lord strike me down if these golden squares of creamy heaven on earth aren’t the most delicious take on the cheesecake an orange could ask for. They’re even making me religious!

Enjoy my friends!

Orange Coconut Cheesecake Bars

Crust:
1.25 cup flour
.25 cup white sugar
.25 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup coconut oil
.25 cup butter
1 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp salt

Cheesecake:
2 packs cream cheese
1 cup sugar
1 orange (zest and juice)
1 egg
1.5 tsp corn starch
1 tsp vanilla
.5 tsp cardamom
1 cup coconut
.25 tsp salt

Grease an 8×8 pan. Preheat oven to 350.

Make the crust. Combine coconut oil, butter, egg and sugars and beat on high until soft and creamy. Mix in flour and salt until combined. Add vanilla. Pat down mixture into pan and bake for 10-15 mins or until slightly golden brown.

Make the filling. Mix cream cheese, sugar, corn starch, orange zest/juice, lemon zest and vanilla. Add coconut and salt and mix until just combined. Pour mixture over the crust and bake for 55-60 mins or until a toothpick comes out (relatively) clean. Cool completely and then chill in the fridge for at least 2-3 hours before serving. Then, devour.

Holiday Foreplay

Dessert, , , , ,

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Pumpkin is the foreplay to the holiday season. This time of year, we are bombarded with pumpkin flavored everything, and for good measure- that shit is bomb. When you see that pumpkin latte at starbucks, you know it’s only a few days until you’ll start making those christmas (or Hanukah, kwanza??) lists and checking them twice. I’ve personally been amping up my pumpkin intake through my breakfasts (a little pumpkin in your oatmeal or green smoothie goes a long way), and of course dessert!

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This recipe is a take on pumpkin pie, and adapted from a recipe I found on a blog en Español (thank you google translate), which made for an interesting baking adventure. The crust is baked a bit beforehand, which browns the butter and makes a deliciously nutty base to a thick, rich pumpkin cheesecake-like bar. It’s really simple and only calls on a few ingredients. Pumpkin needs less than a bit of cinnamon and sweetness to take center stage.

Happy holidays y’all!

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Pumpkin Pie Bars

Adapted from here

Ingredients for the crust:

.5 C + 1 TBS butter, at room temperature
.5 C brown sugar
3/4 C flour
1/4 C + 1 TBS oats

Ingredients for the cake:

2 eggs
½ C + 3 TBS sugar
1.5 C (400 g) pumpkin puree
1.25 C (350 ml) sweetened condensed milk
½ TBS salt
1 TBS cinnamon
½ TBS ground ginger

Make the crust: In a medium bowl, beat butter brown sugar. Add flour and rolled oats gradually. Line an 8 x 8 baking pan with tin foil. Dump the crust mixture into the pan and pat down to condense. Bake at 350F degrees for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven.

In a large bowl whisk the eggs with the sugar. Add the pumpkin puree, condensed milk, salt, cinnamon and ginger. Pour the mixture over the base and bake at 350F degrees for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted wood comes out clean (if it tends to brown too much, cover with foil ). Chill in the refrigerator overnight (or at least 4 hours, to desired consistency).