Green Tea Cheddar Cheese Cake, with a touch of green

Last month I came across an old recipe for Parmesan Cheese Cake from dailydelicious, I started adapting the recipe based on what ingredients I have at hand and ended with a slightly different cheese cake. Nevertheless, I am rather happy with the outcome.

As you can see from the little amount of cheese used, this cake is not as rich but rather more towards the souffle cheesecake texture. As compared to using crushed biscuits as the cake base, I would rather take the trouble making a layer of sponge cake for the ease of handling upon slicing. Also, there is the versatility of choosing the preferred one's preferred flavor and color to enhance the taste of the cake. 

Sponge cake (Cheese Cake Base)

3 Grade A Eggs
80g Castor Sugar
90g Cake Flour
2 tsp Green Tea Powder
30g Unsalted Butter, melted

• Preheat the oven to 180C degrees.

• Line a 25x25cm square baking pan with baking paper.

• Mix and sift the flour together with the green tea powder. Set aside.

• In a heat proof mixing bowl, whisk the eggs with the sugar over hot water until warm and the sugar melted.

• Remove mixing bowl from the hot water and continue whisking with a hand mixer until thick and lighten in color and upon lifting the mixer the batter hold the trail for several seconds.

• Sprinkle the flour mixture over the egg batter and fold to combine with a spatula.

• Pour melted butter over the batter and gently fold until combined.

• Pour batter into the pan and bake the cake for 20 mins.

• Allow the cake to cool in the pan before trimming the cake to fit as the base for the cheese cake.

Making the Cheese Cake
( Sufficient for a 21x21cm square cake pan)

80g Cream Cheese
80g Butter
50g Cheddar Cheese
1 tsp Vanilla Extract / Paste
200ml UHT Fresh Milk

30g Raisins (filling)

70g Cake Flour, sifted
25g Sugar

80g Egg Yolks
50g Plain Yoghurt + 1 Tbsp Fresh Lime Juice

180g Egg Whites
70g Sugar

Mixed Fruit / Apricot jam  for brushing top of cake

Directions :

• Preheat oven to 180C degrees. Line the bottom and the sides of a 21x21cm square cake pan with parchment paper ( I use aluminum paper). I also add another layer of aluminum paper over the cake pan to prevent water from seeping into the cake while baking in waterbath.

• Place the sponge cake layer into the cake pan and sprinkle the raisins over the sponge cake.

• Mix cake flour and sugar together. Set aside.

• Mix 1 Tbsp of fresh lime juice into the yoghurt.  Set aside.

• In a saucepan, melt the cream cheese, butter, cheddar cheese together with milk and cook over low heat. Add vanilla extract.

• Pour the above mixture into the flour mixture and whisk to combine. Add egg yolks and continue stirring until smooth. Add in yoghurt mixture and continue stirring until thoroughly combined.

• In another clean and oil free mixing bowl, beat the egg whites with sugar until soft peaks form. Fold the meringue into the egg yolk in 3 additions, fold to combine. 

• Pour batter into the prepared pan.

• Place the cake pan over the baking pan. Pour hot water into the baking pan until it reaches 3/4 of the cake pan.

• Bake at 180C degrees for 30 minutes. Lower the temperature to 160C degrees and continue baking for another 25-30 minutes. Half way through the baking, cover the cake top with aluminum foil from over browning.

• Remove cake from oven and let cool.

• Once the cake has cooled, brush the top with mixed fruit jam. 

Strawberry Cheese Bread

We were back in Malaysia for an entire week during the first week of April for 清明节 and 观音诞 celebrations. It was an extremely tiring week for me  filled with lots of activities, traveling time from KL to Taiping Perak.

By the end of the trip I was extremely home sick. I missed my fur babies, the familiar scents of my bed and living space. Yesterday, I started going through the stacks of unpublished photographs and began working on the arrangement and typing out the recipes for this blog.  This is the second time I have revisited this recipe (previous batch using Alex Goh's version) with some adaptions. 

Sweet Bread Dough 基本麵团甜麵包 (A)

200g Milk

4g Instant Yeast

330g High Protein Bread Flour

70g Low Protein Flour

80g Castor Sugar

4g Salt

1/2 Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar

1 Grade A Egg

40g Unsalted Butter

Strawberry Cream Cheese Toppings (B)

125g Cream Cheese

40g Sugar

50g Whipping Cream

10g Instant Custard Powder

Method (B) 

Cream the cream cheese until light. Add sugar and continue creaming until smooth. Add in whipping cream and mix until well blended. Add in custard powder and mix until well combined. Transfer batter into a piping bag and set aside. 

Streusel Topping (C)
40g Sugar
50g Unsalted Butter
100g Bread Flour

Method (C)

Mix Sugar and butter until crumbles by using fingers. Add in flour and continue to mix until crumbles. Store in the refrigerator for later use.

Directions

• In a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook attachment, add all the ingredients except butter. However, leave around 30g of milk left to be added slowly later. 

• Mix at low speed (speed 1) until all the ingredients are well mixed to form a coarse ball dough ( appro. 2-3 min). Add the remaining liquids if necessary.

• Add butter and slowly increase the speed to medium for approx. 15-18 min until a smooth, window pane effect is formed. 

• Shape the dough into a ball and allow it to proof in lightly greased bowls. Cover the bowl with cling film and allow to proof for 1 hour or until it doubles in size.

• Test the readiness of the dough with a finger lightly dusted with low-gluten or cake flour.  The dough is ready when the dough remain indented after the finger pokes into it.

• Punch down the dough. Roll into balls and leave to rest for another 15 mins.

Yummy.....

• Divide sweet bread dough into 14 equal portions and mould it round. Place 6 doughs into a  well greased bread loaf pan. Repeat the same if you have an extra bread mould, otherwise, you may place the remaining bread doughs onto a baking tray.  

• Spray some water over the dough with a fine-mist nozzle. Leave the dough in a warm place ( I kept mine inside the oven). Proof the final bread dough in the tin for 50 min.

• Egg wash the surface. Pipe the strawberry cream cheese fillings in the centre of each individual bread. Sprinkle some streusels over the top.

• Preheat oven to 200 degC but bake at 180 degC for about 35 - 40 minutes (for bread loaf) and 15 minutes (for individual / loose buns). Remove from oven and unmould immediately. Let the loaf cool off before slicing.