Japanese Souffle Cheesecake

I need a baking scale, I need a baking scale, I need a baking scale. Is the mantra that runs through my head every time I attempt one of these seemingly simple yet rather elaborate recipes which require more or less EXACT measurements. Not having a scale is a rather big setback, if you like me, enjoy light fluffy cakes. However, I share this because the end product wasn't too bad, if you like moist cheesecake that is.

As always I cobbled together several recipies, keeping in mind my fincky oven and lack of a scale...Most recipes give you g(gram) measurements. Yet I do not have a scale, but I do have all the ingredients. This makes me ambitious and experimental. So if you HAVE a scale, please by all means go and look at this sane recipe by all means. If you are like me and begrudge even the 7X7 in that a scale would take up in your kitchen, by all means try it. After all, you can't call yourself a budding cook/chef without having had a few failed souffles. ^^

Now for the final warning. Something I wish other bloggers did before posting beautiful pictures of their "easy" delicious food. You should have a mechanical beater for this. I do not have one, as a result I now have two tiger balm patches in strategic places on my upper right arm, you do the math. The amount of money I spend on palliative care for the aftermath of baking could have bought me a reasonable beater. I don't make excuses for myself, just noting the facts. -_-;;

I also learned that corn flour came be cornmeal (used for muffins to accompany chili) or cornstarch. Cornstarch is what is used in this recipe.

Ingredients.
1 C whole milk
8 oz Cream cheese softened ( one small block at the supermarket)
4 Tbsp butter softened
6 egg yolks
4 Tbsp cake flour
2.5 Tbsp corn flour (aka cornstarch)
1tsp baking soda
zest of one lemon (optional, but I found it added a refreshing taste to the creaminess)
6 egg whites (chilled)
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1C Caster (confectioner) sugar

The recipe calls for a double boiler, but things like that can be substituted for a metal or glass bowl placed above simmering water. Making sure the water doesn't touch bottom on bowl.

1. Pour Milk into bowl over double boiler. Add creamcheese and stir until incorporated. Add butter until incorporated. Set aside and cool before adding yolks and stirring smooth (if added too soon, the egg yolks will cook, this is bad, very bad). Add lemon zest and set aside.
2.  Sift Cake flour, cornstarch, and baking soda together. Add mixture to cooled creamcheese mixture little at a time making sure to incorporate fully (no lumps smooth silky batter).
Preheat oven to 300-350 F (you know your oven, I set it to 300 at the beginning, but it was taking to long so I upped it to 350 to brown the tops)
3. Take chilled egg whites and beat until you get a froth (by hand it took about 4 min) Then sprinkle cream of tartar and beat until stiffer. Then add the caster suger a little at a time until stiff glossy peaks form. ( I won't say how long this took, but family members came home to find me prostrate on the cold marble kitchen floor)
4. Fold the beaten egg whites into the creamcheese batter. DO NO mix, FOLD The mixture should roughtly triple in mass.
5. Pour into two 11X22 inch pans that have been lined with parchment paperor individual muffin tins lined with muffin paper, and place in a shallow waterbath that rises to the middle of whatever you are using. Bake for 50-60 min. Slide skewer in center, should come out with only few moist crumbs.

Warning: This is a deceptively light tasting cake, despite the creaminess, but you see how much creamcheese and butter not to mention sugar goes into two loaves. I made it as afters to roast chicken thighs with root vegetables and steamed stringbeans, so in the ringing corridors of my mind, the vegetables might cancel out the creamcheese. ^^.

The pic isn't all that great, but I grabbed a couple before both loaves disappeared.
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Sour Cream Pound Cake

Okay my brain and my hands are officially not connected; or is it my mouth and my brain, or my brain and my stomach? Knowing that winter-time has a detrimental affect on the waistline doesn't really click with the fact that dark, dreary and cold weather, much like what we've been having, makes one look for comfort food. While I am all for healthy comfort foods...there are times that all that goes out the window and all gloves are off. This is usually following a spectacularly irritable day. Hey, no judgement. You have you're vices I have mine.

So this pound cake. I was trolling the sites for something that would make a suitable dent in my diet when I came across Sweet Kat's Best Sour Cream Pound Cake. Sour Cream and pound cake many of you might be saying, but don't knock it 'til you've tried it.

I tweaked it a little considering the astronomical amount of sugar that went into it and used half sour cream (for the tang) and half yogurt (for the moistness). It was fortunately/unfortunately delicious, and disappeared at an inhuman rate. As a matter of fact the remnants disappeared into my sister's mouth as I walked into the kitchen and she gave me the most innocent look possible (which she should know doesn't work on me).

Anywho, I liked it and tried to cut thin slices for snacks...just that it doesn't really matter when you keep coming back for second...third...fourth helpings...Good with a cuppa milk or a cuppa joe.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 C All purpose flour
1 1/2 C sifted cake flour ( Again I used Presto, which does have baking powder but I added a quarter teaspoon more)
1/4 tsp. baking soda (if you are not using self rising cake flour)
1/4 tsp salt
1 C (2sticks) unsalted softened butter
1 2/3 C granulated sugar ( I know this sounds like a lot but I think I will use even less next time, to see if I can get away with it)
6 large eggs (I actually used medium ** leftover from tea eggs I tried to make)\
1/2 C Sour Cream (lite-yeah like it matters :P)
1/2 C Yogurt (Non-fat was fine)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbsp honey ( was an interesting twist that makes me think I could get away with less sugar, plus also adds moistness..YAY)

1. Measure out and sift all dry ingredients together.
2 IMPORTANT: This cake must fall out of the bundt pan without too much persuasion so grease with a cooking spray and sift some flour to cover the grease and set aside. ( I used a quarter tablespoon of butter and coated it with a couple pinches of cake flour.  Preheat oven to 325 F (However, I totally spazzed and set it to 375, it makes for a faster cake. Thank god it didn't burn)
3. Combine sour cream, yogurt, honey, and vanilla in separate bowl, set aside.
4. Cream together softened butter and sugar together until fluffy. (I did this manually. Those that have a beater or a Kitchenaid, thank you lucky stars.) Then add the eggs one by one incorporating into the buttercream after each egg. It should double to triple in mass.
5. Take a rubber spatula (this part requires speed and coordination) combine 1/3 of the sifted dry ingredients with the creamed butter and eggs then a 1/3 of the wet ingredients (sour cream etc) and fold quickly. Alternate adding the rest of the dry and wet ingredients by thirds . You should have a pretty dense sticky looking batter by now.
6. Pour and spread evenly in the pregreased 10 inch bundt pan. Smooth out the top. Bake in 325 F oven for 60-70 min ( or 375 F for 45 min)
7. Let cool for 30 min outside of pan and sift some confectioners sugar (aka powdered sugar) on top for extra happiness.

Make a cup of coffee as best as you know how and enjoy (preferably taking it like I take mine, black.
Also even better after it cools