Artisan Bread

I really love fresh bread, especially the artisan breads available in markets like Whole Foods or Central Market. My family bought an Italian White loaf bread from Central Market one day and we devoured it in one meal. Delicious.

It seems difficult to recreate at home but in reality, it's very simple!

The recipe can be found here: http://www.simplysogood.com/2013/03/artisan-no-knead-bread.html

The only change I made was that I used 1 tsp of yeast instead of the 1/2 teaspoon stated in the recipe.

Here's the result:

I actually let this loaf rise three times and kneaded it a little so that the bread was chewier.

Here's another variation:

I didn't flour the surface of this loaf and added orange zest and toasted walnuts to the bread.

Honey Mini-Cheesecakes

So here comes the affluence of posts since I put off blogging until now.

Let's start out with honey mini-cheesecakes. I didn't have any graham crackers available to make a crust and I wanted to try something other than the walnut crust I made last time for these apple rose tarts:

I found an oatmeal crust as I browsed cheesecake recipes and here's my variation:

Honey Mini-Cheesecakes: 

Oatmeal crust:

1/2 cup butter (softened)
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 cup oatmeal (I used instant but old-fashioned should work as well)

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Combine all the ingredients and press into the bottoms of a cupcake pan. (Or if you want to make cleaning and taking out the cheesecakes easier, use cupcake liners.)
3. Bake for 12 minutes.

Filling: 

8 oz cream cheese (softened)
1 egg
2 Tbsp whole milk
1/4 cup honey
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Keep oven at 350°F.
2. Beat the ingredients together until combined and pour onto the crusts.
3. Bake for 25 minutes.
4. Let cool.

Cinnamon Honey Glaze: 

1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 Tbsp honey
Walnuts (I used a small handful because I only wanted a few to garnish the cheesecakes but you can use as many as you like)

1. In a small pan, heat the cinnamon and honey until warm.
2. Place the walnuts in the glaze and toss to coat.
3. Garnish each cheesecake with a few walnuts and glaze.

The finished product: