Guest post by one of my cooking partners in crime, Sara Haddad. Every time we spoke over the past two weeks (no kidding, every time), we talked about making these lemon curd and berry cream mini cheesecakes for a party last week - they were an absolute hit. We used this recipe and they turned out excellent.

For the lemon curd, we used this recipe. For the berry cream, we drained a bag of frozen berries and reserved the juice. Then, we simmered it until it reduced by at least half, then added light cream to it (off the heat). We let it reduced a little bit again, then let it cool. It was poured onto the cheesecakes at the last moment before serving, then those were topped with grated white chocolate.

And now, here’s Sara!

Once upon a time, two young women were studying hard for their exams in a small quaint cafe. One young woman was a brilliant up and coming lawyer, the other was a frazzled Chemical Engineering student. They decided to have a party. But not just any party, this party was to be the best in all the land…well the best in food at least. So they began to plan…

One day the Law School Student took notice of a scrumptious aroma outside the coffeeshop and followed her to where her senses led her, and alas! It was a bakery and two women marveled at the delicious deserts within the case, but without fail they did not purchase anything. During a study “break” the Chemical Engineering student burst out with excitement: WE SHALL MAKE MINI CHEESECAKES! And the Law School student continued on to say: AND WE SHALL TOP WITH THEM WITH BERRIES AND LEMON CURD! And the scheming ensued….

As the weeks went to pass, they celebrated Eid. Every conversation without fail had something to do with the mini cheesecakes. With the date of the party nearing, what else was there to discuss? They found a recipe and the day before the party attempted to bake cheesecake.

‘Twas a dreary day, with the threat of tornados at hand, the worked tirelessly in the kitchen preparing. The crust was made out of vanilla wafers ground up to dust, mixed in with cinnamon and butter to make to the consistency of a soft dough. Once complete the mix of the cream cheese and sour cream was poured into the now compacted (with a meat tenderizer) crust.

Each tray looked like a piece of Good God, wrapped with some Have Mercy and topped off with some UMPH! and was placed in a water bath and baked in the oven at a temperature of 350 degrees Fahrenheit (or ~176.67 °C or 449.82 K to satisfy the nerd in me). After about an hour the young women realized that the cakes had not yet completed their run in the heated dragon’s belly and so they debated on what to do since they had to complete their own personal tasks. The decision was made to leave them in for 10 more minutes with the oven on and then to leave them in there to bake with the heat remaining for about three hours. This proved to be a successful idea and the cheesecakes were perfected. [TQ's note - this "leave it in the turned-off oven" baking method produced such soft and creamy cheesecake that I think I'll have to keep experimenting with it to get it perfect and make it my permanent method.]

Now, onto the part of making them ‘mini’. The next day, these young women proved to be inventive in their ideas and through the help of biscuit cutters and boiling water the cheesecakes were cut. [TQ - The cutters cut best when they're hot] The Law School Student put the definition of these cheesecakes next to KABLAAM in the dictionary through the addition of lemon curd and berries with berry cream sauce to top it all off. The creaminess of the cheesecakes combined with slight hint of the cinnamon in the crust was supreme.

The two young women were able to pull off a task not yet attempted by any of their friends and the mini cheesecakes eclipsed the focus of the party and at some point were more fun to look at than eat…Just. kidding.

It’s not unusual to have fun at any time….

Your Local Arab Mehdni cab driver

aka Sara Haddad

Welcome to another installment of “Taiyyaba takes the credit, Betty Crocker does the work.”

Remember the mini pineapple upside down bundt cakes? They’re amazing at parties, because you bring out these little jewels and people think you’ve been slaving in the kitchen all day long. (Don’t tell them it took you all of 15 minutes active time to make).

Using the same concept of a butter-sugar caramel coating some kind of treat at the top of the cake, I made this pecan cake for my father in law (a nut-o-phile). The pecans came out crispy-chewy, coated with a sticky caramel, and the batter was just a plain old spice cake mix. The final cake looks spectacular, but no one has to know it only took you 10 minutes to put together!

Recipe here (more…)

I have two confessions to make.

(1) I’m sneaky. I like to bake, but I don’t have time to make amazing cakes from scratch (even though I have this jaw dropping book that i love to read for fun).

(2) I *love* caramel, especially with fruit. Pineapple upside down cake is one of my favorites - the drizzly brown sugar that coats the sour-sweet pineapple and bakes until the edges get all chewy. *sigh*

So, to solve these problems, I’ve learned that you can do spectacular things with a box cake mix if you just shake things up a little bit. My mom got me this mini bundt cake pan - it has six tiny bundt cake molds and one box cake mix can make at least twelve little cakes total. These cakes look super fancy, but they really are just fancy cupcakes. Pineapple upside down cake is perfect for this pan, because one pineapple ring fits perfectly in the bottom.

I love this with pineapple, but I ran out of pineapple rings and still had more batter - I subbed apple rings and found out that this works great with apples too. I’m basically using the side of the box, low fat version of a boxed pineapple cake mix - all that makes this fancy is the shape!

Recipe here: (more…)

Dates are a staple of every Ramadan iftar. It just doesn’t feel like Ramadan unless you eat one of these soft, chewy, super sweet fruits. (I don’t consider those icky dry, pitted things you get in a plastic container from the grocery store to be real dates. Real dates are the big thick Medjool ones.)

Now, if you have dates like the ones we got as a gift this Ramadan, fresh on the vine, you want to just sit back and eat five or six of them with a cup of tea. These have a fragrance and texture unlike anything I’ve ever eaten - soft and perfumy, candy-sweet without being overpowering. Delicious, Subhanallah! (Thanks 3mmo and Fatimah!)

But the normal date eating can get a little boring, or at least too sweet after a while. Enter my friend Amna Baloch, who suggested filling the dates with Cool Whip. Oh. My. God. Long live Amna and may she be happy and healthy all her days InshAllah. The Cool Whip cuts tempers the sweetness of the dates a little bit with a pleasing creamy texture and it’s a surprising change from the regular iftar staple. My father in law especially loved these.

Before I introduce the recipe, I have to tell you about the Cool Whip trick.

The Cool Whip Trick: I’m sorry to say that I learned this trick from Sandra Lee, the terrifyingly annoying Stepford Wife Food Network TV Show host - but it’s an amazing trick. Giving credit where credit is due. Into 8 oz (one small container of Cool Whip) pour in two to three capfuls of vanilla extract and fold it in gently, taking care not to break the Cool Whip. Taste it - doesn’t it taste like you stood there and whipped some heavy whipping cream into soft peaks and softly folded in some sugar and vanilla? Use this wherever you’d use whipping cream - there’s no plasticy-artificial flavor that Cool Whip can sometimes get.

8 oz Cool Whip, defrosted
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/3 to 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, toasted
Medjool dates (the big fat ones)

Pitting the dates - Using a sharp knife, make a lengthwise incision in a date. Don’t cut all the way through - you might actually be able to feel the pit as you cut. The date will quite obligingly split open. Remove the pit with your fingers and kind of open the date, making sure you don’t split it from the back.

Mix the Cool Whip with the vanilla and fold in some toasted chopped walnuts. (I used about 1/4 cup for half a Cool Whip container).

Fill it into a plastic ziptop bag and snip off the top. (fold the top down about 1 or 2 inches, then scoop in the cream. Fold the top back up and zip closed - see? no mess! Push all the cream to one corner of the bag. Snip off a very little bit from the tip and hold the cone gently in your cupped palm).

Take the pitted, split date in one hand and very gently squeeze some Cool Whip mixture into each (it only needs about a teaspoon).

Refrigerate until iftar time! You can make these an hour or so ahead of serving.

I. Love. This. Dessert. I love it. I asked my mom to show me how to make it this weekend - and here it is! This is a Pakistani version of bread pudding made with sandwich bread instead of chunks of a more airy loaf. There are two keys to this dish: golden brown, crispy toast that soak up the sweet saffron-cardamom cream. The toasts are then served in a little pool of saffron cream, sprinkled with bright green pistachios.

Shahi Tukray literally translated, means “Royal pieces.” Shahi comes from the Persian word Shah, king. When it’s used to describe something - food, a monument, some land - it designates that this is something of the Mughal era (or at least something hoping to be associated as such!) As it relates to food, Shahi foods are rich, made with a lot of sugar, cream, meat, and butter to evoke the wealth of the kings. Examples: Shahi Haleem, a rich meat and lentil stew; Shahi Nehari, another rich and luscious meat stew, Shahi Pilau, a sweet-savory rice dish where rice is cooked in broth, then mixed with shredded carrots and plump raisins - sometimes a quarter to a half of it is removed and sweetened with sugar before being mixed back into the savory rice.

Shahi Tukray are no exception to the norm of richness. I crispen the toasts under the broiler, but the old way was to fry each one in butter on both sides. There’s a lot of cream, butter, and zaafran (saffron - which isn’t as rare in Pakistan as it is here, because it’s farmed in Kashmir, but it’s not cheap, either). You can use more or less milk, depending on how much saffron cream you want with each serving. I like quite a bit, so I usually use more milk or cream than other people. Toast, in urdu, is called “Double Roti” - Double Bread. Thus, this dish is also known, colloquially, as “Double ka Meetha” - Toast dessert.

Side note - Do you know why saffron is so expensive? Because saffron threads are actually the dried stigma of a very specific kind of crocus flower which is native to Southeast Asia. The stigmas have to be handpicked out, and each flower produces only three. If I was doing that, I’d make it the most expensive spice in the world too.

Click for the recipe and lots more pretty pictures!
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