Cheese Cake with Candied Figs

The purpose of my blog is to share my experience of food.  I have been selfishly blogging about restaurants and not sharing enough personal food things, so in this blog I will share with you my experience with cheese cake.

I love cheese cake!  I make cheese cake more then any other dessert.  Cheese cake is also the most requested dessert that I make.  My wife's birthday was at the beginning of the month and I wanted to wow her with an amazing cheese cake.  I decided to try the "New York" style, which I have never really done. I usually make a country style or Philadelphia style.  I also wanted to top the cake with something different and I had some inspiration from my meal at Rustica, so I candied some figs.  Most people might not think that there is a difference but I assure you, there is.  What I like about the New York style cheese cake is the lighter, smoother texture and it is sweet but not too rich.  I looked up a couple of recipes and pulled the things I liked most from them. If you have some time, try this recipe. 

Topping:

30 oz Softened Cream Cheese

14 oz Sweetened Condensed Milk

2 tsp Vanilla Extract

2 Eggs

Crust:

I like to use crushed up honey Teddy Grahams for my pie crust. I think they give the perfect flavor and a nice crunchy texture.  I also use a whole box to get a really thick crust.  

1 box Honey Teddy Grahams Crumbed

1/3 c Melted Butter

1/4 c Light Brown Sugar 

• Preheat oven to 325 F.
• Mix crumbed Teddy Grahams, butter, and brown sugar till well mixed and firmly press in to bottom of 9'' spring form pan and bake for 10 minutes.
• In a large mixing bowl, beat cream cheese until fluffy.
• Gradually add sweetened condensed milk beating until smooth.
• Add vanilla and eggs, scraping the bowl between eggs.  Mix well.
• Pour into 9" spring form pan.
• Bake in water bath for 1.5 hours.
• Turn off oven and let pie stand in oven for another hour with the oven door propped open.
• Refrigerate for 4-6 hours before serving.

Usually New York cheese cakes have buttermilk that give it a distinct flavor and texture, but I thought the sweetened condensed milk was a great touch. I believe that made the cake absolutely delicious.  Everything about the cake was perfect. It was smooth on the pallet with a mild richness.   The candied figs were a perfect touch to finish off such a perfect cake.  If you have never had figs give them a try.

  Over the years I have learned not to cheap out when it comes to vanilla. When it comes to cheese cake, a good vanilla can really bring out the full sweetness of the cream cheese.  I always cook my cheese cakes in a water bath. The best thing for this, I find, is my wedding cake set.  I put the 9" spring form inside the 10" cake pan and then put those into the 14" cake pan then fill the 14" pan half full with water.  I also cook my cakes on the bottom rack and cover the top rack with aluminum foil. This way I get an even bake and no excessive browning. 

Give this recipe a try you will not be disappointed!  Everyone who ate it said it was the best desert I have ever made.  My wife was extremely happy with her birthday cake.  This recipe will forever be my go to cheese cake.

 

Poor Richards Cafe

 It's time for another breakfast review.  I do a lot of dinner reviews so I need to mix things up a bit.  Every town has it's little hole in the wall, best breakfast ever, greasy spoon. Fortunately for Kalamazoo, we have Poor Richard's Cafe!  Poor Richard's, to me, is the best breakfast place in town.  Great food, large portions, good service and your food comes out quick.  Every time I eat there I am completely satisfied.

  I usually get the same thing, 6a, which is biscuits and gravy with hash browns and I order a side of sourdough toast.  Poor Richards does things a little different than other breakfast joints. To begin with, when you order hash browns they ask you if you want green peppers and/or onions.  I always get onions in mine and the hash browns are awesome. They are always cooked perfect and actually taste like potatoes and not grease.  If you order bacon you can have it cooked any way you want, even deep fried.  I am addicted to Poor Richards biscuits and gravy, and I order it more then anything else on the menu.  The gravy is made so well that I don't even add any seasoning. It's creamy, heavy, and peppery with a very slight sage finish.

The biscuits are what I would call country style. They are fluffy and buttery, not too flaky, and not too airy.  If you're in the mood for something sweet, I suggest their cinnamon roll which is the size of a large plate. It is best served warm with butter drizzled over the top, but make sure you have a group of people or a large appetite.  Poor Richards Cafe is the working man's breakfast place, but on any given morning the place is packed with day laborers, business men, church folk, college kids, doctors and bikers.  This place is so good that when family from out of town visit, they want to go to Poor Richards first.  I highly, highly recommend Poor Richards.

Rustica

Rustica, Rustic European Cuisine.  I think Rustica can be summed up in one simple but meaningful word, wow! This one quaint elementary word speaks at epic volume for this place.  Service, atmosphere, menu, drinks and food, just wow.  The decor is simple but elegant with a calm and clean atmosphere.  The drink menu is put together very well with an excellent beer list and a wine list that has been put together by a true connoisseur.  The wait staff is very well trained and very knowledgeable about the menu.  I usually try to stick to just food with my blog but Rustica is more then just their amazing food, everything has been put together so well that your whole dining experience is elevated to a level that doesn't exist anywhere else in Kalamazoo.  We have some great eateries in Kalamazoo, but the true definition of gastronomy is written on every inch of Rustica.

My wife and I started our meal off with Rusticas charcuterie plate of beautifully arranged artisan cured meats, grilled bread, pickled veggies and their house made mustard. Everything on the plate was great which makes it hard to say what was best about it. For me, it is a tie between the Italian spec with a bit of candied fig and the head cheese on grilled bread with a smear of mustard.  The main course was the reason wow became the choice word of description for Rustica.  My wife and I both ordered their feature dish. Half of a roast duck with fig and sage sauce paired with a delicata squash risotto.  This dish was divine. Finally someone in Kalamazoo who has a roast duck dish.  The duck could not have been cooked any better. The temperature was perfect, the skin was slightly crispy and seasoned to perfection and the fig and sage sauce had just the right amount of savory to sweet balance.  Risotto will always be great dish whether as an entrée or as a side dish, and the delicata squash risotto was no exception.
Everything about it was beautifully done. The pureed squash gave the risotto a great texture, while delicious cubes of squash broke up the rice dish, making sure that your palate wasn't boring.  The dish was very well put together and it was also very well planned out for the time of year.It is a very comforting and warm dish for an early fall evening.  Every bite literally made me say wow.  I was incredibly happy with me experience at Rustica and I strongly suggest that if you, the reader, enjoy great food paired with a great dining experience, Rustica is the place to be.  Rustica, wow.
http://www.rusticakzoo.com/index.htm

Robby's Cafe

Portage has a new cafe! Located at the Shoppes of Romance Village.  I love little diners and cafes, and our little town needed more.  I tried Robby's breakfast menu.  I was a little surprised to see some of the options that were offered like Gyro omelet and crepes.  Robby's gourmet pancake menu was ample with options, I tried their malted pancakes which came as a side to my eggs Benedict.  I have always believed that a breakfast joint can only be great if they have good eggs Benedict and good biscuits and gravy, so when I try a new breakfast place that's the first thing I try.  Like I said before, I ordered eggs Benedict with a side of malted pancakes, a half order of biscuits and gravy and pork sausage links.  I also ordered blueberry crepes for my daughter which came as three crepes filled and topped with a blueberry relish. I say relish because they weren't fresh blueberries or a blueberry sauce, but kind of a chunky blueberry gelatin or a jam.   The

crepes were a little thick and a bit on the bland side, but the blueberry relish filled in where the crepes themselves were lacking in flavor.  My daughter seemed to like them just fine, but I thought they could have used more butter, it is a French dish after all.  I wouldn't order the crepes on a regular basis but I do want to try their cherry crepes, so I will give them another chance.  The eggs Benedict was great. The English muffin was not tough at all, which seems to be a reoccurring problem at breakfast joints. The ham was thinly sliced and had great flavor. The eggs where not poached but still cooked perfectly with a nice runny yoke and tender whites. The hollandaise sauce was good and I hope it was made in house, otherwise I need to tell GFS "Good job!" on their hollandaise.  The potatoes served on the side where under seasoned but not a big deal, they were kind enough to put salt and pepper on the table.  The malted pancakes

that I got on the side didn't have enough malt flavor but were cooked perfectly.  The biscuits and gravy had a great creaminess and a good flavor with a little bit of a sweetness on the finish with plenty of crumbled sausage. The biscuits were nothing too special and neither were the sausage links.
Overall, I would say that with a little work, Robby's could be a main stay cafe in Portage. I am willing to try them again, because they have a lot of potential.  I definitely want to try their lunch and dinner menu and when I do, it will be blogged.

Pizza!

Pizza is a hard thing to blog about.  Everybody has a difference of opinion on what kind of pizza is better.  Bringing up the pizza argument in some circles is equal to bringing up politics or religion, I have been in some pretty heated conversations involving pizza.  The pizza pie squabble isn't limited to New York style or Chicago style anymore, now a days you have to be ready to defend your choice against gourmet, California style and even in some unfortunate circumstances "fast food" pizza.  I, myself am more of a pizza traditionalist, East Coast style all the way.  Chicago style is good but it's not pizza in the traditional sense, but if I am ever in the mood for a pizza casserole I will go the way of Chicago style.  I'm not much for gourmet pizza either. Some people use too much seasoning, although Erbelli's makes an awesome pizza. When it comes to gourmet pizza they got it right. I always go for a hand tossed pizza with capicola, pepperoni and feta.  Erbelli's pizza sauce is awesome and it has a good black pepper taste with garlic and a nice basil and oregano finish.   The thing I really can't stand about gourmet pizza is white sauce. Why people put white sauce on some dough and call it pizza I will never know.  California Style pizza, to me, some what falls into the same category as gourmet pizza but in the last ten years or so has really put itself in a league of it's own. However, I still don't think BBQ chicken pizza is pizza.  I refuse to delve in to the "fast food" pizza department. I hope you understand.

Kalamazoo, just like any other city, has a ton of pizza joints and I have had most of them.  There are a few that I frequent. Pizza King and Big Joe's are the most similar to the east coast style and I have always had a hard time deciding who is the best between the two.  I have no problem saying that Big Joe's  and Pizza King have the best pizza in town.  Big Joe's sauce is awesome. It's very traditional and does not over power the rest of the ingredients at all, leaving plenty of room for the flavor of the fresh mozzarella and great toppings to shine through.  Their dough is cooked perfectly every time with a good crispy but chewy texture, not too thin but not too thick, and easy to fold the way it should be.  Big Joe's isn't afraid to have bubbles in their pizza unlike pretty much every other place in town.  There is nothing wrong with a bubble or two on your pizza.  Pizza King also has a great dough that they cover with a great sauce.  Their sauce has a wonderful sweetness to it. Someone really thought about the seasonings enough to let the real flavor of the tomato stand tall on your pallet.  Pizza Kings toppings are pretty unique. Not that they put weird stuff on their pizzas, just unique in how they prep their toppings.  Pizza King uses actual strips of bacon and not chunks. They also dice all of their veggies.  Pizza King only does pizza, and nothing else. They don't even make bread sticks, just pizza. They have been doing it a long time and it shows.   One of the things I love most about Big Joe's and Pizza King is that they have not fallen the way of the conveyor pizza oven, which means the chefs actually have to have some skill when it comes to cooking pizza.  Anyone can put a pizza on a belt and let the machine do all the work.  I could give you my thoughts on other pizza proprietors around town but it would take forever and this blog would be a novel. Even though their are other good pizza joints in Kalamazoo, there are a lot of sub par places as well and the point of this blog is not to talk bad about businesses, but to give people an idea of where they should go.  The pizza dispute will always boil down to regional taste buds. No region will ever be right.
http://www.erbellis.com/menu/fresh-wraps
http://www.bigjoeskalamazoo.com/

Wedding Cake

I made my first wedding cake this week and it was more of a pain than I thought it would be.  Actually it was stressful.  Cake, fillings, frosting, fondant, stand and decorations, a lot of work.  I am really glad I agreed to make it though.  The experience was well worth it.  I made a three tier cake. Baking a 14 in. round has a bit of a learning curve. That bottom tier was the most work of the whole cake. It was a 14 in. chocolate with
 French vanilla chocolate chip custard and a super sweet vanilla butter cream frosting.  The chocolate cake recipe I use is a little harder to make than a traditional recipe, it's almost like a brownie cake hybrid.  The cake turned out awesome, dense but not too dense with a bitter but sweet cocoa flavor. It took six hours to bake but the outcome was worth it.  The cake has a great texture and it holds fillings perfect.  The filling I made was

a French vanilla custard with a hint of nutmeg and semi sweet chocolate chips.  Then I finished the tier off with a sweet sugary white butter cream frosting and ivory marshmallow fondant.  The top two tiers one of which was a 10 in. and the other was a 6 in..  Both tiers where identical, very dense yellow cake and the best yellow cake recipe I have ever come across.  When you eat a slice of my yellow cake it brings up memories of being a kid at birthday parties and it even has a slight butter milk pancake taste.  It's absolutely wonderful.  I filled the tiers with chocolate butter cream and fresh raspberry crush.  I decorated the cake with a 3D cherry blossom tree and pink flowers.  I had to buy flowers. I haven't quite gotten the hang of making good flowers.  Over all I think the cake turned out great and I hope the bride and groom enjoyed it on their very special day.

Mitchell's Fish Market

My wife and her parents took me out to dinner for my birthday.  It was a wonderful night, my in-laws are a lot of fun to go out with .  We drove up to Mitchell's Fish Market in Lansing, I know it's not a restaurant in Kalamazoo, but  Mitchell's is blog worthy for sure.  There aren't too many chain restaurants that I am willing to blog about but Mitchell's Fish Market is for sure a fantastic sea food place. I have had my fare share of fresh sea food, and shrimp is my favorite food of all time. Lobster, crab, mussels and scallops round out my top five.  This place has some really nice fresh sea food. You get an eye full of their fish fillets when
 you walk in, everything from Yellow Fin Tuna to Atlantic Cod.  They had a small but good looking oyster bar, and if I had the time I could spend all day putting `em back at that bar!  I started with lobster bisque. I can never pass up lobster bisque.  The bisque was smooth like velvet with a delicate balance of tomato, cream and a slight cheesiness.  The little bits of lobster were a nice touch.  I hope they don't buy their bisque pre-made, I would feel like a fake foodie if so.   For my entrée which was a real hard decision I went with the jumbo lump crab cake and broiled shrimp.  The crab cake was good. Because I'm from the East Coast I am picky about seafood, but the crab cake impressed me.  I'm pretty sure it was blue crab. There were good sized lumps of crab with pretty much no filler. There was a nice brininess with a slight sweetness from what I assume is dry mustard bringing out the full flavor of the crab.  The garlic broiled shrimp was cooked absolutely perfect, tender with a snap, the way shrimp should be. Too many people over cook and over season their shrimp. Mitchell's chef's know what they are doing.  The dish came with a sweet corn sauté which was basically a corn salsa. It was a nice compliment and added a little acid to the sweetness of the seafood.  I finished with a triple chocolate mousse cake which was obviously not made in house, but was still good, like a big slice of chocolate truffle.  I have been to Mitchell's Fish Market twice and both times I loved what I got. It's nice having a seafood place in southwest Michigan even if it's an hour away.  So far, it has been worth the trip.