Variations on a Theme–Chiffon Cheesecakes

My grandmother had a good thing a’goin’!

Sometime in the late 1970’s or early 1980’s my grandmother came up with a lemon cheesecake recipe. It was light and fluffy and a bit tangy. She tweaked it into the following:

2 sticks butter
8 oz cream cheese
2 C sugar
2 large cans cream, chilled (Pet or Carnation evaporated milk)
3 small lemon Jell-O
1 1/3 C hot water
Graham Cracker Crust
Mix cream cheese and sugar together. Add the water to the Jell-O and set aside. Add cream cheese and sugar to the Jell-O and whip until blended. Whip the cream one at a time and add to the mixture.
Stir all together and pour into crust.
Chill, covered with foil, in the refrigerator.

That recipe leaves out a good bit of information. Like that this recipe fills a 12″ x 18″ pan. Or that if the evaporated milk isn’t very very very cold, it hardly whips. Or that it takes a box of graham cracker crumbs to make a crust that large. This is frequently the way with vintage recipes – not everything is written down.

I’ve tweaked and updated the recipe and morphed it into the following versions – with, I think, easy to follow directions. There are future plans for a chocolate version and hopes for a blueberry version.

Lemon Chiffon Cheesecake

Lime Chiffon Cheesecake

Orange Creamsicle Cheesecake

Whipped Cream made from Evaporated Milk

 

 

Evaporated Milk Whipped Cream

Can you whip evaporated milk? You betcha!

Whipping evaporated milk seems to fail for many of my online brethren. Reports of sweetened soupy cream abound. There are two things going on here.

I think it is mostly a temperature thing. Just like regular whipping cream needs to be cold, so does evaporated milk, only more so. You really have to refrigerate the evaporated milk. It has to be cold. Put it in the coldest part of your refrigerator and let it stay there overnight. Put your mixing bowl and beaters right beside it. Yes. Really. Overnight.

The second difference between whipping evaporated milk and regular whipping cream? Fat. Whipping cream is approaching 40% fat, whereas evaporated milk is only about 7%. It takes all that fat to emulsify into a stiff whipped cream. Whipped cream made from evaporated milk will never be as stable as whipped cream made from heavy whipping cream.

You can take a look at the following video for evidence that this really can work. Notice that the splash ring on my [easyazon-link asin=”B0016KU16G” locale=”us”]Bosch mixer[/easyazon-link] has condensation on it from it having been in the ‘fridge overnight.

Also check out my chiffon cheesecake recipes for my primary use for this whipped cream:

Lemon Chiffon Cheesecake
Lime Chiffon Cheesecake
Orange Dreamsicle Cheesecake

 

Vi’s Famous Fruit-Butter Duckie Muffins

Grandmaduck_l_tns2 cups flour
a small glub of blackstrap molasses mixed with 1 cup granulated sugar
OR a 1 cup mix of granulated sugar and dark brown sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 cup chopped nuts
1 cup apple butter or pear or peach butter or even pumpkin butter
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup milk or buttermilk
2 eggs or 1 duck egg

Preheat oven to 400 F.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, brown sugar, granulated sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ground cloves, ground ginger and walnuts. In another bowl combine the apple butter, oil, milk, and eggs and mix well. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and combine just until moistened.

Grease muffin cups.

Bake at 400 degrees F. for 18-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 4-5 minutes then remove to a rack to cool.

We use either cream cheese or melted butter inside.

You can also ice them or glaze them.

Submitted by Miss Vi, and Cleo, Phoebe and Lillianna

Linda Liebig’s Portuguese Sweet Bread

2 pck active dry yeast
1/4 c warm water
1 c lukewarm milk
3/4 c sugar
1 t salt
3 eggs
1/2 c margarine softened
5.5 – 6 c all purpose flour
1 egg
1 t sugar

Dissolve yeast in warm water in large bowl. Stir in milk, sugar, salt, 3 eggs, margarine, and 3 cups flour. Beat until smooth. Stir in enough remaining flour to make dough easy to handle. Turn dough onto lightly floured surface. Knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes.

Place in creased bowl. turn greased side up. Cover. Let rise in warm place until double 1.5 – 2 hours. Dough is ready if indentations remain when touched.

Punch down. Divide in half. Shape into rounded flat loaves. Place each loaf in greased round layer cake pan. cover and let rise until double in size. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Brush with slightly beaten egg and dust with sugar. Bake until loaves are golden brown, 35-45 minutes.