The change in the temperature into rainy, monsoon season has spelt a season of increased pain for me. It's been ridiculously difficult to do anything without pain and it's a whole new experience learning to work around this.
Like how do you eat if you cannot use chopsticks anymore or grip a knife? Chasing food around with a spoon is amusing for the first 5 minutes, after which it just becomes pathetic. And I would laugh at how I keep missing my mouth when trying to eat, except I am too hungry and frustrated. But enough of the whinging ... perhaps, because of my increased disability, the craving to do becomes greater. Just do. Anything.
Unfortunately, the "do" seems to be baking recently. What would normally take 2-3 hours becomes a whole day event for me now. And after that, it takes me about 1-2 weeks to recover from the exertion. Which is why I did not post as much recently.
The cause? Oreos.
A friend had brought over some Oreos, which I really appreciated since I was developing a severe sweets craving and no one had thought to bring me any, and I was loathed to ask for fear of seeming ungrateful. Also, I had forgotten what a comfort food Oreos are. Especially with a cold glass of milk. The only thing better is mac n cheese but you don't have to cook Oreos or milk!
So, there I was chomping on my Oreos when I suddenly wondered if I should make some Oreos cupcake. I surfed the Web for a painless recipe and came across this recipe from Handle the Heat. When I realised it was originally a Martha Stewart recipe, I was almost surprised since it is remarkably simple from the Queen of Let's Complicate and Patronise Things.
I got to hand it to Martha though, she recognises a good recipe when she sees it and claims it as her own ... this is a fabulous recipe. And I am not even a fan of cookies and cream ice cream or dough normally. I am now a convert but perhaps it is only applicable if the cookies used are Oreos. I might test this out one of these days and replicate using another type of cookies and see if I am still a convert.
Anyway, I made this in pretty short time, which was amazing since I was in some pain that day. The most painful and time-consuming part was the creaming of the cream cheese. Everything else was easy peasy.
Unlike most everyone who made this recipe, I did not use paper muffin cups because of the "cute" Oreos imprint at the bottom. I was more concerned about the taste and was not fussed. Also, I wanted to have an easy washing-up so I turned to my trusty silicon muffin cups.
Oh, I reduced the ingredient enough to make 6 cheesecupcakes (I so dub them ... heh!) since it's just for me. And also because I just so happen to have only 6 silicon muffin cups. LOL.
Oreos Cheesecupcakes
9 Oreos
1/2 lb cream cheese
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla essence
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup sour cream (I made this by adding about 1 tsp of vinegar to whipping cream and leaving it for about 5-8 mins to thicken but if you have the real thing go for it)
1 pinch of salt
1. Preheat your oven to 180/190 deg Celsius. As mentioned before, mine thinks it's Linda Blair so I had to twiddle between the two temperatures
2. Beat the cream cheese till smooth - boy, this nearly killed me as I did this by hand since my mixer is kaput
3. Add the sugar gradually, continuing to whisk, then add the vanilla essence
4. Add the sour cream and mix well together
5. Chop 3 Oreos up. I chopped mine into chunky bits but you can make them a little finer, just not into "dirt" since that would be such a waste of Oreos!
6. Place an Oreo at the bottom of the muffin cup. If you are using paper muffin cups for the imprint effect, go check out Handle the Heat or Martha Stewart's website for the instructions. It's dead simple.
7. Spoon the batter into the muffin cups till almost full. Mine were pretty damn full
8. Bake and rotate the tin around midway so they can bake evenly, for 25 minutes or so. Again, check around the 20-min mark on the doneness. If the centre is wobbling madly, you are going to need to go another 5 minutes. If it jiggles only a little, you are done
9. Cool on the rack (ouch), then refrigerate to firm it up. I refrigerated mine for about 2 hours before I caved and had one. The rest I kept in an airtight container in the cups to maintain the shape. I think if you are using the paper muffins, you might need to refrigerate them in the muffin cup tin. Again, another benefit of silicon cups.
So there you have it. A cheesecupcake so easy even a partial cripple can make it.
And it is delicious. Wonderfully smooth and rich yet not cloying. This is one cheesecupcake I will be making again. And again.
No pictures as I was in too much pain at the end.
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