I made a smoothie with yogurt and fruit (pineapple, strawberry, peaches and honeydew) and then I froze it and froze solid. And I started wondering, “what keeps ice cream from freezing?” So I asked my friend, the internet, and found this article. I was surprised to learn that it’s basically the same things that allow cookies to spread/expand in the oven.
Of course I couldn’t ignore my favorite go-to food scientist, so I looked for and found this video clip of Alton Brown.
Source: lsned.com
Cheesecake Cookies
- White Chocolate, Brown Sugar, & Cinnamon
- Blackberry w/ a Hint of Lemon
- Dates & Wildflower Honey
- Pistachio, Ginger, & Honey
- White Chocolate & Pecan-Pumpkin Spice (No Nuts)
What’s in it? Here’s the basic recipe. Flavor ingredients are to taste; I don’t measure those.
- ½ cup butter, softened
- ¼ to ½ cup vanilla yogurt
- 8 oz. cream cheese (whipped is best)
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 egg, room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup white rice flour
- ½ teaspoon salt
How to make it?
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Combine butter, cream cheese, sugar, yogurt, and vanilla extract. Mix well.
- Add egg. Mix well.
- In a medium bowl, whisk salt into flour.
- Add flour mixture ¼ cup at a time into wet ingredients until just mixed.
- Stir in flavor ingredients
- On a foil-lined or lightly greased baking sheet and using a teaspoon, drop dough on baking sheet about 1 inch apart. This should yield about 3 dozen cookies, but you can make the cookies what ever size you want. The larger the cookie, the longer the baking time.
- With the exception of the Blackberry, all of the sizes above do well with 15 minutes in the oven, on the middle rack.
- The Blackberry is an exception. It was spread over the sheet and baked whole to create cookie bars. Bars should bake for approximately 20 to 22 minutes.
- These are cake-like cookies and can be eaten not too long after cooling or refrigerated and eaten with in a few days.
Enjoy!
Mini Cheesecake
- Pistachio, Ginger, & Honey
- White Chocolate, Cinnamon, & Brown Sugar
- The Everything Cookie - This is what happens to the left over batter and crust. After I told him it was only for the brave of heart, my friend affectionately called it The Death Cookie.
- Cashew crust in the making.
The mini cheesecakes don’t look all that pretty, but the taste garnered rave reviews. And as that’s what really matters.
The cashew crust is made of mostly finely ground cashews, unsalted butter, sugar, white rice flour.
