Peanut Butter and Chocolate Cheesecake Cupcakes

With as many cheesecake recipes as I have been making lately, it would seem that cheesecake is my favorite dessert. Until I made these heavenly cupcakes, I would have told you otherwise. These may be my new favorite dessert. The combination of the peanut butter and chocolate in a cheesecake is heavenly. It is like a creamy peanut butter cup but better.

I have been dreaming of making a peanut butter and chocolate cheesecake for about a month. I hosted a baby shower for one of my closest friends and thought this was the perfect opportunity to try them out. She is as big of a peanut butter and chocolate fan as I am. This time I wanted to try a different cheesecake batter than my Chocolate Cherry Swirl and Blueberry Swirl Cheesecake Cupcakes. I got this recipe from Simply In Season, it is a "lower-fat" recipe because it uses low-fat cottage cheese as a bulk of the batter. It may seem a bit strange to use cottage cheese but you won't be disappointed. It makes a lighter creamier flavor, unlike cheesecake that just uses cream cheese.

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Cheesecake Cupcakes

Makes Approx 27 Cupcakes

2 1/2 cups of Graham Crackers
3 Tbs Brown Sugar
3 Tbs Canola Oil
3 cups Low-Fat Cottage Cheese, at room temperature
12 oz  Cream Cheese, at room temperature
1 1/4 cups Sugar
1/4 cup Corn Starch
2 Eggs, beaten
2 tsp Vanilla
1/4 tsp Salt
1 cup Peanut Butter, preferably unsweetened
3/4 cup Chocolate Chips, melted
1 Tbs Baking Cocoa


To Make the Crust

• Preheat the oven to 325, set water bath on bottom rack in the oven, and line muffin tin with papers.
• In a food processor, blend the Graham crackers until they are crumbs.
• Add in brown sugar and oil. 
• Drizzle in a little bit of water. (The mixture should be wet, but crumbly).
• Scoop 1 Tbs of the Graham Cracker Crust in each paper and evenly press down into each paper.
• Set aside.

To Make the Filling

• In a food processor, puree the cottage cheese. 
• Add in the cream cheese, sugar, and corn starch, beat until smooth. 
• Pour into a large bowl and add in eggs and vanilla, stir until well mixed.
• Remove 1 cup of the filling, set aside. 
• In a medium bowl, using electric mixer on low, beat the peanut butter until light and smooth. 
• Stir into the large bowl of the filling until well combined.
• Dollop a large spoonful of peanut butter filling into each of the prepared cups. 

To Make the Chocolate Swirl

•  Mix the remaining batter with the melted chocolate chips and the cocoa powder. 

To Make the Cupcakes

• Using a large spoon dollop the peanut butter batter into each cupcake paper. Don't do it all the way to the top since you will be adding more with the chocolate.
• Drop about a tsp full of the chocolate batter into each cupcake. (I used a syringe to make 4-5 drops of the chocolate batter). If the chocolate batter starts to thicken (or starts out too thick), add some water to it. Use a couple drops at a time as to not make it too runny. The more the batter sits, the harder it will become since the chocolate starts hardening.
• Use a toothpick to swirl together. 

  To Bake

• Put the cupcakes in the oven on the rack above the water. Bake for 22 minutes, rotating tray half way through. 
• Turn off the oven and open the oven door and leave the cupcakes in for another 15 minutes. 
• Remove and set on a cooling rack for another 15 minutes. 
• Refrigerate for 4 hours prior to serving.

I have been blogging now for five months! I can't believe how fast the time has past. My cooking has grown leaps and bounds since my first post, hopefully my writing and my pictures taking skills have developed also. I have been cooking for my family now for about seven years, but I feel I have grown more over the last few months then the previous years (not counting the very beginning). I am more comfortable taking risks and coming up with different ideas. I can't wait to see what the next five months and beyond will bring!

I hope you have enjoyed my blog so far. If this recipe or any other looks tasty to you, I'd love to hear your feedback.

Garlic Rosemary Potatoes

I am a little late posting  these potatoes, since they are one of my signature dishes for Passover. Because this is just a recipe for roasted potatoes, it can be eaten during Passover or any other time of the year. I really like these potatoes, you really can't go wrong when you mix garlic and rosemary together.

Garlic Rosemary Potatoes

2 lbs Fingerling Potatoes
1/4 cup Garlic, minced
1 1/2 Tbs Fresh Rosemary, chopped
1/4 tsp Kosher Salt
1/2 tsp Pepper
1/4 cup Olive Oil

• Preheat oven to 375. 
• Place rinsed potatoes in a large bowl.
• In a small bowl, mix the remaining ingredients.
• Pour the garlic-rosemary mixture over the potatoes until the potatoes are completely coated. 
• Spread the potatoes on a baking sheet. 
• Cook from 25-45 minutes (depending on the size of the potatoes). 
• Serve warm. 

The fingerling potatoes I used were mixed colors. My son really liked the purple ones! If you don't have fingerling potatoes at your grocery store you can use the baby bliss red potatoes. Those are what I had always used in the past, but I thought I would try something different.

Potatoes washed and ready.

Look at all that garlic. Yum!

Make sure to spread the potatoes out on the baking sheet.

Ready to serve!

I appreciate all your comments and feedback. Also, if you have any questions I would love those as well. 

Potato Chips-In Your Microwave!

Passover seems to be the holiday of matzoh, eggs and potatoes in my house. We always get a bag of potato chips to eat, which we have in the house one time a year. It usually goes really fast since it is a once a year treat. So we ran out of potato chips today and my son and I were both wanting to eat more. I remembered I had cut out a recipe for microwave potato chips from an old Eating Well magazine. I had some left over baby bliss potatoes, they were a bit smaller than the potatoes suggested, but they worked out fine with the recipe.

Potato Chips

1 1/3 lb Potatoes (Yukon Gold or Red Potatoes)
2 tsp Olive Oil
1/4 tsp Salt

• Slice Potatoes to about 1/8-1/16 in thick 
• In a medium bowl, toss potato slices with the oil and salt.
• Arrange slices on a microwave safe plate. Be careful to have not have any of the slices over lapping. 
• Microwave 2-7 minutes, when some of the potatoes start to get bubbled and brown spots flip over and microwave from 2-5 minutes. 
• Some of the potatoes will get crispy in the microwave, some will get crispy after being out of the microwave for a couple minutes. If neither happens, put back in the microwave for 1-2 minutes. 
• Repeat with all the potatoes until they are all done. 3-4 batches. 

Notes: I used my food processor with an attachment to make my potato slices. It was 4mm or 1/16 inches. The recipe said between 2-3 minutes on each side. I found that it took a lot longer than the recipe said. Make sure you check often, the time depends on your microwave, how many potatoes you have on the plate, and how thin you get the potatoes. This should yield 3-4 servings.

Potatoes tossed with olive oil and salt.

Potatoes arranged on a microwave safe plate.

This is how they should look before you flip them over.

Ready to enjoy!

I was amazed, these looked and tasted like potato chips you buy at the store. The bonus is that they are healthier because they are not fried in oil. My favorite type of potato chips are salt and vinegar, I can't wait to try those next.

What are your favorite type potato chip?

I was surprised I could use my microwave to make potato chips. Do you have any microwave tricks?

Chocolate Macaroons

It has been a crazy week! On top of getting everything ready for Passover, I decided to purchase my blog address. It was the right move and a very exciting step in my blogging, but it has created headache after headache. For three days I couldn't figure out how to get access to my blog. It sent me into a bit of a funk, so I didn't even take pictures of most of the dishes I prepared for my Passover Seder. I did however take picture of these macaroons that I made. I am glad I did, because they disappeared so fast that they were definitely worth posting. 

For those of you who are not familiar with Passover, there are many traditions and customs involved, lots of food and wine. The difference about Passover food, is other that special Passover Matzoh, Matzoh Meal and Matzoh Cake Flour, you can't use any other wheat or grain for cooking. So no barley, spelt, rice, and corn. You also can't use any leavening agents, so no yeast, baking soda, baking powder or cream of tartar. That is for eight days so you have to get creative with cooking.

Macaroons are one of the traditional cookies that are made during passover, there are a variety of different flavors that come in round tins and are very tasty. I always buy a couple of cans every year. By the time I got to the store to do my passover shopping the shelves were a bit cleared out and the only flavor available was almond. I love the chocolate macaroons and I thought I could make them myself. I stumbled upon a recipe on Oh! You Cook!'s blog for plain coconut macaroons, it seemed easy enough to use this as a base to make chocolate macaroons. 

Chocolate Macaroons

1 1/3 cup Shredded Unsweetened Coconut
1/3 cup Sugar
2 Tbs Potato Starch
2 Tbs Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
1/8 tsp Kosher Salt
2 Egg Whites
1/2 tsp Vanilla
1/3 cup Chocolate Chips

• Preheat oven to 325 and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. 
• In a medium bowl mix all the dry ingredients (except the chocolate chips). 
• Add in egg whites and vanilla. Stir until well combined. 
• Fold in chocolate chips. 
• Drop rounded spoonfuls (enough for about two bites per macaroon) of the mixture on the prepared baking sheet.
• Bake between 15-20 minutes, macaroons should be firm on the outside but squishy to the touch at the same time. 
• Cool on baking sheet for about 5 minutes. 

This was the first time I had ever eaten/made fresh macaroons. I don't think I will ever buy another can of them again. I made one batch while I waiting for something to set on another recipe. They were half gone before dinner had even started, so I made another batch. They were all gone today. These little morsels disappeared faster than any other cookie I have made so far. These are really easy and also Gluten-Free.

I am happy that I am now able to post again. It was only a few days but it felt like forever. I still need to figure out how to mesh my blogspot with my new site cookwithaltitude.com. I will save that frustration for another day.

For me, Passover is not complete without macaroons and chocolate covered ring gels. What foods remind you of the holidays?

Tuna Stuffed Peppers

March was a busy month! Full of birthdays and parties. It was a ton of fun, but I am ready for things to slow down a bit in April.  With all the excitement, I have become back logged on recipes. I can't wait to share them all, I found some tasty ones! This recipe comes from EatingWell's website. For my little guy's first birthday we had a family brunch at my house. I was looking for some easy appetizers to make to include with the rest of the dishes I made. These stuffed peppers fit the bill. I've never tried cherry peppers before and I have been missing out! They had really great flavor on their own, but combined with the tuna and the balsamic vinegar they were even better. These are also about 45 calories for two peppers, so you can eat as many as you like without feeling guilty.

Tuna Stuffed Peppers

24 Whole Jarred Mild or Sweet Cherry Peppers, (2 16 oz jars)
6-12 oz can Light Tuna Packed in Water, drained well (1-2 cans)
1 Tbs Lemon Juice
1 Tbs Olive Oil
1 Tbs Capers, rinsed and finely chopped
Salt, to taste
Freshly ground pepper, to taste
1/4 cup Balsamic Vinegar

• Select 24 peppers from the jars. Cut tops off the peppers and scoop out the seeds with a small spoon. Rinse well to remove any seeds that remain in the peppers. Set on the serving tray/dish.
• In a small bowl mix tuna, lemon juice, olive oil, capers, salt and pepper. 
• Fill each pepper with approx 1 tsp of the tuna mixture. 
• In a small sauce pan, bring vinegar to a boil and then simmer until reduced to about 2 tsp, it takes about 3-5 minutes. Drizzle over stuffed peppers. 

This was a very easy and straight forward recipe. Although the recipe called for one can of tuna and I ended up using 2 cans. I will definitely make this again and also try to stuff these tasty little peppers with other fillings as well. The jar suggested to stuff with some goat cheese like chevre and my mom had suggested cream cheese. These both sound amazing, but not as low calorie as the tuna.

Have you ever made stuffed peppers? What have you used as filling?

I love comments! If you are just stopping by and a recipe looks tasty or you have any suggestions, let me know I would love to hear your thoughts!