Cheesecake in a bowl

 Sniffles no more! I'm feeling better so it's time to bake. Thinking about what to bake for hubby's birthday earlier this week, I looked through my recipe book and found the notecard my friend had written for me a few years ago and I thought, "hmmm cheesecake, why not?"

This is the original recipe:

crust: (break crackers until you get crumbs then mix ingredients and press into cheesecake pan and refrigerate for 45 min)
10 graham crackers
1/2 cup melted butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
Filling:
2 large boxes (8 ounces) cream cheese
1/2 cup of white sugar
2 eggs (one at a time)
Mix at medium speed with electric mixer then pour into crust and bake 25 minutes at 375F. cool for 1 hour
Topping:
1 large package of sour cream
4 TBSP white sugar
2 tsp vanilla
Pour mixture on cheesecake and bake for 7 minutes at 375F then cool and refrigerate overnight.

Now for my version of the recipe. 

I will call it Croatian Lemon Cheesecake in a bowl.

Crust:
10 of these petit butter cookies crumbled with my mortal and pestle, add 100gm of melted butter, then 2 Tablespoonful sugar and 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon.

Mix and press into 4 oven safe bowls and put in refrigerator for 30 minutes.



Filling: 


600grams (3 containers of abc krem sir) cream cheese

10 tablespoonful of white sugar  (**reduce to about ~5 Tablespoonful of sugar, because it turned out too sweet**)

 add one egg, mix, then add second egg.

Bake at 180 Celsius for 30 minutes.



( I don't have an electric mixer, so I used a whisk)

cool for 1 hour

Topping:
400gm of kiselo vrhnje (sour cream)
2 tablespoonful of white sugar
2 teaspoonful vanilla
zest of one small lemon

mix and add to cheesecake.bake for 7 minutes at 180Celsius.

Cool and refrigerate overnight.

I know the recipe says to cool overnight but both hubby and I couldn't resist our curiosity of how it turned out so we shared one bowl. I think I added too much sugar because it was too sweet. It did taste like 'real' cheesecake although the consistency was crumbly. Adding lemon zest was a good choice. It may look a bit plain, but I guess it can be garnished with fresh fruit. I 'm thinking blueberries, strawberries or even blackberries?

A French-Croatian Lemon Cake

This past Saturday we had lunch at my husband's parents home and I wanted to prepare a dessert for them and I remembered I had a recipe from my friend Nelly. She prepared it for our class a few weeks ago and was kind enough to share her French yogurt cake recipe.

After I took it out of the oven I sprinkled some vanilla sugar for decor.

I call this my first French-Croatian home-made lemon yogurt cake (what a mouthful of a name right?)

It turned out fantastic: moist and not too sweet (I was worried with 3 cups of sugar!) plus I was able to use my hand-picked lemons! The lemon zest gave it a kick. My family enjoyed it with a cup of coffee but you can also enjoy it with a warm cup of tea, or a glass of milk.

And just like my friend, I too will share the recipe with you.

1 cup yogurt (plain or vanilla flavored)

3 eggs

1 cup oil (I used sunflower oil because corn oil is not available here, although I could have used olive oil but that would not have gone well with this cake)

3 cups sugar

1 teaspoonful vanilla extract

4 cups flour

1& 1/2 teaspoonful of baking powder

1 teaspoonful of rum-aroma

grated lemon zest (1 large lemon)

1 packet of vanilla sugar (A Croatian product, but you can easily substitute and mix your own) or you can omit it from the recipe.

Sift the flour and baking powder(to make the mix more fluffy) into one bowl. In another bowl, whisk all the other ingredients then combine the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and slowly mix, then pour into a greased loaf pan and bake for 50 minutes at 350 Degrees. Time of baking may vary depending the type of oven you have. I'll advice that you set a timer at 40 minutes and then check to see if it's done (insert a toothpick in the center, if it's clear then it's done otherwise you need to bake it a bit longer).

Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.