Quince Dessert

I am excited to share this recipe. I was waiting for a long time to try it out, but it is not easy to find quince in US. Finally I found them in Middle Eastern farmers market.

Ingredients

• 4 Quinces
• 1 1/2 cups of sugar
• 2 cups of water
• Turkish clotted cream or whipped cream
• Cloves (optional)
• Couple drops of lemon juice

Preparation

Peel quines and cut them in half, don't throw away the seeds.Take a large bowl, put some cold water and lemon juice, keep the quinces in this bowl about 15 minutes. Then take a medium pot and lay quinces at the bottom, add the seeds (this gives them red color), 2 cups of water and spread sugar on top of the quinces. You can add cloves at also if you want.

Cook it on medium heat until it boils, then lower the heat and simmer it about 2 hours until quinces get soft and red. 

It is best served with Turkish clotted cream. You can find the recipe for that here Turkish Clotted Cream. But if it is too much trouble, you can use ice cream or whipped cream as well. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Cheesecake

I wanted to try pumpkin cheesecake for long time and finally gave it a shot. In the meantime, I was curious about this delicious dessert's history and made a little research. 

Cheesecake has a long history to Ancient Greeks to Romans who named it 'Placenta' in 1st century A.D. Then it spread to Great Britain and Western Europe around 1000 A.D and US around 20th century. 

Ingredients

For the Crust

• 2 cups of crumbled crackers or oat cookies
• 1 stick (4 oz) unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon

For the Filling

• 1 egg
• 2 packs of cream cheese (16 oz)
• 1/2 cup of sour cream
• 1/3 cup of whipping cream
• 1 cup of mashed pumpkins
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon flour or corn/wheat starch
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preparation

To make the crust I prefer to buy oat cookies and crumble them myself, but you may use crumbled crackers. Take a large bowl and mix crumbs, melted butter, sugar and cinnamon.

After mixing well, spread it on your baking pan, press really hard so it sticks to the pan. Then put it in the freezer and wait one hour.

To make mashed pumpkins, you can boil or roast it, then mash. You need 1/4 of a pumpkin approximately. In the mean time, take a large bowl and start beating eggs and sugar (I used brown sugar), then add whipping cream and continue beating.Add cream cheese, after it mixed well add sour cream first, then mashed pumpkins, lastly add vanilla extract, lemon juice, flour (I used flour because I did not have starch, but I recommend to use starch) and all the spices and beat one more time.

Take the base from freezer and add the cream filling. Bake about 15 minutes in 500F  preheated oven, then take it from the oven and lower the temperature to 300 F. Bake at this temperature about 40-45 minutes. Do not take it from the oven, just turn it off and keep it in the oven about 3 hours. It is better if you keep it in the refrigerator one day and then serve it. Enjoy!