Happy National Cheesecake Day!

Okay, so I'm pretty sure that there are several 'National Cheesecake Days' throughout the year, and who knows what nation we are talking about, really.  But I thought I'd celebrate the day simply because it's a) trending on Twitter and b) The Cheesecake Factory and a few other American restaurant chains seem to be celebrating as though today is THE most important day of the year.

So today I celebrated in my commercial kitchen by making, slicing and delivering two delicious cheesecakes to Buoy's Eatery in Gore Bay, Ontario (that's on Manitoulin Island in Canada, and by the way, it is the largest freshwater island in the world).

I make a mean Bailey's Cheesecake, which has an all-butter shortbread crust, vanilla cheesecake with milk chocolate chunks, and a Bailey's chocolate truffle topping.  Oh so good.  Enjoy with your eyes now....

I also make a Spicy Turtle Cheesecake, with a from-scratch brown sugar cookie crust, milk chocolate cheesecake filling, and a milk chocolate truffle ganache.  Oh, and the whole thing is topped off with organic semi-sweet and milk chocolate chunks, pecans, caramel sauce and cayenne pepper. Oooh that's spicelicious!

So isn't it time to visit Manitoulin Island and Buoy's beautiful waterfront patio restaurant?

Happy #NationalCheesecakeDay to you!

Flourless Chocolate Cupcakes: Maple & Sea Salt with Maple Buttercream

I was making several Flourless Dark Chocolate & Maple Cakes the other day, and found that I had enough batter left for one more cake. But instead, I decided to turn them into flourless cupcakes. I managed to make about 10  cupcakes with the batter from my maple cake recipe (get the recipe by clicking here).

For cupcakes, the only change is to bake them for no more than 20 minutes each.  This will result in a fudgy, delicious cupcake.  And since it is flourless, and mostly made of chocolate, they will not rise.  So I realized that something more than simple chocolate ganache was needed on top to decorate these babies.  They definitely needed some height. So I added a half cup of maple syrup to a vanilla buttercream recipe.  So after adding a layer of ganache (also provided in the maple cake recipe here), I then I topped the whole thing with chunky sea salt. Delicious!

Psst: you can make your gluten-free friends happy with this recipe, and it is so good that no wheat-lovers will complain about it being gluten-free. Happy Baking!