Recipe Scrapbook Home Bran Buddy / HiFi Buddy Bars Chocolate Peanut Butter Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Prototype 3 Prototype 4 Prototype 5 Prototype 6 Prototype 7 Prototype 8 Chocolate Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Prototype 3 Chocolate Peanut Butter Dream Bars Prototype 1 Chocolate Cherry Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Peanut Butter Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Banana Prototype 1 Fluffernutter Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Prototype 3 Lemon Prototypes 1 & 2 Orange Prototype 1 Pumpkin Prototype 1 (plus Balls variation) HiFi Buddy Balls Orange Prototype 1 Chocolate Prototype 1 (plus Orange-Chocolate variation) Prototype 2 Peanut Butter Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Chocolate Peanut Butter Prototypes 1 & 2 Maple Prototype 1 Eggnog Prototype 1 Pancakes Eggnog Pancake Batter Notes Trader Joe's Mix Latkes Spicy Latkes Matzah Pizza Stack Basic Crust Bran Buds Pie Crust Pies Chilled Eggnog Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Prototype 3 Chilled Pumpkin Eggnog Prototype 1 Key Lime Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Pecan Prototype 1 Eggnog Notes Additional Eggnog Notes Cheesecakes Chocolate Prototype 10.1 Prototype 10.2 Prototype 10.3 Prototype 10.4 Prototype 10.5 Prototype 11 Prototype 12 Prototype 13 Prototype 14 Prototype 15 Prototype 16 Prototype 17 Prototype 18 Prototype 19 Prototype 20 Prototype 21 Prototype 22 Prototype 23 Prototype 24 Prototype 25 Eggnog Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Prototype 3 Prototype 4 Prototype 5 Prototype 6 Prototype 7 Prototype 8 Prototype 9 Prototype 10 Prototype 11 Prototype 12 Prototype 13 Prototype 14 Prototype 15 Prototype 16 Prototype 17 Prototype 18 Prototype 19 Prototype 20 Prototype 21 Prototype 22 Prototype 23 Prototype 24 Prototype 25 Prototype 26 Prototype 27 Prototype 28 Prototype 29 Prototype 30 Prototype 31 Prototype 32 Prototype 33 Peanut Butter Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Prototype 3 Prototype 4 Prototype 5 Maple Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Prototype 3 Prototype 4 Prototype 5 Prototype 6 Prototype 7 Lemon Prototype 3 Prototype 4 Prototype 5 Prototype 6 Prototype 7 Orange Prototype 3 Prototype 4 Prototype 5 Chocolate Peanut Butter Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Prototype 3 Prototype 4 Prototype 5 Prototype 6 Prototype 7 Prototype 8 Prototype 9 Prototype 10 Banana Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Prototype 3 Prototype 4 Prototype 5 Prototype 6 Pumpkin Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Prototype 3 Prototype 4 Prototype 5 Prototype 6 Prototype 7 Prototype 8 Prototype 9 Prototype 10 Prototype 11 Prototype 12 Plain Prototype 4 Prototype 5 Prototype 6 Prototype 7 Prototype 8 Prototype 9 Prototype 10 Prototype 11 Prototype 12 Prototype 13 Prototype 14 Prototype 15 Prototype 16 Prototype 17 Prototype 18 Prototype 19 Prototype 20 Prototype 21 Prototype 22 Prototype 23 Eggnog Pumpkin Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Prototype 3 Prototype 4 Prototype 5 Prototype 6 Cookies+Creme Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Prototype 3 Prototype 4 Prototype 5 Prototype 6 Prototype 7 Prototype 8 Prototype 9 Prototype 10 Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Prototype 3 Prototype 4 Chocolate Eggnog Prototype 1 Vanilla Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Prototype 3 Prototype 4 Orange Vanilla Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Prototype 3 Chocolate Banana Prototype 1 Prototype 2 S'mores Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Prototype 3 Prototype 4 Prototype 5 Prototype 6 Pumpkin Pecan Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Whoopie Pie Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Pecan Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Marshmallow Prototype 1 Cherry Prototype 6 Prototype 7 Fluffernutter Prototype 1 Dulce De Leche Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Prototype 3 Chocolate Cherry Prototype 3 Strawberry Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Prototype 3 Prototype 4 Prototype 5 Prototype 6 Prototype 7 Prototype 8 Almond Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Chocolate Strawberry Prototype 1 Chocolate Almond Prototype 1 Neapolitan Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Prototype 3 Prototype 4 Triple-Plus Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Prototype 1 Blueberry Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Patriotic Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Key Lime Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Cheesecake Tips Pecan Pie Filling Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Additional Notes Name Change: Bran to HiFi Birthday Gift Replacement of Bran Buds with Regular All-Bran Batter Composition Changes (Mid-2015) Batter Composition Changes (Mid-2017) Update Since COVID-19 (Late-2021) All Recipes & Notes Red Velvet Research Project Preliminary Secondary My 1980's Cheesecake Prototypes Pitfalls to avoid: Unsuccessful recipes

Baked Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough (MBD) Cheesecake—Prototype 1:   At my church, I got a delicious Christmas gift from the Doane family—a big package of cookie dough. This wasn't the first time that Mary Beth gave me some cookie dough. But with this recent gift, a great idea came into my head—how about a cookie dough cheesecake? The ingredient list for the recipe here is similar to those of the cookies+creme cheesecakes, except that, of course, cookie dough is used instead of sandwich cookies. (The 9.5-inch Frieling pan was used here.)   (Still plenty of dough left!) Crust: 4 oz. semi-sweet chocolate, melted 1 1/3 tablespoons cocoa powder 1 cup (8 oz.) lowfat cottage cheese, whipped, no salt added 3/8 cup granulated sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla 2.2 oz. Bran Buds, ground up Batter: 2 tablespoons melted or softened butter 1/2 cup granulated sugar 1/2 cup skim milk 1 tablespoon lemon juice 1/3 cup flour 1/4 teaspoon salt 2 1/2 cups (20 oz.) lowfat cottage cheese, whipped, no salt added 1 teaspoon vanilla 2 eggs Take 10 oz. of uncooked chocolate chip cookie dough, and cut it into small pieces (1/2 inch is perhaps a good maximum size, but don't cut them too small either—otherwise, it may be difficult to really enjoy the cookie chunks). Fully immerse these into the batter as—and after—it is gradually poured into the pan. Next, wrap some foil onto the pan, and bake all this in a tub at 300 degrees for about 90 minutes. This kind of cheesecake has probably gotten one of the best debuts of all time in my cheesecake "prototyping" history, at least up to January 2012. I could not foresee any further modifications specific to this flavor—no "Prototype 2" needed! The texture was just right. I earlier had some kind of fear of possibly underbaking the batter and thus getting runny or limp results, but this batter was firm enough. It wasn't overbaked either—no dry "crusty" effect at this cheesecake's outer edge! (I had to remember that I was using a 9 /12" pan, not 9"—otherwise, the batter would have been close to 10% thicker, and roughly another ten minutes of baking time would have likely been needed.) This dessert cut beautifully, and the batter's taste had a nice balance between the cookie dough and the "main" (or "cheesey") part. This was also, as far as I can remember, the quickest disappearing cheesecake that I ever provided at Living Hope Church, up to this point. What a hit! Thank you, Mary Beth (and Eric too) for the cookie dough (which I also used, by the way, to make pancakes the next morning—thus marking the first time in my life, as far as I can remember, that I enjoyed chocolate cookie dough pancakes—see Additional Trader Joe's Buttermilk Pancake & All Purpose Baking Mix notes in this recipe scrapbook for more details). This is your cheesecake as well.   Baked Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough (DMB) Cheesecake—Prototype 2:   No, that "DMB" is not a typo. I used the "MBD" in the previous prototype in honor of the woman who gave me the cookie dough for that one. "DMB" is explained below. It had been over a year since I made my first chocolate chip cookie dough prototype. For this more recent one, the batter would be nearly doubled, and some refinements (in working with other cheesecake flavors) over the past year would be utilized also. But instead of doubling the amount of cookie dough itself as well, I felt that it would be easier to match the size of a package of refrigerated dough from a grocery store (I used "DeMoulas" Market Basket—hence the "DMB" designator—the "More for Your Dollar" grocer enjoyed by me, Mary Beth and many other acquaintances). The size used here was 16 ounces. So whereas Prototype 1 included 10 ounces, Prototype 2 would get 16 instead of 20. But I did not think that this 20% reduction would make too much of a difference. Furthermore, a border of chocolate chips would help make up for Prototype 2's decrease in dough (I did not include such a border for Prototype 1).   2-to-1 Blend of Yogurt Cheese and Cottage Cheese: Prepare ahead of time 32 ounces of yogurt cheese, derived from two 32-ounce containers (that's 64 ounces altogether) of nonfat yogurt. If the resulting yogurt cheese falls below 32 ounces, add back enough of the whey (that was strained out from the yogurt) to make up the difference. To this yogurt cheese combine one 16-ounce container of whipped, lowfat cottage cheese. Crust: 4 oz. semi-sweet chocolate, melted 1 1/3 tablespoons cocoa powder 8 oz. (1 cup) 2-to-1 blend of yogurt cheese and cottage cheese (see above) 3/8 cup granulated sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla 2.2 oz. finely ground Bran Buds Place all this into a 9 or 9 1/2 inch springform pan. Batter: 4 tablespoons melted or softened butter 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar 1/4 cup all-purpose flour 3 tablespoons arrowroot 1/2 teaspoon salt 40 oz. (5 cups) 2-to-1 blend of yogurt cheese and cottage cheese (see above) 2 teaspoons vanilla 4 eggs Expect the resulting amount of batter to be about 7 cups. Cookie Dough: 1 16-ounce package of chocolate chip cookie dough. Cut this uncooked dough into reasonably little (but not too small!) pieces (perhaps about half-inch-sized). Pour, on top of the crust, about 1 1/2 cups of the batter. There is no need to be exact here, but the intent is to ultimately get the dough pieces more evenly distributed throughout the height of the cheesecake (rather than their floating all the way to the top or sinking all the way to the bottom). Next, fully immerse a quarter of the cookie dough into this batter. Then bake this, in a tub (in order to reduce spillage risks with water, don't use too much of it at this point, because the whole tub-and-pan assembly is going to need to be taken out of the oven a few times), at 325 degrees for 15 minutes. Afterward, remove the tub-and-pan assembly from the oven and promptly add (carefully!) about another 1 1/2 cups of batter. Fully immerse the next quarter of cookie dough as well. Return all this to the oven for another 15 minutes. Repeat this procedure for the third additions (same sizes as the first two) of the batter and cookie dough (make sure that there is still some hot water in the tub—otherwise, add some). Do likewise with the fourth addition. Upon doing so, there should be about 1 cup of batter left (and roughly 6 cups already poured into the pan), but all the cookie dough should be in the pan at this point. However, when the cheesecake is returned to the oven for this fourth installment of 15 minutes, lower the temperature to 300 degrees. After the fourth installment (and 60 minutes of baking time at this point), remove the assembly from the oven and top off the cheesecake with the remaining batter (about 1 cup). Try to fully coat the entire surface, especially wherever cookie pieces may be showing. Then return all this to the oven, still at 300 degrees. At this point, fill up the tub generously (with boiling water). Resume baking for another 60 minutes (based upon usage of a 9 1/2" pan). Afterward, shut the oven off and let the cheesecake cool down while it is still in there and in the tub, with the oven's door slightly ajar, for an hour. Afterwards, remove the cheesecake from the oven and tub, and add a border of chocolate chips around the edge of this cheesecake. Continue to cool it down at room temperature for another couple of hours. After cooling, remove the cheesecake from pan and refrigerate. Delicious...and gone in about half an hour, at Living Hope Church! But I myself had some difficulty tasting the cheesecake flavor and cookie dough, and I suspected this was due to some mild respiratory problems in the back of my mouth and/or somewhere in my throat. But others who I asked enjoyed this cheesecake. If only my medical issues did not hinder my enjoyment!   Baked Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake—Prototype 3:   Let's give a springtime 2014 update for this flavor! One of the features here is much larger pieces of cookie dough (actually, whole cookies, somewhat like my recent cookie sandwich type cheesecakes).   Yogurt Cheese: Prepare ahead of time 3 pounds of yogurt cheese, derived from three 32-ounce containers of nonfat yogurt. If the resulting yogurt cheese falls below 48 ounces, add back enough of the whey (that was strained out from the yogurt) to make up the difference. Crust: 4 oz. semi-sweet chocolate, melted 2 tablespoons cocoa powder 8 oz. (1 cup) yogurt cheese (see above) 3/8 cup granulated sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla 2 oz. finely ground All-Bran Place this crust mixture into the bottom of a greased springform pan (9 to 9 1/2 inches) and pre-bake without tub at 300 degrees for 10 minutes, then cool enough to comfortably touch at least the pan's upper sidewall. Batter: 4 tablespoons melted or softened butter 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar 1/4 cup all-purpose flour 3 tablespoons arrowroot 40 oz. (5 cups) yogurt cheese (see above) 2 teaspoons vanilla 4 eggs Cookie Dough: 1 16-ounce package of chocolate chip cookie dough, separated into 24 pieces (many packages are already like this, i.e., portioned to make 24 cookies). Expect about 7 cups of the resulting batter (of course, that's before adding any cookie dough), but do not add this to the pan all at once. Rather, this needs to be done in five installments. Wrap the pan in foil just before adding the first installment (no earlier than that—minimize the foil's disturbance in order to minimize its leakage risk). For each of the first four installments, gently scoop about 1 1/2 cups of batter into the pan. Add about 6 cookie dough pieces (don't bother breaking them up—keeping them whole is fine and, in fact, recommended—but if the pieces have a tall, chunk-like form, flatten them into cookie-like shapes), ensuring that they are fully coated and—as much as possible—immersed. After adding an installment, bake the pan with its contents for 15 minutes. For each of the first three installments, bake at 325 degrees. For the fourth installment, reduce the temperature and bake at 300 degrees. For all four installments here, bake with the pan in a tub filled with at least 1/4 to 1/2 inch of boiling water, but (to reduce spillage risks) do not fill the tub all the way at this point, because the whole tub-and-pan assembly is going to need to be removed from the oven (in order to comfortably add contents to the pan) between installments. After all this is done, there should be about a cup of batter left, with 60 minutes of baking time reached at this point (15 minutes for each of the first four installments). Now comes the fifth installment—carefully add the last of this batter (do not add any more cookie dough at this point) on top of the pan's other contents. Try to fully coat the entire surface, especially wherever cookie dough pieces may be showing. Next, return the entire pan-and-tub assembly to the oven. At this point, fill up the tub generously with boiling water. Resume baking at 300 degrees for another 55 minutes (based upon usage of a 9 1/2" pan). Afterward, shut the oven off, and leave its door slightly ajar, with the cheesecake still inside—and in the tub—for an hour. Next, remove the cheesecake from the oven and tub, and—if desired—add a border of chocolate chips around the edge of this cheesecake. Continue to cool it down at room temperature for another two hours. After doing so, remove the cheesecake from pan and refrigerate. Again, I used Market Basket Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough for this one. And this time, I could readily taste the cookie dough! Of course, I picked up the cheesecake flavor itself as well. There was no respiratory interference. But I also felt that forming the cookie dough in larger pieces made a helpful difference as well. This cheesecake, served among a modest selection of snacks, was gone in probably about 20 minutes (one of my fastest disappearing cheesecakes!) at Living Hope Church, on Mother's Day 2014.   Baked Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake—Prototype 4:   This one was my first cheesecake of 2017. It was also my first cookie dough update in more than two and a half years. A lot has changed since then, especially the batter. But with this prototype, I also felt that I would try something very new—make the chocolate crust with milk chocolate chips, instead of semi-sweet (although I still used those for the border on top).   3-Cheese Blend (1CT-1NC-4YG): Prepare ahead of time 32 ounces of yogurt cheese, derived from two 32-ounce containers (that's 64 ounces altogether) of nonfat yogurt. If the resulting yogurt cheese falls below 32 ounces, add back enough of the whey (that was strained out from the yogurt) to make up the difference. To this yogurt cheese combine 8 ounces of whipped, lowfat cottage cheese and 8 ounces of softened Neufchatel cheese ("light cream cheese"). Grease a 9 1/2" (or 9") springform pan, but do not wrap foil around it yet (see below). Crust: 4 oz. milk chocolate, melted 3/8 cup granulated sugar 2 tablespoons cocoa powder 8 oz. (1 cup) 3-cheese blend (see above) 1 teaspoon vanilla 2 oz. finely ground All-Bran Place the resulting mixture in the greased pan and pre-bake without tub at 300 degrees for 5-10 minutes, depending on the mixture's thickness (closer to 10 minutes if thin enough to be fully distributed across the pan's bottom by gentle shaking, closer to 5 minutes if thick enough to require spreading out this mixture by pressing on it with a utensil and/or fingers), then cool enough to comfortably touch at least the pan's upper sidewall. Batter: 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar 40 oz. (5 cups) 3-cheese blend (see above) 2 teaspoons vanilla 1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon (5 tablespoons altogether) arrowroot 5 eggs Cookie Dough: 1 16-ounce package of chocolate chip cookie dough, separated into 24 pieces (many packages are already like this, i.e., portioned to make 24 cookies). Expect about 7 cups of the resulting batter (not including any cookie dough, of course), but do not add this to the pan all at once. Rather, this needs to be done in five installments. Wrap the pan in foil just before adding the first installment (to minimize the foil's disturbance and therefore its leakage risk, do not put it on any earlier). For each of the first four installments, gently scoop about 1 1/2 cups of batter into the pan. Add about 6 dough pieces (don't bother breaking them up—keeping them whole is fine and, in fact, recommended—but if the pieces have a tall, chunk-like form, flatten them into cookie-like shapes), ensuring that they are fully coated and—as much as possible—immersed. After adding an installment, bake the pan with its contents for 15 minutes. For each of the first three installments, bake at 325 degrees. For the fourth installment, reduce the temperature and bake at 300 degrees. For all four installments here, bake with the pan in a tub filled with at least 1/4 to 1/2 inch of boiling water, but (to reduce spillage risks) do not fill the tub all the way at this point, because the whole tub-and-pan assembly is going to need to be removed from the oven (in order to comfortably add contents to the pan) between installments. After all this is done, there should be about a cup of batter left, with 60 minutes of baking time reached at this point (15 minutes for each of the first four installments). Now comes the fifth installment—carefully add the last of this batter (do not add any more cookie dough at this point) on top of the pan's other contents. Try to fully coat the entire surface, especially wherever cookie dough pieces may be showing. Next, return the entire pan-and-tub assembly to the oven. At this point, fill up the tub generously with boiling water. Resume baking at 300 degrees for another 80 minutes (based upon usage of a 9 1/2" pan). Afterward, shut the oven off, and leave its door slightly ajar, with the cheesecake still inside—and in the tub—for an hour. Next, remove the cheesecake from the oven and tub, and—if desired—add a border of chocolate chips around the edge of this cheesecake. Continue to cool it down at room temperature for another two hours. After doing so, remove the cheesecake from pan and refrigerate. Again, I used Market Basket Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough for this one. Aside from that, I had a much more serious issue to deal with here... Q: What is worse than a cheesecake with an excessively tart taste? A: A cheesecake with a hint of a sour milk taste! (What??!!) Yet that was what I personally picked up somehow in this latest prototype—even if I did not get that kind of feedback from others (even despite my asking some) at Living Hope Church, where this dessert was served among a modest selection of sweets and other snacks. Close to half of this cheesecake was left, which I considered to be a below-average outcome. What went wrong anyway? Did I end up using a somewhat spoiled/defective dairy product without my detection at the time? Was it perhaps one of the containers of yogurt? I was somehow at a loss. Inasmuch as I had memories in the past of a couple of "California" cheesecakes coming out too tart (my fourteenth chocolate prototype in 2012 and a 2015 repeat of my first whoopie pie prototype, originally done in Massachusetts in 2014), this more recent "Make it in Massachusetts" effort had a tinge which I felt was embarrassingly unacceptable (yes, I still used Market Basket yogurt, which I had trusted in my cheesecakes baked in this home state of mine throughout this decade up to this point). This incident has compelled me to more strongly consider what I already had been contemplating for some time—overhaul the basic batter composition again after having done so less than two years ago (i.e., back in mid-2015), including with the intent of reducing the tartness (and thus, hopefully, the acidity). While I had wanted to get the tartness somewhat increased back around the earlier 2010's, I was by late 2016 starting to consider backing down a bit. Perhaps it was now time to make plans for my next cheesecake, whatever the flavor would be, to be formulated with less yogurt cheese. Sit tight! One-day-later update: After having taken back home nearly 1/4 of this cheesecake, I thought that I would try it again a day later. I was unbelievably surprised—the cheesecake tasted great! I could not detect a sour-milk tinge! So what happened??? My guess was a probable unusual condition with something in my mouth the day before, but I hardly had any idea what it was (maybe a temporary taste bud problem?). Anyway, I became much more satisfied with this latest cheesecake, and even the milk chocolate crust, while not overwhelmingly different from its semi-sweet counterpart, still had a decent taste in its own right. Maybe I should not jump too quickly into a major batter revamp after all (well, let's wait and see on that one).