Happy Easter everyone! Spring is finally here, and I am more than excited. I feel like Easter officially marks the beginning of spring (move over groundhog, the bunny is here!) With all the excitement of my garden finally growing and dreaming up of new ice cream flavors, I put a lot of thought into this Easter post.

While looking for inspiration, I came across these planted carrot and dirt cupcakes by something swanky I thought were SUPER cute. The idea for using strawberries dipped in orange colored white chocolate to look like carrots was genius. I decided to use this idea on a whole cake to bring to a Easter dinner tonight. Plus, I had to use this bunny cake stand I found at the store a few weeks back and completely fell in love with. It’s meant to be!

As for the cake, I needed something light and springy. The first thing that came to mind was a Japanese steamed cheesecake. This cheesecake is also known as a souffle cheesecake, and is known to be very light, airy, and fluffy. It tastes like you’re eating cheesecake clouds. YUM!

I used ieatishootipost’s Japanese steamed cheesecake recipe. Dr. Leslie Tay takes this cheesecake right down to science. With science to back up his recipe, I knew this was the closest to a no fail Japanese cheesecake recipe I would find.

Ingredients:

cheesecake

1 block (250g) Philadelphia cream cheese

6 large eggs (separated)

2/3c (140g) granulated sugar

4 tbsp (60g) butter

1/2c minus 1 tbsp (100g) whole milk

1 tbsp lemon juice

1/2c (60g) cake flour

2 tbsp plus 1 1/2 tsp (20g) cornstarch

1/4 tsp salt

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

decorations

7 oreo cookies

5 strawberries

500g white chocolate

orange coloring (oil based)

1/4c heavy cream

1 tbsp powdered

1 drop vanilla

*I apologize for the ‘not so even’ measurements. The recipe was in metric and I converted it for to U.S. standard for your convenience.

Preheat oven to 392°F.

Start by preparing your pan. This recipe uses a 8in round cake pan , and a spring form is not recommended (due to chances of leaks from the water bath). If a springform pan is all that you have, then continue reading to see how to waterproof your pan. If not, skip down a couple of photos :).

In order to “waterproof” your springform pan, start by covering the bottom with one piece of foil (no holes, rips, or overlapping pieces).

Wrap the whole thing in a very long, continuous piece of plastic wrap. Just keep going around and around, slightly turning the pan to get the plastic going all different ways.

Cut the plastic around the edge with scissors and remove the top.

Enforce with another layer of foil.

Line just the bottom with parchment paper, and set aside. Scale out all your ingredients. You can scale the vanilla, lemon juice, and salt together. Milk and butter together. Cake flour and cornstarch together. Everything else stays separate, even the egg whites and yolks.



Bring a pot of water to a boil, and remove from heat. Place a bowl with cream cheese on top and whisk until there are no more lumps. Add the egg yolks and and whisk to combine.

Add half of the sugar (you can eyeball it) and whisk.

Melt the butter and milk in the microwave, and add that to the cream cheese batter. Mix again.

Add vanilla, salt, and lemon juice, and whisk again.

Remove from water bath and sift in the flour and cornstarch. Whisk just until combined. Do not overmix!

Now in a separate bowl, we will be making meringue. Please check out this page for this part of the recipe. It is important you whip the egg whites the right amount, or your cake will not turn out the same.

Whip your whites to foamy, and add cream of tartar. Whip to soft peaks, and start adding the second half of the sugar on medium speed.



Once all your sugar is added, I would keep the mixer at a medium speed to make sure you don’t over whip. I usually stop the mixer a couple times to check the consistency. For this recipe, you want the egg whites right before it reaches soft peaks (with sugar). It should droop off the whisk like below:

Fold the egg whites into the cream cheese batter in 3 parts. Your batter should be airy with lots of little bubbles, almost like foam.

Place in a slightly larger pan (not too much larger) with a towel underneath.



Once the pan is in the oven, I pour the water from my hot water bath (used to melt cream cheese) into the larger pan. The water should be about 1 inch high. If not, add more hot water.

Bake at 392°F for 18 minutes. Lower the temperature to 320°F for 12 minutes, then turn the oven off and leave the cake in the oven for 30 more minutes.Slightly open the oven door and let cool for 10 minutes before removing.

To unmold, gently shake the cake to loosen it from the sides, and flip over onto a clean plate. Remove parchment paper, and flip back over on a cake board or plate.



Steamed cheesecakes are known to have a dome top when baked properly. For decorating purposes, I cut the top off so that it’s flat. You can taste your masterpiece now, but I recommend letting it chill in the fridge. I think it tastes better once it’s had time to mature.



Grind the Oreos in a food processor.



Make some chantilly by whipping the cream, and adding the powdered sugar and vanilla. If you already have whipped cream in the fridge, please feel free to use that.

Once the cake is cool, spread the whipped cream into a thin layer on top of the cake.



Add your oreo crumbs, and spread out evenly over the top.

Wash and pick out the best looking strawberries. Insert toothpicks on the tops so you don’t have to hold them while the chocolate sets. Have something ready to stick these strawberries in, like styrofoam or a cake pop stand. I used a tray from my dehydrator.

Temper your white chocolate and add the orange color. When working with chocolate, always use oil based coloring. Sometimes it’s labeled as “candy colors” but you just don’t want to add water based colors as this will make the chocolate seize (water and chocolate don’t mix!).

Make sure your strawberry is completely dry before dipping. I like to dry each strawberry off with a paper towel.

Shake the excess chocolate off, and flip toothpick side down to let set.

Once all your strawberries are dipped, take a piping bag and fill with the left over chocolate. Use that to drizzle lines on the strawberries.



I went ahead and dipped all my extra strawberries, because who doesn’t like chocolate covered strawberries?

Cut 5 cone shaped holes along the top of your cheesecake. Set a “carrot” strawberry in the hole!



*Tip: to get clean cuts, warm the knife in hot water and wipe dry before each slice.