cream cheese cake

Da and I had half a bar of Philadelphia cream cheese left in the refrigerator. I could not make a cheesecake using 125g of cream cheese. I could use the cream cheese to bake chewy cheese cookies but from my experience baking these cookies for Chinese New Year in 2009, I know that these cookies are not very popular with my family members because they prefer crunchy cookies.

In the end, I decided to use the cream cheese to bake a cake. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. To give the cake some flavour, I added 1 tsp of mango essence. If you have dried mangoes available, you can also add some chopped dried mangoes.

INGREDIENTS

125g self-raising flour
125g butter (softened)
115g castor sugar
2 eggs
125g Philadelphia cream cheese (softened)
1 tsp mango essence (or any other fruity essence of your choice)
3/4 cup low fat milk

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.

2. Grease and flour two 8" x 4" loaf pans. Set aside.

3. Sift the self-raising flour in a bowl. Set aside.

4. Cream the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl using an electric mixer until light and fluffy.

5. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well with each addition.

6. Add the cream cheese and mango essence and mix until light.

7. Fold in the sifted flour using an wooden spatula and stir until almost blended.

8. Add the milk and stir until just blended.

9. Pour into the prepared pans and bake for 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.