Chocolate hazelnut cheesecake

I've not been very good at caking lately (shock horror) but I think I've been re-inspired now - yesterday one of our grads came to work and he had brought hummingbird cupcakes to give out for his birthday. Because I make cake so much I rarely eat more than a small slice, but yesterday I devoured the whole cupcake in about 2 minutes after missing it so much. As an aside, I do think its particularly weird here that if its your birthday you bring the cake - especially as I practically became the resident cake baker at my old workplace that made half the department's birthday cake. Even if I didn't make it, it was always someone else who arranged the cake for you on your birthday, shop or otherwise. I think the first time this really struck me as odd was when it was someone's 50th and he brought around trays of sparkling wine in plastic cups like a waiter and served half the floor. Whatever next, will you have to buy presents to distribute on your birthday too?!

After eating the chocolate hummingbird cupcake yesterday (in the words of our grad, "no explanation of flavours required then Kate") I think I've rediscovered my love of cake. Just as well, since I'm heading off to test the Mad Hatter afternoon tea tomorrow! But for now, here is a chocolate hazelnut cheesecake (no baking required but you will need fridge time) courtesy of Nigella Lawson. It has been extensively Ka-te-fied and you can do whatever you want; this is just my adaptation of Nigella ideas. Super simple, super quick to make (but you do need chilling time), and super delicious.



Apologies for the photo quality in this post, for some reason my white balance was playing havoc with me!

Base

• This is a regular cheesecake base, but substituting hazelnut meal for almond meal to make it extra hazelnutty.


• Of course you can use plain biscuits and just add melted butter, but its a pet hate of mine. I can just taste the biscuit and I know its not right. Call me pedantic but to me its like putting soy sauce in your spaghetti.


• Because nutella also = hazelnut, feel free to put in a spoon or two into the base as well!

Complete ingredients & process

1. Mix a cup or so of hazelnut meal with around half a cup of icing sugar (don't get hung up on measuring please. Its just a base, it doesn't need to rise, just hold together)


2. Add a couple of spoons of plain flour (you could use all hazelnut meal but it gets a bit expensive; the flour is just a bulking agent really)


3. Add in a chunk of melted butter (no need to cool), I usually use about a quarter of a block (I think its around 50g or just dig in 2 big spoons into the tub of butter


4. (optional) Add in nutella, about half the amount of butter that you used


5. Too wet? Add flour. Too dry? Add butter.


6. Press into lined cake tin (springform please else you'll be struggling to get it out) then bake at 180 / 200 / 220 deg for around 10min or until golden - watch it doesn't burn.

Filling

• I used a stand mixer for this but hand mixer or elbow grease will do just as well


• There is no need to line the sides of your cake tin (but please do line the bottom). As long as you give the cake enough fridge time, it will be stiff enough that you can just lift the ring portion of the cake tin off and it'll still hold its shape.


• Soften your cream cheese ahead of time, if you remember (if you are using a stand mixer this won't make much difference, but it means your machine will work less hard)

Word of warning: This is seriously unhealthy but because its so good you'll be eating it for days and staring at it in the fridge. I'd suggest inviting friends over or investing in a flatmate / siblings like mine. Read on if you dare...



Complete ingredients & process

1. Two packets of cream cheese into a large bowl (I use one full fat packet and one low fat packet - I can never decide which one!!)


2. Add in most of a jar of nutella (maybe about 3/4 jar - can always add more if there's not enough but you can't really remove it)


3. Add in around half a cup of icing sugar, maybe some vanilla as well


4. Mix and adjust to taste. Texture should be fairly light and creamy like a really thick version of a whipped cream that's whipped to soft peak stage.

Assembling

Once the base has cooled, put the mix on top of the base and put in fridge, overnight is best. Can sprinkle nuts or other decorations on top if you choose, I used pecans since I couldn't find any hazelnuts in the shop.



Till next time, happy caking!



 

Afternoon tea at the Landmark Hotel (Marylebone)

If you have known me for a long time you will know that I love tea, and particularly the concept of afternoon tea. My favourite place for afternoon tea is Gunners Barracks in Mosman - on the verandah on a sunny afternoon you can check out the water, be away from people and surrounded by trees and grass all at the same time.

Unusually, in my 3 previous visits to London plus and having lived here for more than a year I still have not been to afternoon tea. One reason is the formality of it all here (whilst Gunners Barracks isn't exactly a shorts and thongs kind of place, I never felt the need to fully dress up); and the other reason is that the amount of scones and tea I've eaten here (especially at National Trust cafes) means I've never felt the need to expand this to a full on a meal like afternoon tea which always seems to be the case these days. Anyway it was time to break the afternoon tea drought and on this occasion Mr T and I paid a vist to the Landmark Hotel in Marylebone. Of all the places we could have gone, why this particular one?

1. I wanted a swanky hotel just to see what it was like, but I didn't want anything that was in a stuffy and opulent but ugly room (yes I'm fussy!) The Landmark has an atrium type thing (photo below courtesy of Here is the City) which looked pretty light and airy so that was a tick for me.

1. There was a chocolate afternoon tea menu which I was busting to try. We were able to order one chocolate afternoon tea and one regular afternoon tea, and there was waaaaay too much food (even if we had planned to eat this for lunch!) Looking around we were the only two people with a stand each which was slightly embarrassing, but then the waitstaff told us that if we wanted anything else (more pastries, more sandwiches) just to let them know and they would bring out. Also the afternoon tea is priced per person so its basically all you can eat afternoon tea (not that you'd want to).

General comment on high end food - is it just me or does high end food (whether it be afternoon tea or dinner or lunch) typically seem to involve a lot of oval shaped mousses made from complicated ingredients?



The sandwiches 

This was a fairly standard selection with a choice of: egg, mayo and cress; chicken with tarragon crème fraîche; and smoked Scottish salmon; cucumber.

Mr T commented that they were really really tasty - probably due to the lashings of butter which we would never put on sandwiches at home :-) I do really like cucumber in a sandwich though; I think my fave was when Mrs P fed me cucumber, cream cheese and dill sandwiches for afternoon tea once. They were completely and utterly delish!!!

The pastries and sweets

We only ordered one chocolate afternoon tea for fear of being all too chocolate-d out. There is just too much chocolate, even for someone like me who likes nothing better than to sample a bunch of different flavoured and textured things to make and eat (and dream about). I think our strategy of alternating sandwiches and sweets was as effective as could be expected - even so Mr T claimed to be all sugared out by the time he finished his third pastry! I got a little further but probably only because I only sampled each sample size pastry before deciding if I liked it (and therefore went back for more). All of them were so rich it would have been impossible to eat all of them!! Here are some of the eating highlights.

Manjari chocolate mousse brownie; and Chocolate ganache with milk chocolate Chantilly and coconut nougatine

Both like eating mouthfuls of dark chocolate and I couldn't really detect much coconut                       

White chocolate mint shot; Star anise and milk chocolate panna cotta; and classic fruit cake with rum and Caraibe chocolate glaze

Really enjoyed the white chocolate mint shot; not such a big fan of the panna cotta. Interestingly though, there was marshmallowy texture in both the top layers, whereas they looked a little more foam like. Mr T was a fan of the fruit cake, despite it being fairly chocolatey.

     

Flourless pistachio sponge, fig jam and pistachio mascarpone;  Lime cheesecake with vodka cranberry truffle.

The highlight of this for me was the pink vodka cranberry truffle, despite being a non-alco fan. The cheesecake was pretty easy to eat; by the end of it I was on the lookout for sweet treats that were a bit more airy or liquidy in texture.

Coco mango: coconut macaroon with mango bavarois;  Chocolate and passion cream “financier”

I thought this is a great idea for a macaron. Macarons are so sweet the zing of the mango cut through nicely. Not sure what a mango bavarois is (besides another moussey thing) but Mr T thought it was a little like the mango pudding you get in chinese restaurants at yum cha... The green triangle on top is just a piece of white chocolate.



Scones

Miss M's mum taught me to make scones and I remember Miss M laughing at me for the delicate way that I rubbed butter and flour at the time (I didn't want to get knee deep in the stuff so I just used fingertips ... now I cheat and use a food processor though it doesn't come out quite as nicely as by hand). Needless to say we have moved on since then and after many years of scone making, I have pretty high expectations of scones. Mr T took the first bite and said "yours are better" - although this did give me a sinking feeling I did beam happily that Mr T prefers my scones, so it is a bit of a twisted win I guess!. The scones were a little too floury and dense and they just didn't taste fresh. I did like the strawberry conserve though which had big chunks of strawberry in them.




There were a few more things but I was too full to try them so I gave up at this point and we decided to have a rest for 10min, after which we were no better and decided it was home time.

Till next time, happy eating guys!



 

Raspberry Cheesecake

I love cheesecake and I love raspberries ... raspberry cheesecake = double love. Since I'll become the size of a house if I eat all the cake I make, I've resorted to making cheesecake in cupcake sizes - this was an idea that I saw in my Martha Stewart cupcake book. This batch was for Miss L's parents - Miss L told her dad the other week that she was eating my cheesecake... to which he mournfully replied that he had never eaten home made cheesecake. A sad sad story indeed, but at least it has been rectified now :-) (and it gave me an excuse to make cheesecake).



To be honest, making cheesecake doesn't excite me nearly as much as eating cheesecake (quite the opposite from regular cake!) The state change that happens to cheesecake in the oven isn't nearly as cool as regular cake, ingredients are simple, and you can make it without putting it in the oven at all!! My mum used to make a lower fat yoghurt cheesecake which I always found to be a bit strange in texture and I must say it wasn't my favourite.

Anyway, back to bog standard cheesecake. The ingredients are the same as any other plain cheesecake (quantities seem to be variations on a theme) and making cheesecake is THE easiest kind of cake to make, as there's no raising agent to be worrying about - and therefore a whole lot less things that can go wrong. Here are some guidelines for 12 cheesecakes (give or take):

Base

Note: my pet hate is using digestive biscuits to make the base. I can always tell if its a biscuit by the salt content and it just seems to ruin the flavour when coupled with the cake filling... but that's just me! 

When I make a base I tend to make the same one you would expect to see in chocolate caramel slice. This one is taken from taste.com.au here (for some reason I still default to Australian sites and blogs when I'm looking for a recipe!) - again note that there is no need to be exact with these quantities. As long as the texture is cookie dough like there's really no issue.

• 1 cup plain flour, sifted


• 1/2 cup brown sugar


• 1/2 cup desiccated coconut


• 125g butter, melted

Simply mix together and pat it in the bottom of the cupcake wrappers. Bake for 10min or so at 180 degrees until the colour is golden.

Filling

• 2 packets of philly cream cheese (softened)


• 2 eggs


• 1/2 tub of sour cream


• Spoon of vanilla


• Around a cup of sugar (adjust to taste)


• A spoon of cornflour


• Splash of lemon juice

My way of making cheesecake is purely based on taste. Beat together the cream cheese with the sour cream, and slowly add in the sugar (keep beating while you do this and most importantly, keep tasting!), then the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla. Right before you finish, add a spoon of cornflour (stops it cracking so easily), and some lemon juice if you think the batter is too sweet and needs freshening up. Add some raspberry coulis and a fresh raspberry and bake at 180 degrees in a water bath (helps stop the cracking as well) for 20 minutes or so.

The filling will puff up but will sink again once the heat is off. Because I'm not normal I like my cheesecakes (and everything else) to be golden which I think by normal standards is a definite no-no. But, I do like all my food ever so slightly burnt or crispy and cheesecake is no exception!

Happy cheesecaking!



 

Blackberry cheesecake ice cream

Excess blackberries = jam? coulis? ice cream? sorbet? pie? Unfortunately Parkside didn't have any raspberries when we went there last weekend (see post here) and in the absence of raspberries I picked up a bunch of blackberries instead. At home I used to buy the frozen berries and use them for pancakes and milkshakes, but it felt like such a waste ... but not being in a particularly adventurous mood I ended up with the tried and tested anyway.

My main concern was that I wouldn't be able to eat all the berries before they went off so I wanted to use them asap. I started out by making a blackberry coulis and it was only after I discounted the idea of making a cheesecake (too much effort with the base) that I decided to go for cheesecake ice cream instead. It tasted like frozen cheesecake, nothing more, nothing less. However, Miss L said it is the best tasting ice cream she has ever eaten in her life! I guess a massive compliment like that must means that it was a worthwhile exercise right?

Blackberry coulis (ended up being twice as much as I actually needed, the rest is in the freezer ready to be turned into sorbet!)

• A punnet of blackberries


• 3-4 tablespoons lemon juice / juice from 1 lemon


• 1/3 cup caster sugar

Procedure: put it all together in a blender or food processor, pulverise until the sugar looks like it has dissolved. Add more sugar / lemon to taste. Strain to get the seeds and leftover pulpy bits out (this is not essential, but I like a smooth coulis).

Cheesecake ice cream

Note: this is an egg free philly type ice cream. As I mentioned I wasn't feeling particularly energetic so a full on custard based ice cream was definitely out of the question for today!

Ingredients:

• 2 packets of philly cream cheese


• 1 small tub sour cream


• 1/2 small tub regular cream


• 1/2 cup sugar


• Lime zest


• Splash of vanilla

Procedure:

1. Soften cream cheese (or just buy the spreadable ones). Beat this in a stand or hand mixer to get the lumps out.


2. Throw in everything else and mix.


3. Churn in ice cream maker.


4. Mix in coulis right at the end before putting in freezer.

 

Japanese cheesecake

My cousin had seen my cupcake bouquet photo and sent me a recipe for Japanese cheesecake. It has been awhile since I’ve eaten Japanese cheesecake – I think it was my mother’s – and I thought I should experiment with a lighter cheesecake for once. I really like the souffle like texture but have always found it to not be quite cheesy enough and a bit too eggy compared to regular cheesecake.

So, I combined several recipes and here is the result and (approximate) recipe I used.

Small word of advice: the texture changes a bit after being in the fridge overnight and actually becomes more cheesecakey rather than souffle like! I think I'd recommend making this the day before you actually want to eat it. 



The cake

• A packet of cream cheese (around 300g)


• 3 eggs


• 40g butter


• 15g Cornflour


• 150ml milk


• 70g sugar

 

The frosting

• Small tub of cream


• Raspberries


• Blueberries


• Icing sugar

Part 1 - prep

1. Take out the cream cheese and butter to soften.


2. Find a small cake tin (mine was 8 inch) - there is no raising agent in this mix so what you see is what you get in terms of volume.


3. Separate the eggs. Yolks: put into a double boiler (or pyrex / stainless steel bowl etc. that can go on top of a saucepan of boiling water without actually touching the water). Whites: put into a mixer bowl for use with a electric mixer / stand mixer.

Part 2 - mix

1. Cream cheese & butter mix: In a large bowl, mix together the butter and the packet of cream cheese. This can be done by hand using a whisk, as long as the cream cheese and butter is soft.


2. Egg yolk mix: Add 20g sugar to the egg yolks and whisk together. Sift in the cornflour and keep mixing. Turn on the heat to medium and add the milk. Keep whisking until it thickens (warning: this might take a couple of minutes but it will suddenly thicken very quickly - keep an eye on it at all times!) 


3. Cool slightly and add the egg yolk mix to the cream cheese mix.


4. Meringue: Beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks. Add in 40g sugar gradually as you mix.


5. Fold the meringue into the cream cheese / egg yolk mix.

Part 3 - pour and bake

1. Turn on the oven to 150 degrees C


2. Line the cake tin and put this into a water bath


3. Fold in the meringue mix with the cream cheese / egg yolk mix and pour into the cake tin


4. Bake for around an hour and turn off the heat. Cool in the oven for an hour, or more if you can afford to (note that the cake will shrink when cooling)