baking

Two Tone Cheesecake

- Alex 1 Comment

two tone cheesecake

I recently entered the Bikko’s Bake Off competition that was being run by Robern Menz.  I was very disappointed not to be one of the two lucky winners who will enjoying a day out with Robern Menz.  Congratulations to the choc mint cheesecake brownie and the dark chocolate salted caramel slice!

But everything has a silver lining and, in this case, it means I have a recipe all typed up and ready to go!  I was really happy with my photograph, too – quite a departure from my normal woeful efforts.

My creation was a two tone cheesecake:  chocolate and vanilla.  This was a bit of a departure from my usual cheesecake recipe, because I didn’t buy quite enough cream cheese.  However, I think this mix is better and it retains its two massive plus points:   no gelatine, so suitable for vegetarians and no eggs so suitable for those who don’t eat eggs.*

As it was a Bikko’s competition, my creation had to include Bikko’s, so I used milk chocolate ones in the base, and a layer of dark chocolate ones through the centre of the cake.

This is a set cheesecake so you do need to start it a little ahead of when you want to eat it!

Start with the base.

Grease and baseline a 23cm springform tin.

Coarsely crush 125g of milk chocolate Bikko’s and 50g of your favourite cheesecake base biscuits (I used gingernuts).

In a heavy bottomed frying pan, gently dry toast 80g of rolled oats.  Watch them carefully and as they start to brown, add 100g of unsalted butter (cubed, rather than in one big lump).  When the butter has melted, add the crushed Bikko’s and biscuits and stir for a little so the chocolate on the Bikko’s starts to melt too.

Gently press the mixture into the base of the tin.  The more firmly you compact down the biscuit base the harder it’s going to be and, while you want it to hold together, you don’t want people to be breaking their teeth.  I find that the quantities given above provide exactly the right amount for the base.

Place the tin in the fridge and start work on your filling.

I put the chocolate filling on the bottom, so that’s next.  Beat 300g cream cheese with 50g of sour cream until smooth (if you have a stand mixer, use this – the colder the cream cheese is the longer it will take to get it smooth but it’s worth it).  Mix in 75g of caster sugar.

Melt 100g of best quality dark chocolate (either in a bain-marie or in the microwave), allow it to cool slightly and stir into the cream cheese mix.

Whisk 150mL of cream (reasonably firm peaks, but not butter!) and fold this into the cream cheese mix.

Spread this mix over the cooled and set biscuit base.  Level it off and cover with 125g of dark chocolate Bikko’s, lightly pressing them into the mix.  Return to the fridge to set (at least an hour).

Now make the vanilla mix.  This is essentially the same as the chocolate mix but use 1tsp of vanilla bean paste instead of the 100g of chocolate.  Spread this mix evenly over the Bikko’s layer and return the cake to the fridge to set (again, another hour at least).

When ready to serve, grate over dark chocolate and job’s a good’un.

*Note that if you want to make the whole cheesecake egg free you need to choose your biscuits carefully.  Anzac biscuits (homemade) are an excellent egg free base material.

Lemon Polenta Cake

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lemon & polenta cake

Last week I was asked about how many of my recipes I make up and I realised it’s been a while since I’ve done any of my own ‘recipe development’.

On Sunday I was going to make a lemon and olive oil cake. As Andy headed off to the shops he asked if I needed anything. Oh no, I had everything I needed. Half an hour later, I discovered that I barely had enough olive oil for the recipe and, if I did, I’d be leaving us with none.

However, I took this as an opportunity to create my own cake. Initially that opportunity was not grasped entirely gracefully – there was a lot of muttering about not being able to find a recipe that suited exactly what was in the cupboard. But the end product was lovely!

Begin by preheating the oven to 160°C fan and grease and baseline a 23 cm springform tin. Using a 23cm tin gives a thinner cake – if you want a deeper cake use a 20cm tin, but remember you’ll need to cook the cake for a little longer.

In the trusty MagiMix, cream 200g of unsalted butter with 200g of caster sugar. Add 100g of almonds and 100g of fine polenta. Make sure you use fine otherwise rather than “texture” you’ll end up with gritty cake! Beat in 3 eggs and 2 tsp of baking powder.

At this point the mixture will be really stiff.

Now grate in the zest of 2 small lemons and add the juice of one (about 1 tbsp) and mix well. The mixture will be quite loose now. Pour it into the prepared tin and bake for 55 mins, or until a skewer comes out clean. I also had to cover my cake with foil for the last 10 minutes or so, as it was starting to take on too much colour.

When you’ve got about 10 minutes of cooking left, start work on the syrup. In a small pan, place 100g of caster sugar along with the juice of 2 lemons and 1 tbsp of rum. Heat this up to create a syrup – you may need to add a splash or two of hot water along the way. When the sugar has fully dissolved, you are good to go. Ensure you don’t heat it so much that it boils and starts to turn into caramel!

Remove the cake from the oven and, while it’s hot, prick all over with a skewer or toothpick and then spoon over the syrup. You probably won’t need all of it (I had a tablespoon or two left). If you have a silicon brush, even better because you spread the syrup out over the cake a lot more evenly.

Leave the cake to cool, and absorb the syrup, in the tin. When cool, remove the tin and baking paper. Serve with cream.

It keeps well: the syrup and almonds keep it moist and the texture of the polenta does soften a little over time.

Note that as this cake is made with polenta and NO flour, it is gluten free (suitable for coeliacs).

Apple Cake

- Alex 1 Comment

apple cake

We have an apple tree. Last year we didn’t see a single apple – not sure if it was the lack of rain or the local wildlife. In fact, we didn’t even KNOW it was an apple tree.

This year, the planets lined up and, about a week ago, I picked our small harvest. Some research (thanks google!) suggests that our tree might be a Grimes Golden – the apples are like Golden Delicious but tastier and the fruit is very late. Anyway, what to do with all these apples?

If you’re me, the obvious answer is to make cake. A bit of research saw me with a selection of apple cake recipes that didn’t quite fit what we had in the house and some which did, but seemed a bit unexciting. In the end, my cake was very similar to the Dorset apple cake which you can find on both the Delicious website and over at the Goddess’s Kitchen (Maria does loads of baking – if you like cake I suggest you check out her blog).

This is, essentially, a pound cake with apples added. It’s easy and quick to put together but does require a slightly longer cooking time than many cakes. Because I was adding chopped apple at the end, I used my KitchenAid rather than the Magimix for this one. Of course, there’s no harm in doing things by hand, either!

Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C fan). Grease and base line a 23 cm spring form tin.

Begin by softening 225g of unsalted butter. It’s freezing* in Adelaide at the moment and I’m never organised enough to leave butter out so it was the microwave to the rescue. Mix this with 225g of caster sugar and, when the butter/sugar mix is smooth, add 225 self raising flour and 2 tsp of baking powder.

This will be a stiff mixture so now add 3 large eggs, one at a time. Add 25g of ground almonds and 1 teaspoon of allspice.

Peel and cube apples so that you end up with about 300g of apple ready to go in the cake mix. As you work with the apples, toss them in a little lime juice mixed with lime zest which will stop them going brown and will add some crispness of flavour to the finished product.

Gently stir the apples through the cake batter and spoon into the cake tin. Smooth the top as best you can and make sure you push the mix out to the edges. It is quite thick and difficult to manage but you don’t want a lopsided cake.

In my oven, at 160°C fan the cake took an hour to cook. A skewer wants to come out cleanly and the top needs to be set.

The cake kept quite well – thanks to ground almonds. It had lovely caramelised crunchy bits around the sides and if you were after more of this, you could sprinkle the top with a tablespoon of demerara sugar before baking. Everyone liked this cake: it had a good apple flavour and the allspice added a warm lift. And served with cream – what’s not to like?

* I may be exaggerating … but it is pretty cold!