Category: Bake like you mean it

  • Coffee/Walnut

    Coffee/Walnut

    Right. Hadn’t planned to do another cheesecake so quickly but the chickens are producing copious amounts of eggs at the moment and Philadelphia is on offer in Tesco. It’s like the universe is telling me to bake cheesecake.

    For this, you’ll need a copy of this book. “The Great British Bake Off How to Turn Everyday Bakes Into Showstoppers”. It’s a short and catchy title, I’ll grant you. The cover looks like this…

    A much-loved cookbook.

    Well, it does after it’s been in my kitchen for a while. The yellow post-it sticking out of the top marks my wife’s favourite cake: Rich coffee & walnut torte. And it’s a beauty! No flour, using walnuts and breadcrumbs to create a beautiful moist cake, it’s just gorgeous. There are good reasons I bake one of these for her birthday every year.

    But you didn’t come here for a normal cake, you came here for cheesecake. So, to turn the basic New York cheesecake into a coffee/walnut work of art, you’ll need…

    Ingredients

    • 3oz walnut halves or pieces, roasted to dry
    • 6oz Hobnob or similar oat biscuits
    • 3oz butter
    • 680g full fat (really, full fat, accept no substitutes) cream cheese. Again, apologies for switching the units of measurement. Essentially 2 big tubs of Philadelphia.
    • 250g Marscapone
    • 9oz caster sugar
    • 4 eggs
    • 180ml sour cream
    • 2tbsp dark rum
    • 2tbsp instant coffee

    Oven to 180°C, spread the walnuts bits on a tray and bake them for 10-15 minutes. Set aside to cool. Then heat the rum and adding the coffee. Stir until it’s dissolved, take it off the heat and set it to one side to cool.

    Then you’re into the usual. Blitz the biscuits to a fine crumb, add 2/3 of the walnuts in and blitz them as well. Melt the butter, stir into the crumbs and mix thoroughly. Press into the base of a 23cm springform tin (I use a potato masher for this!) and bake for 10 minutes.

    Meanwhile… In a big bowl, mix together the sugar, Philly, and marscapone. Mix in each egg in turn, then the soured cream, then stir in the coffee/rum mix that you made earlier. Finally, add the rest of the walnut pieces, stir to combine, then pour into the tin.

    You hopefully know this by now – bake for 48 minutes, when the time’s up switch off the oven and leave the door open a crack while the cake cools. Transfer to the fridge and cool overnight.

    The Topping…

    • 250g marscapone
    • 200ml double cream
    • 75g icing sugar
    • 2tbsp rum
    • 2tbsp instant coffee

    Okay, so heat the rum, add the coffee, stir until dissolved, leave to cool. So far, so good. Whip up the cream until nice and thick, don’t butter it. Mix the icing sugar into the marscapone, then mix through the coffee stuff. Fold that into the double cream, then slather it all over the top of the cheesecake. Add little walnut bits if you want, but it’s kinda gilding the lily.

  • Thank Crunchie it’s Cheesecake

    Thank Crunchie it’s Cheesecake

    Crunchies are one of those sweets that seem to have been around forever without changing. They’re still that gorgeous chocloate-coated honeycomb of burnt sugar and they’re still delicious. A friend has just had a birthday and wanted a Crunchie cheesecake…

    My flavour and ingredient guru was on the case instantly. Make a caramel, burn the sugar that way, let it set and blitz it down, there’s your flavour. Biscoff have the same flavour, so there’s your biscuit base. Milk chocolate ganache for the topping, mix in some bits of Crunchie and you’re golden.

    The Ingredients…

    Quick spin around the ingredients, Clive, then back to me.

    • 6oz Biscoff biscuits, blitzed to crumbs
    • 3oz melted butter
    • 680g full fat cream cheese
    • 320g Marscapone (these quantities are approximate, it’s 2 big packs of Philadelphia plus 1 Tesco Marscapone)
    • 9oz burnt sugar (apologies for mixing units of measurements!)
      • 9oz caster sugar into a dry, clean, frying pan. Cook it until it melts. The longer you cook it, the more colour it gets. Pour onto a non-stick baking sheet, allow to cool, then blitz it down to the same consistency as the caster sugar you started with).
    • 4 eggs
    • 300ml Sour Cream
    • 2 packs Crunchie Bites
    • 150ml double cream
    • 150g milk chocolate, smashed into little bits

    These are mostly the same as the Baked New York Cheesecake but with the above Crunchie-inspired tweaks… And, it turns out, that’s the Mark I recipe there so I need to update that.

    The Method

    Oven to 180°C, mix the Biscoff with the butter and put into the bottom of a 23cm spring-sided cheesecake tin. I believe they’re actually called cake tins, but they’ve got a dedicated purpose here. Bake for 10 minutes.

    Meanwhile, mix the cream cheese, Marscapone, and sugar together then beat in each egg until combined. Don’t over-work it, you’re just wanting to get everything mixed. With a big spatula, mix in the sour cream.

    Get a rolling pin and smash up the Crunchie Bites to make the lumps a bit smaller. Then stir that through. Should’ve taken you ~10 minutes, so take out the base, pour the mix into the tin, and put it back in the oven for the very specific time of 48 minutes. This time is the perfect time for the fan oven I’ve got, your mileage will vary. Experiment! Make a few! Find that sweet sweet spot and write it down somewhere safe.

    When the time is up, switch off the oven, open it a crack, then allow the cheesecake to cool in the oven. I’d say you’re looking at a good couple or three hours here.

    When you take the cheesecake out of the oven, run a knife around the edge to separate cheesecake from tin but don’t open the spring yet. Make your ganache.

    Heat the double cream until nearly boiling, remove from the heat and pour over the smashed chocolate. Whisk until smooth. Allow to cool a bit then pour over the top of the cheesecake.

    Now stick it in the fridge overnight.

    Et voila! Crunchie Cheesecake. You could, if you wanted to gild the lily, make some honeycomb and decorate the top with shards of the stuff.

    Thank Crunchie It’s Cheesecake

    I’m reliably informed that the sweetness of the milk chocolate ganache is the perfect foil for the not-too-sweet cheesecake filling and that it fit the brief perfectly.

    We’re now on the hunt for other ideas… There will be a coffee and wallnut cheesecake, probably later today, rum and raisin will happen in the future, as will mint-choc-chip. Snickers is too close to Mars Bar, and I’ve already done that. Twix is too simple. Oh, banoffee pie cheesecake is on the horizon as well. The thing is, once you’ve got the basic recipe, you can tweak and experiment to your heart’s content.

    Let me know how it goes, eh?

  • Brown Bread Ice Cream Cheesecake

    Brown Bread Ice Cream Cheesecake

    Most of my best baking has been done following a conversation with my wife. I got in to baking New York Cheesecakes following a request from her to bake one for her birthday. Last night we were talking about family favourite recipes and, as it seems no cookery blog is complete without a long introduction to the recipe, here goes. My late father-in-law loved brown bread ice cream. Such a gorgeous malty taste with a nice bit of crunch from the breadcrumbs. Could I replicate that taste and texture with cheesecake? Probably…

    Quick bit of research and it turns out the breadcrumbs aren’t that difficult to do, the malty taste can come from the Horlics (*Other malt beverages are available), and I reckon Malted Milk biscuits will make the perfect base.

    Right. Quick spin around the ingredients, Clive, then back to me.

    The breadcrumbs…

    Oven to 180C.

    • 250g brown bread. I’ve a really good deli a couple of miles away, their date and walnut bread hit the spot perfectly. Blitz it up into largeish crumbs. Not a fine powder, not chunks.
    • 50g butter. Melted. Then cooked a bit more so it goes brown and nutty, just like they needed for the Financiers on the Bake Off last night.
    • pinch of salt
    • very generous pinch of cinnamon.

    Melt the butter in a largeish pan, once it’s foamed and started to go nice and nutty, stir in everything else. Mix well, spread on a baking tray, bake it for half an hour, stirring every 10 minutes so it doesn’t go burnt on the top, uncooked on the bottom. Leave to cool while you get on with…

    The base

    • 175g (ish, err on the side of generous) Malted Milk biscuits, crushed to an even, breadcrumb consistency.
    • 50g butter, melted.

    The usual cheesecake base here, no tricks, nothing unusual. Though you could sling in some more cinnamon if you wanted. Mix butter with biscuits, spread across the base of your 23cm diameter, spring-sided cheesecake tin, bake for 10 minutes at the 180C the oven is already set to.

    Finally…

    The Mix

    And this is where the story really starts…

    • 720g Philadelphia cream cheese. Full fat. No substitutions, alterations, swap-outs, or store’s-own-brand-alternatives. This is the good stuff, this never fails.
    • 250g marscapone. Any old marscapone will do. No elitism here.
    • 300ml soured cream.
    • 75g each of
      • Caster sugar
      • Soft dark brown sugar
      • Horlics or other malted beverage powder
    • 4 eggs
    • Half the breadcrumbs you made earlier

    I’ve been doing this a while now, and I think this is about the right order

    Put the Philly, the marscapone, the sugars, and the Horlics in a bowl and mix. You might have some lumps of soft dark brown sugar in the mix, don’t panic about that. All adds to the texture of the cheesecake in the end.

    Crack in the eggs, all at once, then mix – carefully so you don’t over-mix it – until they’re blended in. Go around the edge of the bowl with a spatula, make sure you’ve got everything. Add the soured cream and mix that in. Finally, add in the breadcrumbs, stir so they’re evenly distributed, then pour onto the base.

    Bake for 45, 46 minutes at the aforementioned 180C. Open the oven a crack, switch it off, let the cheesecake cool in there for a while before transferring to a fridge to chill overnight.

    Serving tip? Run your knife under boiling water before making each cut. They’ll be razor-smooth.

    The Verdict

    I don’t know whether it tastes like brown bread ice cream, but it is wonderfully caramelly, slightly crunchy from the breadcrumbs, and is just plain delicious.

    Share and enjoy!