Blog

  • And so it begins

    Another year, another fresh set of days ahead to fill with, well, what?

    More baking, obviously. Cheesecakes are a given, but I’m going to branch sideways into a few more varieties. I think I’ve mastered the New Yorker, but there’s the baseless Basque cheesecake, there’s going to be jellies to top them, mirror glazes (if I can avoid what appears to be the inevitable rubberyness that accompanies them according to the Great British Bake Off), things like that. The dried blackcurrants were a massive success, so assuming we get the fruit, more of that too.

    Teaching continues unabated. Timetable has been ripped up, fed through the shredder with two others and has yet to be formally stuck back together. It’s still the best career change I could’ve made, but the stuff that happens around actually teaching kids sometimes feels overwhelming.

    I’ve tracked down a lot of old drafts and works in progress from historic NaNoWriMos past, hoping that this year will be the year I finally finish a story… setting myself the challenge of writing something at least 5 times a week.

    And speaking of finishing, there’s a cross stitch dragon that needs a ton of back stitch. I hate back stitch. If anyone has any recommendations for making it easier/faster, I’m all ears.

    Plus the traditional run/exercise more, eat less, lose 6kg…

    So that’s the plan. The year will fill up with amazing things, as years do – folk festivals, holidays, random nights at Rock City – but these are things I want to do.

  • Blackcurrants Ahoy!

    There are years where you get gluts of fruit and veg from both the garden and the allotment. 2 years ago we had to share our damson harvest with our neighbours – picking from the tree filled 2 large buckets! Last year we offered to share the harvest again – we would keep 1 damson, they could have the other. The tree was not kind to us, so we hacked it back and this year looks to be a good one.

    I know, everyone hates those cooking blogs where it takes ages to get to the point. But if I don’t tell you this stuff now, you’ll not read it after you’ve had the recipe, so bear with me.

    Courgettes are an easy one to get rid of. Grate them, squeeze out a lot of the water, and sub them for carrots in your favourite carrot cake recipe. Ours is bullet-proof, comes from the Usbourne Family Cook Book (spot the ducks on every page). Blackcurrants used to be easy. We’d jam them, pie them, crumble them, and make blackcurrant gin/vodka (usually before making the pie or crumble as they retain a lot of their booziness after cooking). Couple of years ago we had an absolute glut and we’re still working our way through the jam. This year is already looking to be a good one so we needed a way to use them ASAP.

    Cue blackcurrant cheesecake. I branded this one an experimental cheesecake as this was the first time I’d tried it, but then thinking on it it was always going to work. After all, marmalade works as a cheesecake ingredient (ginger biscuit base, stick to the classic combinations here) so why shouldn’t blackcurrant?

    Oven to 180C, 23cm spring-form tin at the ready on a baking tray, quick spin round the ingredients, Clive, then back to me. You’re going to need:

    • 175g HobNob/Oatie/Indestructodunk biscuits. Not chocolate-covered, though.
    • 75g butter, melted.
    • 2 x large tubs Philadelphia (the 375g ones)
    • 1 x tub of Marscapone (~300g ish. Dunno. 1 tub is an acceptable unit of measurement here!)
    • 175g caster sugar (this is less than my usual recipe, but then a lot of sugar is coming in from the jam)
    • 4 eggs (another think I’ve usually got a glut of this time of year)
    • 300ml sour cream
    • 1 jar of home-made blackcurrant jam. The jar I used was quite large!

    As a quick aside, blackcurrant jam is one of the easiest to make, the stuff has so much natural pectin (the stuff that makes jams set) there’s no need to go scrounging around for any more. The trick is to keep the stuff runny enough to spread! Here is an exceedingly thorough guide to making this most wonderful of jams – https://www.farmersgirlkitchen.co.uk/blackcurrant-jam/

    Right. If you’e followed any of my cheesecakes before you know the drill. Blitz up the biccies into a nice crumb, mix into the melted butter, spread into the bottom of the spring-form tin and press it flat with either your knuckles or an old potato masher. Stick that in the oven, bake for 10 minutes.

    Meanwhile, get a big bowl, dump in the Philly, the marscapone, and the sugar. Mix thoroughly. Then crack in the eggs and mix them in – careful not to over-mix. Now mix through the soured cream. Finally, as the oven is coming to the end of the 10 minutes, scoop in the jar of jam and mix thoroughly again – I used jam with bits in, so there are whole blackcurrants distributed through the mix.

    When it’s done, take out the base and pour over the cheesecake mix, use a spatula to clean the bowl as best you can. I’ve got this down to a fine art, much to the disappointment of the kids who are keen for the lick!. Put this into the oven, bake for 48 minutes then switch off the oven, crack the door a little, and allow the whole thing to cool for ~2-3 hours. Remove from the oven, transfer to fridge, and suffer for the rest of the night knowing it’s there but knowing you can’t cut into it until it’s properly chilled.

    Blackcurrant Cheesecake. Mmmmmm.

    And this is what it looks like the next morning. The outer rim of the top edge has a lovely caramelisation to it. Feedback from the usual crowd of testers (my wonderful family) rate it highly, reckon it could probably take more in the way of fruit. So the experiments continue. In the dehydrator at the moment I’ve today’s pick of blackcurrants, I’m going to dehydrate them completely and blitz them to a powder so that can get added to the Mk II of this beastie. Going to make more blackcurrant jam from the next lot of picking, that can go into an upcoming bake… Also looking at blackcurrant jelly recipes to give this a top-layer of fruity goodness.

    And obviously, if blackcurrant jam works, there’s nothing to stop raspberry jam from being awesome as a cheesecake flavour. Strawberries probably not so much, unless it’s a smooth jam or you’ve chopped the strawberries up small.

  • 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.