Toblerone Cheesecake

Tomorrow is Miss KS's birthday - 21 again! We're having a barbie around at her house in the evening and she requested the S'mores she had in her Christmas Hamper last year for dessert. Of course I'm more than happy to oblige, will be making them tomorrow morning so they are nice and fresh, the cookies need to be crunchy on the outside but soft and deliciously gooey on the inside ... I digress! More about S'mores tomorrow!

KS has gone to so much effort getting food and drink in for everyone that when she mentioned buying a cheesecake to help feed the crowd I immediately offered a taste of my youth in this Toblerone Cheesecake. I've not met a person yet who doesn't like it, even SD who is a notorious Toblerone disliker (strange girl!) likes this. The Toblerone is a very subtle flavour, its definitely more cheesecakey in taste than chocolatey, which can sometimes be a good thing I guess.

As already mentioned, this is a taste of my more "formative" years growing up in Tasmania, so the recipe is in cup measurements - sorry! I had intended to translate it into grams and tbsp's but that just seemed like I was messing with the laws of Toblerone Cheesecake so I've left it as is. If memory serves me correctly the recipe came off the side of the Philly Cream Cheese box - those were the days, cream cheese in a box with a thick foil wrapping!

Toblerone Cheesecake

1 cup plain chocolate biscuit crumbs (back in the day that meant choc ripple biscuits but I can't seem to find a UK alternative so I either use chocolate coated Hob Nobs or Nice biscuits with some cocoa powder added)

1/3 cup butter, melted

2 x 250g cream cheese, softened at room temp

3 tsp gelatine dissolved in 1/2 cup boiling water

3/4 cup caster sugar

100g Toblerone Swiss milk or dark chocolate, melted

1/2 cup cream (double)

Mix biscuit crumbs and butter and press into the base of a 20cm springform tin. Chill.

Beat the cream cheese with an electric mixer until soft. Add gelatine mixture, caster sugar, melted toblerone and cream, blend until smooth.

Pour into crumb base and chill in refrigerator for 2-3 hours or overnight. Garnish with chocolate shavings and strawberries.

Not sure how many people this serves, or should I say how many slices you get from the cheesecake, as the number of servings and the number of people aren't necessarily the same thing! Generally speaking though, small slices would be recommended as it is quite rich. Strawberries are great served on the side, think I'll do the Pimm's Strawberries to take to the barbie, just for something a bit more grown up.

There was also some spare Lemon Tart filling still in the fridge from the Martin Wishart Cook School day earlier in the week. I decided to use up the mixture by making some mini tarts, finished with a creme brulee topping as the chef's did at the school. My blow torch seems to have given up the ghost though (a pity seeing as this was the first time I've been brave enough to try and use it!) so I gave the creme brulee topping a whirl under the grill. This technique is obviously not for the faint hearted! I'm afraid I chickened out before the sugar went fully creme brulee like, but it was a toss up between that and a burnt crust ...

These little beauties will be served with the Macerated Raspberries we learnt to make at the Cook School too.

Carrot Cake

Well in for a penny in for a pound - here goes my first blog entry. OMG! Feeling slightly intimidated I have to say!

Anyhoo, Hubby has been nagging [read:asking] for me to make him a Carrot Cake for quite sometime now. He has been very supportive with all the bits and pieces going on in my day to day life lately so he deserves a treat, and the more calories it contains the better - although in an attempt to fool myself into thinking of this cake as 'slightly' healthier I used extra light cream cheese for the frosting!

This is one I have made before and its always been a success and tends to get very receptive responses. It makes a whoopingly huge cake so don't be scared of the quantities listed, it took the entire bag of carrots to get enough grated weight! I made the cake yesterday after work and iced it tonight before dinner.

Carrot Cake
250ml veg oil
250g light brown sugar
3 eggs
720g coarsely grated carrot
120g coarsely chopped walnuts
375g SR flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp mixed spice
Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting
30g butter
80g cream cheese, softened
1 tsp finely grated lemon rind
240g icing sugar

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease a deep 23cm round cake pan and line the base with baking paper.

Beat oil, sugar and eggs in a small bowl with electric mixer until thick and creamy. Transfer mixture to a large bowl, stir in carrot and nuts, then sifted dry ingredients.

Pour mixture into the prepared pan, bake in moderate oven for about 1 1/4 hours. Cover the cake loosely with foil halfway through cooking. stand cake for 5 mins; turn onto a wire rack to cool. Spread Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting over the cold cake.

To make the frosting; beat the butter, cream cheese and rind in a small bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy; gradually beat in icing sugar.

Serves 12
Taken from The Australian Women's Weekly Cafe Cakes Cookbook

May need to work on the old photography skills me thinks! Don't let this shocking photo put you off, the cake defies the picture - honest!

Raspberry and Milk Chocolate Cheesecake

It seems I manged to over estimate just how many tubs of cream cheese I needed to buy for the 'disastrous' White Chocolate Cheesecakes with Crushed Mini Eggs!  So with the surplus sitting in the fridge taking up valuable space and edging ever closer to their expiration date I psyched myself back into a kitchen groove ... which has been sadly laking of late.  I wasn't convinced a cheesecake was the best place to start back at, owing to the aforementioned Easter flop, but Hubby loves a cheesecake and I knew it didn't really matter how disasters the results were he would still eat it!  That said I did steer away from the baked variety!!

Raspberry and Milk Chocolate Cheesecake

180g digestive biscuits
75g butter, melted
100g milk chocolate
300g cream cheese
200ml double cream
75g golden caster sugar
150g raspberries
Icing sugar
Chocolate, melted, to serve (optional)

Crumble the digestives on a food processor, add the melted butter and whizz to fine crumbs.  Put in a 20cm tin with a push up base and pat with the back of a spoon.

Melt the chocolate in a microwave or glass bowl set over a pan of simmering water.  mix the cream cheese, cream and sugar together until smooth.  add the raspberries and stir in, then add the melted chocolate and quickly swirl through.

Spoon into the tin and smooth the top with a palette knife, then chill in the fridge for 2 hour.  serve dusted with icing sugar and a little melted chocolate if you like.

Serves 8

Olive Magazine (no idea which one!)

 

Keeping true to my bad form in the kitchen, I misread the recipe while whipping this number up and managed to omit the cream!  This fopar didn't seem to have a huge effect on the end result (though it would be interesting to see what difference it does make) and even a non cheesecake lover like myself found it quite nom-able.

Turkish Delight Cheesecake - CBC 4

This is my fourth cook book challenge, which also doubled as Hubby's Valentines Day present. I've decided that if I can get through maybe 75 of my books this year then I will treat myself to either the pasta attachment or the ice cream maker bowl for my kitchen aid. Think I may need to get a move on!!!

I became a complete Marcus Wareing fan when I saw the first series of 'The Great British Menu' on TV. Who will ever forget the amazing Custard Tart he produced? Made my mouth water! I bought the book from the series so I could give the recipe a try and then promptly chickened out. I mean, he is a Michelin star chef and I'm just me!!! Maybe I'll make that one my cook book challenge 75?!?!?!? In any case, Hubby bought me Marcus' new book 'Nutmeg and Custard' for Christmas and while I was flicking through it one night he spotted the pictures for the Turkish Delight Cheesecake. Two of Hubby's favourite things wrapped up in one recipe, he was in seventh heaven. I've made loads of cheesecakes before so I figured this recipe may be a good place to start, I'll build up to the Custard Tart ;0)

Marcus Wareing's Turkish Delight Cheesecake

200g rich tea biscuits, crushed (I used nice biscuits)

3 tbsp cocoa powder

80g unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing

2 tbsp clear honey (Hubby isn't a big fan of honey so I used golden syrup)

4 leaves gelatine

250g cream cheese

25g caster sugar

250g sour cream

2 tbsp semi skimmed or whole milk

3 x 50g bars chocolate covered Turkish Delight, chopped

Rosewater, to taste

Mix together the crushed biscuits and cocoa powder. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over a moderate heat, then mix in the honey. Pour into the biscuit mixture and stir well to combine, then press into a greased spring form cake tin (20cm in diameter and 8cm deep) and refrigerate.

Soak the gelatine leaves in a little cold water and leave in the fridge for 10 mins. Beat the cream cheese until soft, then add the sugar and sour cream and beat well.

Heat the milk gently in a small saucepan, then remove from the heat. Squeeze the soaking liquid from the gelatine leaves, then add them to the milk, stirring well. Add 4 spoonfuls of the cream cheese mixture to the milk, stir together well, then pass through a fine sieve into the remaining cream cheese mixture. Combine well, then fold in the Turkish Delight and enough rosewater to suit your taste.

Blend lightly using a stick blender, or pulse briefly in a blender. Pour on to the chilled base and allow the cheesecake to set in the fridge for a couple of hours until firm.

Serves 8-10 (or 1 Husband over a couple of days!)

Taken from Marcus Wareing's Nutmeg and Custard

I added one capful (a very precise measurement I know) of rosewater to the mixture, which tasted like enough while the mixture was still being put together. I found that the rosewater flavour seemed to diminish once the cheesecake was set though so next time I'll add a bit more in. Hubby seemed to enjoy it though and as it was his present that was the main thing ;0)

Word Of Mouth

It seems I'm starting to develop a bit if a reputation for myself at work. The 'leftovers' from all of the chocolate adventures this week have been making their way into the office everyday but because it wasn't possible to share yesterday's 'spares' my team were very disappointed this morning. Hubby's were too (have I already mentioned we work in the same office?) and with tomorrow being Friday I was asked to redeem myself by making a couple of treats for some of the different team meetings that are planned.

One of Hubby's staff members is moving into a different team on Monday (this happens a lot where we work!) so he requested the Chocolate Muffins with the Fudge Icing I made a couple of weeks ago. Apparently the staff member in question has been asking for them everyday since so he thought it would be nice to give her a batch for her moving team present. He did request that they be made exactly the same as the first time but I ran into a small obstacle with this, I ran out of cocoa powder, resulting in a less chocolaty looking muffin. Fingers crossed nobody notices! I also added some white chocolate decorations this time (so even if anybody does notice I'm hoping the pretty decorations will take their mind off it).

And then we arrive at Miss SD's desk (that would be my friend from the Not So Jammy Muffin post). She is having her team meeting tomorrow too and everyone is taking in a treat to share. Miss SD asked me to make the Toblerone Cheesecake and while I don't actually belong in the same team they are like a surrogate team to me so I was pleased to be asked ;0)

The only problem with making these items is that I did promise right at the very start of Chocolate Week that I would be making something I've never tried before each day. I was going to get around this by making a third chocolate item as well but to be honest, after a full day' work and making the muffins and frosting and the cheesecake and dinner I never got around to it, the couch and a cuppa was too appealing. Sorry. I promise to make it up by the end of chocolate week though.

Chocolate Chip Cupcake Bites

This post comes with mixed emotions - as lovely as mini cupcakes are they tend to hold a sour taste once they have broken your beloved kitchen aid mixer!!!  Hubby has fixed said appliance but she will never be the same again and now requires TLC when in use ... that's not to imply that she never used to get TLC, she just needs more of it now!

Yesterday I was watching a repeat of Cupcake Wars on the Food Network and it made me crave a cupcake.  Being on a 'healthy eating plan' (the 'D' word is taboo in this house!) makes cupcake cravings slightly tricky and after a flick through my cupcake cook book collection there was not a single recipe for a low fat version.  I decided to use a normal recipe and make them in mini cases, the theory being the smaller they are the healthier they will be.  I also replaced the softened butter with low fat spread, a step too far in my book!  There is just no substitute for that butter flavour.

Chocolate Chip Cupcake Bites
100g butter, softened
100g caster sugar
2 large eggs
100g SR flour
100g plain chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 150C.  Line mini muffin pans with paper cases. Place the butter, sugar, eggs and flour in a large bowl and beat together until just smooth.  Fold in the chocolate chips.  Spoon the mixture into the paper cases.

Bake in the preheated oven for 15-20 mins, or until well risen and golden brown.  Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Makes 28 mini cupcakes or 12 regular cupcakes
1001 Cupcakes, Cookies and Other Tempting Treats

I decided to push the boat out on the icing, making a new frosting.  I've long admired American style frosting on cupcakes, so sleek and silky smooth looking.  Believe me, this frosting tastes as good as it looks!

American Style Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting
130g butter, at room temp
230g cream cheese, at room temp
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 cups icing sugar (I measured this to be 540g!)
1-4 tbsp double cream or milk

Place the butter in a large mixing bowl and blend slightly.  Add cream cheese and blend until combined.

Add vanilla extract and icing sugar and blend on a low speed until combined.  Increase to medium speed and beat until it begins to get fluffy.

Slowly add the cream or milk and a little bit at a time until the desired consistency is met.  (I didn't add any as I used an extra light cream cheese and I wanted the frosting to hold its shape when piped onto the cupcakes).  Beat until fluffy, approx 1 min.

Use at once or keep in the fridge for several days.  If you do this it may need to be re beat before using to get the right texture.

Makes enough to frost 1 batch of cupcakes
http://glorioustreats.blogspot.com/

Head over to the Glorious Treats Blog to find three variations to this base recipe which includes a Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting and a Strawberry / Blackberry Frosting too.

Top the cupcakes with a milk chocolate button and voila ... Chocolate Chip Cupcake Bites are ready for consumption!