Cookies and cream cheesecake

I had recently made a cheesecake that flopped when I took it out of the pan. I should have taken a photo of my failure, for cooking is filled with its failures and its successes. This time I did not want it to flop and so I made sure it had adequate gelatine. This recipe required 8 little cheese cakes to be shaped by PVC piping. As this was probably the only time that I would require the PVC piping and so I opted for the springform tin. 

This recipe was taken from the Womens Weekly Cupcakes Cheese Cakes Cookies that sister dearest gave me. What a wonderfully beautiful cook book. I so inspire to one day master your recipes even though I failed at your macarons and Easter egg cup cake basket. For this challenge I decided to make the cookies and cream cheesecakes.

The Ingredients

The Base

125 grams plain chocolate biscuits

75 grams butter, melted

Filling

2 teaspoons gelatin

2 tablespoons water

375grams cream cheese, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup caster sugar

300ml cream

180 grams white eating chocolate, metled

150 grams chocolate cream-filled biscuits, broken

The method

Grease a 24cm spring-form pan and line it with baking paper.

For the base process the biscuits until fine. Add the butter and process until combined. Place the mixture in the springform pan and spread evenly along the base of the pan until it is level and compressed. Place in the fridge for 30 minutes.

I use the bulldog clips to keep the baking paper in place

Melt the gelatine in warm water until all is dissolved.

Beat cheese, extract and sugar in a bowl with an electric mixture until smooth. Beat in the cream and then stir in the white chocolate, gelatine mixture and broken biscuits.

Remove the springform pan from the fridge and pour in the filling. The refrigerated over night.

The next morning I awoke to a soiled and not mushy cheesecake. The baking paper did not leave the cake that smooth around the edges so that is something that I need to work on. I adored the creaminess of the cake and the chocolate biscuits bits and pieces hidden in the cake. I would definitely make this again.

Once when eating out a lady who got a piece of apple pie declared that some of the cake is missing and rejected it. Perhaps she would declare some part of the cake missing and reject this too..

Egg, chrizo and wholemeal bread pie

I really haven't felt like writing lately. Had an exam last week. Only the one but it was enough to stress me out. It has passed and suddenly I have some free time and I am not quiet sure what to do with it. Should I cook, no don't feel quite like making something new. Write on this blog. Not really, I rather enjoy looking at the creative efforts of others. What else? The creative efforts of yester years have disappeared and I tend to roam the internet in search of ghost stories and some photo history of Sydney. I waste plenty of time on this world wide web. It doomed my creativity. Alas, I return to this blog and try to pick up some of what remains of my literary merit and I aim to say I baked a pie and show you the efforts of my labor.

The pie featured in the New Idea magazine and I thought it looked nice. Though it demanded 12 eggs and so I split the recipe in half. Luckily the halving of the ingredients was done otherwise it would have overflowed my spring form cake pan. Thus it would have demanded a clean up in the oven. So, here is to the birth of the Egg, chrizo and wholemeal bread pie.

The ingredients

6 eggs lightly beaten

150 ml thicken cream

Salt and pepper to taste

1/4 loaf of wholemeal bread (crust removed and cut into 2cm pieces)

1 chorizo, cut up

1 tablespoon of oil

1 onion thinly sliced

1 zucchini, thinly sliced

1 garlic clove, crushed

1 tablespoon finely chopped thyme

1/2 cup grated vintage cheddar

The Method

Grease and line a 24 cm round cake pan with baking paper. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Combine eggs and cream in a bowl. Add salt and pepper and then press the bread into the mixture, until all the bread is completely covered.

Pan fry the chorizo for about 3 minutes. The remove from the pan and allow to cool.

Heat oil in the pan now. Cook the onion until soft. Add the zucchini, garlic and thyme. Stir for about 5 minutes until the zucchini is soft. The remove from the stove and allow to cool.

Add the chorizo, zucchini mixture, with half of the cheese to the bread mixture. Mix to combine. Pour the mixture into the cake pan and sprinkle with the remaining cheese. 

Place into the oven and cook it until the egg is cooked and a skewer comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow it to cool for 10 minutes.

 

Serve it with something green and yummy.

Milk Chocolate Souffle

After failing to make a souffle in my previous post, I set out the next night to make an actual souffle. This time I decided to use milk chocolate. I did want to make a souffle that was half white chocolate and half dark chocolate but with time constraint only lead me to find milk chocolate in a convenience shop close to home.

The Ingredients

Soften butter for greasing the ramekins

90 grams of milk chocolate

1/2 tablespoon of caster sugar plus some for coating of ramekins

3 egg whites

2 egg yokes

75 ml of thicken cream

1 tablespoon brandy

Icing sugar for dusting

The Method

Preheat your oven to 220 degrees Celsius.

Grease the ramekins with butter and then sprinkle caster sugar. Refrigerate until you place the completed mixture into the ramekins.

Place the milk chocolate and cream into a bowl sitting over warm water in a saucepan to melt the chocolate. Mix until the chocolate melts and it is all smooth. Remove the bowl from the heat and mix in the egg yokes and the brandy.

Using an electric mixture, whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form. Add the caster sugar and whisk it until its glossy.

Gently fold in the egg whites gradually and fold until combined. Fill up your ramekins just below the rim and bake for 8-10 minutes. Remove from the oven and dust with icing sugar and gobble it all up with a special someone.