White Chocolate and Raspberry Cheesecake

WHITE CHOCOLATE AND RASPBERRY CHEESECAKE

Last Tuesday was National Cheesecake Day. Sure, it's an American thing, but I wanted to celebrate all the same. Plus, cheesecake is my boyfriend's favourite dessert.So I decided to make this cheesecake. Now the result was not perfect, I think mostly because I let the gelatine get too hard. But it was still a nice tasting dessert that was easy to eat - because let's face it, dessert is always amazing to enjoy. I have a whole list of cheesecakes I want to try, so you'll be seeing a few coming up. Any ideas from you which cheesecake I should make next?

If you give this one a try, remember to be careful with the gelatine. Too hot and you'll ruin the ingredients, too cold and it'll set and you'll have lumps and a hard time setting it. But it's worth the trial and error.

INGREDIENTS:

185g Nice Biscuits, crushed
90g Unsalted Butter, melted
500g Cream Cheese, softened
1 can Condensed Milk
100g White Chocolate
1 tablespoon Gelatine
1/4 cup Hot Water
3/4 cup Thickened Cream
150g Raspberries, pureed
Whole Raspberries to top

DIRECTIONS:

1 - Combine biscuits and butter in a food processor and blend till combined. Then press into the bottom of a lined springform tin. Refrigerate until firm.

2 - Beat cream cheese and condensed milk until smooth, then beat in the cream.

3 - Melt the white chocolate over a double boiler on the stove top. Allow to cool to room temperature.

4 - Sprinkle gelatine over hot water and stir to dissolve. Allow to cool.

5 - Beat cooled chocolate and gelatine into the cream cheese mixture and spoon evenly over the biscuit base.

6 - Add the raspberry puree to the top and swirl to make a pattern. Plus add whole raspberries to the top.

7 - Refrigerate before serving.

Catch you on the weekend for some baked goodness.

Wayne
xx

Rolo Brownie Cake

ROLO BROWNIE CAKE

I just had a massive weekend of birthday celebrations. It seems like a ridiculous amount of us were born in July, me included. Lately as a present to my friends I've been making them birthday cakes. I had two good friends with birthdays last week, so made two lovely cakes (will share the other on the weekend). This cake, the Rolo Brownie Cake, was one I've wanted to make for a while. It's from my favourite blog, Raspberri Cupcakes, and her stuff is always nice - albeit very fattening. Trust me, this is the kind of cake that is divine to eat, but you can't have a lot.

I made it for my friend Jen, a very talented actress and make up artist. She is one of the nicest people I have met since moving to Melbourne. I have directed her twice and have loved getting to know her. I felt very honoured, and very excited to share a small dinner for her special day.

This cake was wonderful to make, I had a lot of fun doing it. The only difficulty I had was with the actual Rolos themselves. I couldn't find the tubes of Rolos, just the block. I rang Nestle, and they told me they didn't makes the tubes anymore. Dumb. Apparently you can get them in import stores still - but I'd left it too late. So I had to do things a little differently. The other different thing to do here is to make your own caramel sauce with a can of condensed milk. This was great and it turned out perfectly.

So have a go at this fun cake, but make sure you share it or you may just explode!

Original recipe from: http://www.raspberricupcakes.com/2012/04/rolo-chocolate-brownie-cake.html

INGREDIENTS:

For the Cake:
400g Salted Butter
200g Dark Chocolate, coarsely chopped
4 Large Eggs
200g Caster Sugar
200g Plain Flour
1 block of Rolo Chocolate
1 can of Condensed Milk

For the Icing:
400g Milk Chocolate, coarsely chopped
300ml Thickened Cream
1 block of Rolo Chocolate

DIRECTIONS:

1 - First you need to make the caramel sauce for the filling. Take the unopened can of condensed milk and remove the label completely. Place in a medium saucepan and fill with water until it is half to 3/4s of the way up to the side of the can. Cover with lid and boil over a medium heat for two hours. Check regularly and top up with water if it falls below half. WARNING - if the water runs out the can will explode. Please don't let that happen (I'll feel really bad). Let it cool, and then put in fridge until you need it. (Will look like pic above)

2 - Preheat oven to 150°c and grease and line 2 springform tins (if like me you only have one, you'll have to take turns cooking them).

3 - Melt butter and chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir occasionally until smooth.

4 - Whisk eggs and caster sugar in an electric mixer until thick and pale (about 3-5 minutes), fold through chocolate mixture and then fold in flour until just combined.

5 - Pour half the batter in the two pans. Smooth the top and then spread half of the Rolo block to the top of each cake mix.

6 - Bake for 25-30 mins, until cake is firm to touch.

7 - Cool completely in pan before carefully transferring to serving dish. As it's a brownie cake it will crumble easily.

8 - Open caramel tin and add some salt. Use beater to smooth the caramel and mix salt. Then spread completely over the top of one of the cake pieces. Put in fridge for at least half an hour, to make sure it sets.

9 - Carefully sandwich the second cake on top.

10 - To prepare the ganache, place cream in a small saucepan over a medium heat and bring just to boil.

11 - Remove from heat and pour over chopped chocolate (in a heatproof bowl). Leave for 5 minutes and then whisk mixture together. Chill in fridge, stirring every few minutes until it gets thicker.

12 - Spread the ganache liberally over the cake and the side. Break up rolo block and place on top. Refridgerate to set.

13 - Serve and enjoy.

On the weekend, the Coke Chocolate Cake will be put on the blog.

Wayne
xx

Muesli Bars

MUESLI BARS

So as you all know, I love to bake. It's probably why I've put on some weight this past year. But baked goods are just so tasty! I thought maybe I should find some healthy items to make. I've always like muesli bars so I searched for some recipes. This is one is sooooo simple and even though it has condensed milk, it's nowhere near as bad for you as biscuits or cakes. I made these, they were tasty and they lasted well. The next week I was still able to eat them as a snack. So make yourself one of these to take to work instead of buying that muffin or raiding the biscuit barrel. Plus, for the amount it makes, it really is very cost effective.

INGREDIENTS:

3 and a 1/2 cups of rolled oats
395 gram can of condensed milk
1 cup of dry fruit (or you could pretty much put in what you like, healthy or not)

DIRECTIONS:

1 - Preheat oven to 120°c and line a tray with baking paper. Can use a lasagne pan, I used a brownie tin.

2 - Mix all the ingredients together thoroughly with a wooden spoon.

3 - Place contents in the prepared tin, patting it down and making it even.

4 - Bake for 1 hour.

5 - Wait to cool and then slice into bars. Keep in an airtight container.

Back tomorrow with some of the birthday goodies I prepared.

Easy Lemon Tart

So I've been feeling pretty confident about my baking, almost untouchable. I could bake anything. Then I came crashing down to earth. I've become a massive fan of all the Bake Off shows and can't wait for the Australian version to begin. My favourite is the original, The Great British Bake Off. They had an amazing challenge with a lemon tart by Mary Berry, one of the judges. I watched her make it in the masterclass and was sure I could do it. Made the pastry, blind baked it, made the filling, baked it. The end result, fail. Burnt the pastry at the top, still raw down the bottom (a soggy bottom is a no-no on Bake Off) and the filling looked like I had scrambled the eggs. The taste was still nice but it looked awful. I was due to go to my partner's sister's place with dessert and now only had a few hours to spare. I went on line looking for an easy replacement, and hopefully a cheap one! The result was this easy recipe using condensed milk, which is often on sale and is so easy to use. So here's the recipe, you can make it fast and it is so super tasty. So tart, loving lemon lately!

EASY LEMON TART (Thanks to All Recipes)

Ingredients:
200g sweet biscuits (Nice are best, I used Milk Coffee but added a little caster sugar)
70g unsalted butter, melted
1 (395g) tin sweetened condensed milk
2 eggs
3 lemons, zested and juiced

Directions:

1 - Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.

2 - Crush the biscuits in a food processor and then add the melted butter and mix. Line the bottom of a pie dish by pressing the mixture onto the dish with the palm of your hand. Then place the pie dish in freezer while you prepare the filling.

3 - Pour the condensed milk into a bowl and then add the eggs and mix well. Add the lemon juice and lemon zest, folding in until mixed well.

4 - Place the tart in the oven and then pour the lemon mixture into the tart shell. This will ensure you don't drop any on your walk to the oven.

5 - Bake in the preheated oven for 10-15 minutes or until you see it wobble in the middle.

6 - Cool to room temperature and then place in fridge to cool completely.

7 - Serve with icing sugar sprinkled on top. Best served with vanilla ice cream.

Now finally, a friend made my first recipe, the Oreo Cheesecake for her boyfriend's birthday. Thanks Bella. Here's a photo of the result:

So please send in any pics if you make any of these fun and tasty desserts!

wayne@tunks.com.au

Happy Baking!