Tasty stuff
Nov. 25th, 2005 08:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pensnestI paid a visit to my Bun today, delivering various costume items (suit, pearls, hats, shirt, tie), and sundry other stuff including a sweetie-full Advent calendar because I am That Sort Of Bear.
Last time we met, I had made a Baileys Cheesecake. One of Bun's corridor-mates, who partook of same, has requested the recipe. And I thought, perhaps others might wish to see it too. Those of you still groaning from overindulgence of Thanksgiving turkey will be spared the terrifying details by the LJ cut.
My cheesecake recipes are derived from a truly wonderful little book by Bernice Hurst called 'The Perfect Cheesecake'. I acquired it when I was at university (Cosmopolitan published some examples, we made them, and had to have more) and made a practice of giving out copies as wedding presents for several years. I don't think it's in print any more, but if you should espy a copy on eBay or in a jumble sale (fat chance!), snap it up.
Baileys Cheesecake is a variant on her Coffee Liqueur Cheesecake.
You need:
approx 8 oz plain biscuits (Rich Tea, or that kind of thing)
2 tbs sugar (light brown is best, I think)
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
2 oz butter
Put the oven on to heat up to Gas Mark 4 (350F).
Crumb the biscuits (stick 'em in a plastic bag and attack with a rolling pin - effective and fun), melt the butter, and combine. Press onto the base of a large tin (9" or whatever the centimetre equivalent may be). Use either a tin with a removable base or one of those which snaps open at the sides. Bake in the oven for about 5 minutes. Let it cool while you attend to the filling.
Meanwhile:
1.5 lb cream cheese (ideally, fresh full-fat cream cheese from a deli, but Philadelphia or the supermarket's own-brand equivalent is the next best thing)
6 oz sugar
3 eggs
8 oz plain chocolate (though I have found that if you eat some of it, the cake is still pretty good. Ahem)
quite a lot of cream - about 10 oz, I think. You can use 2 tbs double cream and 8 oz sour cream, but last time I made it I forgot about the sour cream and just used double cream for the lot.
2 tsp instant coffee dissolved in 2 oz boiling water
2 oz Baileys (okay, maybe a bit more) or other liqueur, I haven't tried anything else but I bet there are some tasty options
Do the dissolving of coffee in boiling water bit, and leave it to cool
Then break up the chocolate and put it into a pan over hot water with 2 tbs of the cream
Beat together the cream cheese and sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly after each.
Add the melted chocolate/cream mixture, the cooled coffee, the liqueur, the 8oz remaining cream, and (if you like) a half teaspoon or so of vanilla essence. I don't think it matters a whole heap.
Pour it over the base, and put the cake into the oven. It should take about 45 min. The sides will puff, the middle may still be a bit wobbly but don't worry about that.
When you take the cake out, run a knife round the edge between cake and tin, which *may* help the cake not to develop crevasses as it cools. Let it cool, and put it in the fridge when the tin isn't going to melt the fridge shelves. If you are dismayed by unsightly cracks in the top of the cake, melt quite a lot of dark chocolate and pour it over the top. Heh.
Some other options:
For the base - use ginger biscuits ( a bugger to crush, but tasty) or bourbons or digestives. Or cake crumbs. Or rusks. Add a handful of raisins, or chopped nuts. Cinnamon (and nutmeg) add a nice something, especially on a plain-ish cake. Try different kinds of sugar - again, if the cake is plain-ish, rich dark brown sugar will be worth doing, but if the cake is flavoured or fruit-covered this may be less welcome.
A basic cake mix for a fruit-topped cake:
1.5lb curd cheese (ie medium-fat, so you can kid yourself this is a healthy dessert)
juice of 1 lemon
2 eggs
3 oz sugar (seems a bit ungenerous, but there'll be fruit on top, so okay)
Mix it all together and put it on top of your chosen base in the 9" pan. Bake at No 5 (375F) for at least 20 min, but I think rather more. When cool, apply fruit topping:
Fresh fruit is always nice, of course. Or, tinned fruit - raspberries, cherries, pineapple, whatever. To glaze it, which is nice:
mix 2.5tsp cornflour with 2 tbsp sugar, slowly add approx 4oz juice from the tinned fruit. Simmer until thick and clear. Add fruit, plus 1tsp lemon juice. Cool for 5 min and then spoon carefully over the cake. This works well, and looks beautiful with a deep red fruit. Alternatively you can get clever with gelatin, but I have never had any success with gelatin and refuse to be responsible for the results.
One more recipe, which is one of which I am rather fond, is for a slightly smaller cake, so use an 8" cake tin (or scale it up)
Base: digestive biscuits, cinnamon, nutmeg, approx 2oz butter, and I usually add raisins. I'd say you use at least 12 diggies, and a generous half teaspoonful of each spice. You can get quite creative with this base as the cheese part of the cake is quite simple. Proceed as for Baileys cheesecake recipe.
1lb cream cheese, 2 eggs, 5oz caster sugar, generous half tsp vanilla essence
Beat eggs and sugar together until light and creamy, add cheese gradually, and add vanilla. Beat until smooth, pour onto base and cook for 30 - 40 minutes at Gas 5 (375F). Allow to cool.
Topping: 4oz sour cream, 2 oz caster sugar, scant quarter tsp vanilla. Beat together until thick, pour over cake. Chill well.
Calories per slice: don't even think about it.
Last time we met, I had made a Baileys Cheesecake. One of Bun's corridor-mates, who partook of same, has requested the recipe. And I thought, perhaps others might wish to see it too. Those of you still groaning from overindulgence of Thanksgiving turkey will be spared the terrifying details by the LJ cut.
My cheesecake recipes are derived from a truly wonderful little book by Bernice Hurst called 'The Perfect Cheesecake'. I acquired it when I was at university (Cosmopolitan published some examples, we made them, and had to have more) and made a practice of giving out copies as wedding presents for several years. I don't think it's in print any more, but if you should espy a copy on eBay or in a jumble sale (fat chance!), snap it up.
Baileys Cheesecake is a variant on her Coffee Liqueur Cheesecake.
You need:
approx 8 oz plain biscuits (Rich Tea, or that kind of thing)
2 tbs sugar (light brown is best, I think)
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
2 oz butter
Put the oven on to heat up to Gas Mark 4 (350F).
Crumb the biscuits (stick 'em in a plastic bag and attack with a rolling pin - effective and fun), melt the butter, and combine. Press onto the base of a large tin (9" or whatever the centimetre equivalent may be). Use either a tin with a removable base or one of those which snaps open at the sides. Bake in the oven for about 5 minutes. Let it cool while you attend to the filling.
Meanwhile:
1.5 lb cream cheese (ideally, fresh full-fat cream cheese from a deli, but Philadelphia or the supermarket's own-brand equivalent is the next best thing)
6 oz sugar
3 eggs
8 oz plain chocolate (though I have found that if you eat some of it, the cake is still pretty good. Ahem)
quite a lot of cream - about 10 oz, I think. You can use 2 tbs double cream and 8 oz sour cream, but last time I made it I forgot about the sour cream and just used double cream for the lot.
2 tsp instant coffee dissolved in 2 oz boiling water
2 oz Baileys (okay, maybe a bit more) or other liqueur, I haven't tried anything else but I bet there are some tasty options
Do the dissolving of coffee in boiling water bit, and leave it to cool
Then break up the chocolate and put it into a pan over hot water with 2 tbs of the cream
Beat together the cream cheese and sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly after each.
Add the melted chocolate/cream mixture, the cooled coffee, the liqueur, the 8oz remaining cream, and (if you like) a half teaspoon or so of vanilla essence. I don't think it matters a whole heap.
Pour it over the base, and put the cake into the oven. It should take about 45 min. The sides will puff, the middle may still be a bit wobbly but don't worry about that.
When you take the cake out, run a knife round the edge between cake and tin, which *may* help the cake not to develop crevasses as it cools. Let it cool, and put it in the fridge when the tin isn't going to melt the fridge shelves. If you are dismayed by unsightly cracks in the top of the cake, melt quite a lot of dark chocolate and pour it over the top. Heh.
Some other options:
For the base - use ginger biscuits ( a bugger to crush, but tasty) or bourbons or digestives. Or cake crumbs. Or rusks. Add a handful of raisins, or chopped nuts. Cinnamon (and nutmeg) add a nice something, especially on a plain-ish cake. Try different kinds of sugar - again, if the cake is plain-ish, rich dark brown sugar will be worth doing, but if the cake is flavoured or fruit-covered this may be less welcome.
A basic cake mix for a fruit-topped cake:
1.5lb curd cheese (ie medium-fat, so you can kid yourself this is a healthy dessert)
juice of 1 lemon
2 eggs
3 oz sugar (seems a bit ungenerous, but there'll be fruit on top, so okay)
Mix it all together and put it on top of your chosen base in the 9" pan. Bake at No 5 (375F) for at least 20 min, but I think rather more. When cool, apply fruit topping:
Fresh fruit is always nice, of course. Or, tinned fruit - raspberries, cherries, pineapple, whatever. To glaze it, which is nice:
mix 2.5tsp cornflour with 2 tbsp sugar, slowly add approx 4oz juice from the tinned fruit. Simmer until thick and clear. Add fruit, plus 1tsp lemon juice. Cool for 5 min and then spoon carefully over the cake. This works well, and looks beautiful with a deep red fruit. Alternatively you can get clever with gelatin, but I have never had any success with gelatin and refuse to be responsible for the results.
One more recipe, which is one of which I am rather fond, is for a slightly smaller cake, so use an 8" cake tin (or scale it up)
Base: digestive biscuits, cinnamon, nutmeg, approx 2oz butter, and I usually add raisins. I'd say you use at least 12 diggies, and a generous half teaspoonful of each spice. You can get quite creative with this base as the cheese part of the cake is quite simple. Proceed as for Baileys cheesecake recipe.
1lb cream cheese, 2 eggs, 5oz caster sugar, generous half tsp vanilla essence
Beat eggs and sugar together until light and creamy, add cheese gradually, and add vanilla. Beat until smooth, pour onto base and cook for 30 - 40 minutes at Gas 5 (375F). Allow to cool.
Topping: 4oz sour cream, 2 oz caster sugar, scant quarter tsp vanilla. Beat together until thick, pour over cake. Chill well.
Calories per slice: don't even think about it.
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no subject
Date: 2005-11-25 09:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-25 09:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-25 09:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-26 10:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-26 05:29 am (UTC)What on earth are digestive
biscuitscookies, and what is caster sugar? (and thanks for inches and Farenheit degrees, heh.)no subject
Date: 2005-11-26 10:12 am (UTC)Granulated sugar is the large crystals we put in tea. Caster sugar is finer, and generally useful for baking. Once upon a time I knew the 'translation'...
As for the inches - in the long-gone days when I first started making cheesecakes, our tins were sold in inch-diameters, but nowadays they come in centimetres. Pout. I've been cooking in centigrade for a long time, but the recipe doesn't give it and my conversion table is, um, somewhere not right next to the computer. And as it happens, I know the cookers in the hall kitchen where Bun is living at the moment are all gas cookers.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-08 05:24 am (UTC)'Kay.
I think the USA just calls it "finely ground" sugar, or "fine sugar", but I'm sure there's something more technical real bakers know it as. I just muddle, heh.
And graham crackers are pretty unique, yeah. I hadn't thought about it, but they are. I imagine you may be right about the digestive biscuits being equivalent; methinks I recall rumor of graham crackers being promoted because they're "healthier" than cookies. They're sort of between a cookie and a cracker, but cinammony, lol. The thing grahams are most-used for is pounding them to crumbs, then adding melted butter and patting the resultant mess flat to be used as a base for layered cookies (do you have layered biscuits? *g* or quick-and-easy piecrusts, that sort of thing. Are your digestive biscuits used similarly?
and you know, i'm sure we could Google images of both and see for ourselves if they match or not, but meh. i'm lazy; how 'bout you? lol
no subject
Date: 2005-12-08 08:48 am (UTC)Voila the McVitie's Digestive:
no subject
Date: 2005-12-08 09:47 am (UTC)Iiiiin-teresting.
They come in long rectangles that break apart into quarters that are proportionately the same, as above.
I'm thinking graham crackers are slightly more coarse (but hard to tell on an unbroken biscuitm heh) and they are cinnamon flavored, but certainly close relatives, if not first-cousins. ;)
no subject
Date: 2005-12-08 09:48 am (UTC)http://www.gfutah.org/gfcfrecipes/images/Graham_Crackers.jpg
bah.
Frank Ate It.
my coding, not the Graham crackers.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-08 11:13 am (UTC)I don't suppose customs regs would allow me to send you a sample!
no subject
Date: 2005-12-08 08:23 pm (UTC)I've mailed Terri American candy, but it was all packaged in with a bunch of other stuff, so I doubt it was noticed.
Hmm, maybe you should mail me hardcopy of your stuff you need betad/Brit-picked, and just put one in a sealed Ziplock-type sandwich bag (do yoy have Ziplock? Some equivalent? lol) in the middle, and then I'll pay the same postage fee myself sending it back after I've attacked it with a red pen!
no subject
Date: 2005-12-09 10:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-10 05:53 am (UTC)Okay, maybe sandwiched between some bubblewrap betwixt the fic, lol.
Yeah, Graham crackers probably don't ship so well individually either, hee.