Lemon Raspberry Cheesecake

I like cheesecake :)
I was originally going to make a lemon and basil cheesecake, but think I might try that combination in a gelato first.

Raspberries and lemons are both pretty tart, but they seem to work well together. I will warn you though, this recipe makes quite a tart cheesecake. If you prefer a sweeter lemon flavour, I would add more icing sugar to the cream cheese, and more sugar to the lemon syrup.

Also another note. I would do a few things differently if I make this again. So bear this in mind if you decide to try this recipe. I would either - add gelatin to my raspberry syrup (about a teaspoon or 2) then let cool to a soft jelly, then pour over my base as the raspberry sauce just soaked through my base. OR add more butter to my base to make it bind together better and leave less gaps for the raspberry syrup to soak into. I also ended up tipping my extra lemon syrup into the cheesecake mix. I probably didn't have to. It was destined as a little jelly glaze over the top. I got excited about the flavours. Whoops.

LEMON RASPBERRY CHEESECAKE

Ingredients:

2 x blocks cream cheese, room temperature

300g double thickened cream

1/4 - 1/2 cup icing sugar

1 pk Lemon crisp biscuits

150g butter

Lemon syrup

7 lemons, juiced (you want the juice)

1/2 cup caster sugar

150g butter

Raspberry Syrup

250g frozen or fresh raspberries

150g caster sugar

40g water

Line a spring form tin with baking paper

Blend up the lemon crisp biscuits in a food processor until all crumbed. Melt 150g of butter and stir into the biscuit crumbs until well combined. Tip the biscuit mix into the prepared tin and smooth out to create a base and a bit of a side. Place into the fridge to chill.

Squeeze the juice out of the lemons. I got about a cup out of my 7 lemons.

Pour the juice and sugar (add more sugar if you want a sweeter flavour) into a pot, place on high heat and stir until all the sugar is dissolved and almost boiling. Tip a little bit of this mix into a mug if you want to make a glaze.

Add the butter and stir until it has melted in. Remove from heat and let sit until it is room temperature.

Put the sugar and water for the raspberry sauce into a pot, place on high heat and let boil until all the sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat and add the raspberries, stirring quickly to ensure that the sugar doesn't set. Let it come to room temperature then put into a blender and pass the sauce through a sieve to get rid of most of the raspberry seeds.

Place in the fridge to cool.

Once it has cooled pour into the base of the cheesecake. Put back in the fridge.

Place the cream cheese and icing sugar into a bowl and beat until smooth and creamy. Add the lemon syrup in whilst beating.

In a separate bowl whip up the double thick cream. be careful not to over whip as it will turn into butter very quickly.

Fold the cream into the cream cheese mix and the pour into over the base in the tin.

Put back in the fridge and let set for at least 2 hours. Once it has set, you can remove it from the tin. :)

Lemons!

For lemon juice

My lemon syrup with a little bit aside that was going to be a glaze

Stirring the raspberries into the sugar syrup

Into the base

The final product :)

Gluten Free Salted Caramel Cheesecake

As promised via my facebook page, I decided to make June my own Coeliac's awareness month. It seems more and more common that people have allergies or intolerances to certain foods which can make enjoying food a nightmare. It's good to see, though, that restaurants and cafes are becoming more aware and catering for different dietary requirements.

For my first weekend I decided to make a gluten free version of a cheesecake. Sounds simple, just change the biscuit base to a gluten free one, but where is the fun in that?! No where.

So the first idea I had was to make a choc caramel almond meal biscuit base. FAIL. Big, burnt, slab of a fail. I went with something that was easier for me. Meringue. Still gives that lovely crunch and provides texture, but is completely gluten free. Hooray!!!!

I didn't get pictures of the whole process, as most of it was done at night, and I just dont like night photos. I only have a point and shoot camera, and at night, you can really tell.

This recipe is one that you can make up ahead of time. Unfortunately being meringue, you'll need to wait until just before serving to assemble, but it is worth it :)

MERINGUE BASKET

Ingredients:
3 eggs, whites only

100g caster sugar

teaspoon cream of tartar

25g water

Preheat oven to 150 degrees

Trace some circles onto baking paper and then line a baking tray with it

Add the egg whites and cream of tartar to a bowl and whip until stiff peaks form.
Pour the sugar and water into a pot, place on high heat and let boil until it reaches 120 degrees.
Turn the electric mixer back low, and slowly pour the sugar syrup into the egg whites, whilst mixing.
Once all the sugar syrup is in, turn the mixer up to high and beat until the bowl is cool.

Set aside 1/4 cup of meringue.

Put meringue into a piping bag and pipe a disc in the circle on the baking paper, then piping along the edges of the circle building it up to form a nest/basket.

Continue with the rest of the circles.
Place in the oven for 1 hour until meringue is lightly brown (it compliments the caramel) and crisp.

Remove from oven leave to cool then store in an air tight container.

SALTED CARAMEL CHEESECAKE FILLING

Ingredients:

2 x 250g cream cheese blocks, room temperature

1/4 cup meringue set aside from the baskets

1/4 cup icing sugar (make sure this is pure icing sugar, or it could contain gluten)

150g cream

250g caster sugar

40g glucose

1 vanilla bean, seeds only

80g water

sea salt flakes

Place the cream and vanilla bean seeds into a small pot. Put on a medium heat and cook until almost boiling. Remove from heat.

Place the caster sugar water and glucose into another pot and place on medium heat. Stir until all the glucose and sugar have dissolved then turn up to high and let boil until it reaches a nice amber colour. The colour of the sugar syrup determines the bitterness of the caramel. If it gets too dark it will be too bitter.
Turn the heat down to low and slowly add the cream. It will bubble and release a lot of steam. Be careful not to burn yourself.

Stir until it feels smooth then pour into a heat proof bowl and let sit until it reaches room temp. Set a little aside to drizzle over the top

Once the caramel has reached room temp, place the 2 blocks of cream cheese into a bowl with the icing sugar and meringue and mix until smooth and slightly fluffy. Slowly pour the caramel in whilst mixing. Continue pouring the caramel in until you have a smooth thick mix. You dont want it to be flowing, but you should be able to run a spoon through it with not much resistance.

Stir in a couple of teaspoons of sea salt flakes and taste. The salt should not be over powering, but if you think you need more, add more.

ASSEMBLING

If you are going to assemble straight away, you wont need to bring anything up to room temperature. If you have made everything in advance, make sure the cheesecake filling is at room temperature, or just below, same with the left over caramel.

Attach a plain round nozzle to a piping bag and fill the piping bag with cheesecake filling. Pipe into the meringues and then smooth the top with a butter knife.
Add a drizzle of caramel and serve :)

My baskets, filled, still working on that perfect circle 

Mmmm Drizzle

All plated up :)

Closer

Closer again!

Winter Blues

I've been unmotivated. Combined with the minus degree mornings and being sick (both fluey & other) my motivation levels are almost rock bottom.
So you know what I do? I cook. I bake yummy things that make the house smell wonderful.
What I dont always do is get them up here in time. Before my recipe floats away from my mind and I struggle to recall what quantities went into what.
Bear with me, I'm about to post my cheesecake recipes, but because I am a freestyle cook, these are my own recipes and I definitely dont measure exactly how much I'm putting in.
So the following recipes I would much prefer them to be viewed as guidelines to how to make your own versions. Because that's what creating is all about. Making it your own :)

Zumbo Macarons

I've had Zumbo's recipe book for..... a while now and haven't yet attempted anything from it. Don't get me wrong, I would love to, but it would take the whole weekend for one recipe, and right now I like making lots of things. Soon, though, I think I may have a Zumbo month where I make up some of his delicious recipes each weekend.

Any who, I picked macarons as my first Zumbo recipe, mostly because I know macarons, so there was no going wrong there, and just to see how a different recipe goes, you know, coz I can.
So I went ahead and made up macarons, just white ones because I picked salted caramel and butter popcorn as the fillings. Also, at work, I've been asked to make a GIANT macaron, hence the big one. It was just a trial, but the one I've been asked to do is supposed to be twice the size. WTF?! But that's cool, I suppose.

5inch macaron

Salted Caramel filling with unfilled macarons

Giving it some perspective

Its huge.... and still not filled

Nom nom nom, Salted caramel & Butter popcorn macarons

Excuse me, I moustache you a question

I like moustaches, not on men though, that's a bit awkward, but the edible/hilarious versions I love. Which means I have been looking for moustache cookie cutters for a little bit. Finally I found them on Inspired Insanity. Queue Excited squeals! I got them express posted because I just couldn't wait. and when they did arrive I did a happy dance :)

Again, I used Sugar belles sugar cookie recipe and flavoured it with Lorann Pralines & Cream flavour oil. I also used her royal icing recipe and used the pralines & cream to flavour it. I just want to say that her cookie recipe is so good, even in my oven her times for yummy cookies were spot on! Now, if you've been reading my other posts you'll know I'm of the belief that everything is more awesome if it comes on a stick. So, of course the moustaches had to be sticked. Plus, it makes for much easier moustache faces if there is a stick to hold it up.

I did a light and dark version of each colour, and although the brown is reversed, I suggest filling the details (the pressed in bit) first, with the lighter colour, let it dry (maybe half an hour) then going over the raised bits with the darker colour. Its then a good idea to leave them out to dry overnight.

A moustache to suit everyone!

The 5 types of moustache that I received, complete with stamped tops

I used White royal icing to attach sticks to the cookies

Bit of royal icing on the cookie first

Press the stick in and add more royal icing on top

All sticked up

With pretty light beams

The front!

CUE MOUSTACHE MONTAGE!!!!

Black Bristle Brush aka "The Detective"

Red Baron, good colour matching for this one

Blonde Imperial

Brown Woolford

Black Walrus

Apparently moustaches are also handy for peaking through

And as horns

Being Lazy.... Again!

So, I completely fail in the blog posts once a week race! I am trying, really, but I get so excited over the weekend and want to cook so many things and then I'm so tired, and full, from all that cooking.

5 out of my 6 parcels for my Australia Post experiment arrived, and aside from a few cookie breakages, arrived quite well considering. The 6th parcel, I dont know where he went :( I'll write up a proper post soon!

Feedback from the experiment was wonderful though, all good reviews as far as taste and looks went, which means there may be exciting things developing over the next couple of months. Yay!

I didn't get to make everything I wanted this weekend, mostly because, as soon as the moustaches were iced and sticked.... I played with them a fair bit lol

Any way, I will get onto posting what I did make, with plans to finish the rest next weekend :)

I Make You Smile, No?!

Mmmm cake pops, I'm having so much fun with these! I made up 3 different ones over the weekend. I had been asked to do up 12 Turkish delight cake pops for a birthday present, and as I was posting off to my volunteers this week, I thought I would make 2 more types of cake pops to go along with the 3 different cookies they are getting.

So, of course, first up is the smiley face cake pop. They make me smile, even more when I bite their silly faces off.... hmmm.
Anyway, the smiley face cake pops are standard oreo flavoured ones, with royal icing faces.

Next we have Blue cake pops, which are white chocolate Tim Tam on the inside. Believe it or not, Coles still has a sale on Tim Tams. So winning!!!

And finally the Turkish Delight cake pops. Sorry, there are no pics without wrapping, but I think they still look good. They have pink hearts on top with glitter in the middle. Yay for sparkles :)