White Chocolate Cheesecake with Mango & Passionfruit

November 30, 2014December 31, 2018 amcarmen2 Comments

Hello Everyone! Yes I know, it’s only Sunday, but I thought that I’d write up a Sunday Special post to share with everyone. I’ve been resting this past week after what I thought wasn’t such a tiring trip to the Outback, but I think the after effect just came crashing down on me when I got back to Sydney. My body clock hasn’t quite adjusted to my regular sleeping/waking patterns, which kills me because then I feel tired the whole day! Yesterday was somewhat productive but lazy at the same time. Besides an early wake up to send Lydia off at the airport and a gym session with Jialing, I lazed off the whole afternoon/evening. I practically did nothing besides eat and sleep. Hopefully I’ll snap out of this and feel refreshed after the weekend passes – after all, I did not have a weekend for myself as last week I was walking around the base of Uluru and scaling Kata Tjuta (and of course followed by a climb/hike/trek at Kings Canyon on the Monday after that weekend – much tiredness indeed).

Anyway, about a few weeks ago, Lydia asked me to teach her how to make a cake because she wanted to be able to make one for her mother’s birthday when she leaves to go home. She told me she didn’t have an oven though. “Easy!” I said to her as a no-bake cheesecake came into mind. She was a very good student and I am confident that she will be successful in making this for her mother on her birthday!

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, or have searched through my archives, you may have seen a post for no-bake mini blueberry cheesecake. So I decided to teach her how to make that but instead with my favourite summer fruit since it’s summertime! I’ve actually made this cake before, 2 years ago I think, when I used to live up in the Lower North Shore together with my old housemate Vanessa. We made this cake together with my friend Edison and Valerie whom we had over for our Annual Easter Dinner. We had a whole leg of lamb and other eats, included this yummy yummy cheesecake. We made a full sized one though, but since I actually only have mini springforms, we decided to make miniature cheesecakes (also easier to eat in small bits and store in a limited space fridge). Before I get onto the recipe, please do take the time to visit food.com where I got the original recipe from.

Besides making whole mini cheesecakes, I also decided to whip up a deconstructed cheesecake and use the stemless wine glasses that I got for free from Coles a while back. At the time, there was a special where if you bought two blocks/tubs of any of the Philadelphia Cream Cheese range, you get a set of 2 stemless wine glasses for free (worth $14.95).

PREP TIME 20 MINS* | COOKING TIME — | MAKES 4 CHEESECAKES

*Add 4-5 hours extra (overnight preferably) for chilling time

INGREDIENTS

1 large mango, sliced
2 passionfruit
2 x 250g packets cream cheese, softened
300ml thickened cream, whipped
200g white chocolate chips, melted
100g ginger nut biscuits
60g butter, melted
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/4 cup boiling water
3 tsp gelatin powder

METHOD

Prepare the springform pans by lining the bases with baking paper and greasing the edges with butter. In a food processor, process the ginger nut biscuits until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. If you don’t have a food processor handy, add the biscuits into a ziplock bag and use either a metal or wooden spoon to smash the hell out of it! Tip it into a medium sized mixing bowl, add the melted butter a mix until well combined. Press the mixture over the base of the prepared pans. Place in the refrigerator for 20 minutes or until firm.
Next, sprinkle the gelatine powder into a mug and add the boiling water to it. Whisk with a fork until the gelatine powder fully dissolves. Set aside to cool for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, whip the thickened cream in a small mixing bowl using the electric mixer – be careful as to not over whip the cream otherwise you will end up with a lumpy cheesecake mixture. Set aside. Beat the cream cheese and sugar in a large mixing bowl using the electric mixer until smooth and creamy.
Fold the melted white chocolate and whipped cream into the cheesecake mixture, then, gradually beat in gelatine mixture until combined. Pour the cheesecake mixture into the prepared pans and wrap each with cling film. Place in the fridge for at least 4-5 hours to set (preferably overnight). Top the cheesecakes with the sliced mangoes and passionfruit before serving.

For the deconstructed cheesecake, basically just layer the biscuit base and cheesecake mixture and top with your favourite summer fruits!

BON APPÉTIT

– Ally xx

Red Velvet Chocolate Lava Cake

September 2, 2014December 31, 2018 amcarmenLeave a comment

Hello Everyone! Back with another recipe for you! I know right? It’s a weekday and she’s actually uploading a post? If you read yesterday’s post, I mentioned that I had a baking session with my good friend/lover Jialing. What happened was that she was feeling bait down that she couldn’t do the internship that she really wanted due to requirement issues with our University – and so she contacted me and basically wanted to bake a chocolate lava cake to drown her sorrows in. So, we decided to do that! I suggested that we make a red velvet lava cake – drooled instantly as I made that suggestion. So Sunday we met up at the grocers and bought our ingredients for it. While shopping, Jialing decided that she wanted to make a dark chocolate lava cake, and bought ingredients for those too. Lava cake bake-off!

This was my first time trying out this recipe and I don’t particularly like making lava cakes because I always end under either undercooking it, or overcooking it until it’s rock solid and dry. Jialing’s dark chocolate lava cakes were slightly overdone and not very molten, while mine on the other hand were slightly undercooked – the sides were perfect, but the tops (as in when you invert them) weren’t cooked at all, even when they were in the oven for the maximum amount of time they should be in. Nonetheless taste and texture were spot on – and in my opinion made the presentation of the dish more dynamic! Please check out the original recipe on The Dinner Pages. I SO wanted to make the cream cheese ice cream, but I didn’t have an ice cream maker so I mean, store bought Cadbury vanilla ice cream did wonders as well anyway!

PREP TIME 10 MINS | COOKING TIME 15-18 MINS | SERVES 4

INGREDIENTS

1 cup white chocolate buttons
85g unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing
1/2 cup plain flour
1/3 cup white sugar
1/4 cocoa powder
2 large free range eggs
2 tsp red food colouring
pinch of salt

METHOD

Preheat oven to 200C. In a microwave safe bowl, melt the white chocolate and butter until smooth, at intervals of 20-30 seconds to prevent the mixture from burning (approximately 2 minutes altogether). Grease the moulds with the extra butter.
Add in the cocoa powder and sugar to the white chocolate and butter mixture. Stir until well combined.
Beat the eggs in a medium-sized mixing bowl. Add in the chocolate mixture in small amounts, stirring together to allow the eggs to warm slowly (temper) and avoid scrambling. Add in the remaining chocolate batter in small amounts as well and stir until fully combined.
Stir in the red food colouring, flour, and pinch of salt until well combined. Then divide the batter amongst the 4 well greased moulds (should go up to about 3/4 of the way).
Bake for 15 minutes (or as I found that my cakes didn’t quite cook at the top, add an extra 2 minutes, maybe).
Remove from the oven and run a knife around the edges right away. Invert each mould onto an individual serving plate and let sit for 2 minutes, then carefully lift up the mould. Top with vanilla ice cream to serve.

I mean, look at that gloss on the lava! So much loves!

BON APPÉTIT

– Ally xx

Blueberry & White Chocolate Pancakes

September 1, 2014December 31, 2018 amcarmenLeave a comment

Hello Everyone! Again apologies for the lack of posts, but I already explained my situation in the last post so I won’t be going through all that again! Anyway, apologies as well as this post was supposed to go up last night but I got so caught up in the kitchen the whole day from morning to afternoon, and night. Basically cooking all day long, firstly because I promised my housemate pancakes, and promised Jialing a baking session to drown her sorrows in, and then an impromptu homemade dinner session with Jialing as well. Recipes will be posted hopefully within the next few days, if I can get them all written up by tonight and just post over the coming days. I was also helping my lover Jialing to prepare her for her interview today, and also helped a fellow housemate with his internship application. The night flew by so quickly that it was way past midnight – I hadn’t written a post, and I needed to go to bed for an early 9am start. But don’t worry, because here it is now for you!

So, I actually promised my housemate Lydia that I’d make pancakes for her for breakfast on Saturday morning, but because I had a pretty rough night on Friday/early morning Saturday, I didn’t end up making pancakes for her. Long story short – it was a friend’s birthday party, things got out of hand, ended up spending my early weekend morning in the hospital until 3:45am. Don’t be alarmed! I was totally fine and sober (even after so many drinks, more than I thought I could handle), it was my friend who was totally out of it and I stayed by her side and made sure she was okay.

Anyway, so yes, pancake making day was pushed to yesterday morning. It was a great success in my opinion – especially since that this was the first time I was trying out this recipe, I mean, I’ve made my fair share of pancakes before, but not particularly with blueberries and white chocolate. So a little back story (because I know a few people out there who enjoy a few creative words on my posts), my housemate Lydia was trying to flip pancakes one night, prepping for breakfast the next day of course, and her pancakes crumbled. She got a few good ones though, but all in all she labelled them as fail pancakes. So the next time she made pancakes again… Well, it was hilarious! Basically we were having lunch together one day or more like our lunch times crossed at one point because I finished eating before her and I went back to my room. To my surprise when I came back down, I saw her in the kitchen and she was flipping pancakes. I asked her how she was going with them, and she replied “not so good. I actually waited for you to go upstairs so you wouldn’t see my fail pancakes!” How cute! So funny!

So basically, I decided to show Lydia how to flip pancakes yesterday. She tried, but still couldn’t flip them – so we made a deal that she will, by the end of the semester, be able to flip pancakes properly and cook me some! She did however participate in the making process – she was in charge of measuring out the dry ingredients while I worked on the wet, flipping of pancakes, presentation, and photography. And before I get on moving with today’s recipe, please check out the original recipe that I followed over on Oh Sweet Basil.

PREP TIME 15 MINS | COOKING TIME 45 MINS | SERVES 3-4

INGREDIENTS

2 cups plain flour
2 cups buttermilk*
2 free range eggs
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries
1/2 white chocolate chips
2 tbsp white sugar
2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

*I didn’t have any buttermilk in the pantry so what I did was for every cup of milk I added a tablespoon of vinegar. Buttermilk has enzymes and lactic acid, which will react with the baking powder to create a light and fluffy texture with lots of little pockets of air for the pancakes. The vinegar in the milk will help to ensure this. Using just regular milk will not give you this result.

METHOD

Preheat oven to 100C. Start by adding all the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl and whisk to combine.
Separate the egg whites and egg yolks in two small bowls. Using an electrical mixer, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
In the other bowl whisk the egg yolks until light in colour. Then add in the butter and whisk. Finally add the buttermilk and whisk to combine altogether. Add the egg yolk mixture into the dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon.
Fold in the egg whites gently together with the blueberries and white chocolate chips. Be careful as to not to over mix the batter.
Lightly butter a small fry pan over medium heat and add about half a cup of batter. Allow it to cook until the bottom begins to turn golden and bubbles just start to form on the top. Flip and cook until set on the other side. Repeat with remaining batter – should make about 9 pancakes. Place the cooked pancakes on a baking tray lined with parchment paper and place in the oven to keep warm until all the pancakes have been cooked. Serve immediately.