Teasecake Time!

I recently finished my job in Exeter and am in the middle of a relaxing 3 weeks between jobs. I came back to Nottinghamshire this weekend after making the most of my last week in the place I've called home for the past 4 years! It's been emotional, but I'm excited about what's to come!

Obviously this has meant lots of goodbyes and get togethers. A friend from work invited me and a few colleagues over for a dinner party. I offered to make dessert, and given my free time I decided to make something a bit different...

I've never made a non-bake cheesecake before and didn't actually think I liked the (I'm a ridiculously picky eater), but after finding a recipe for a Malteaser Cheesecake, I didn't really think I could go wrong...

I wasn't mistaken.

The recipe is taken from BBC Good Food (I changed it a teeny bit but all credit to the genius that came up with this). It doesn't really even take that long to make, but will need 5 hours to chill & set.

I used a 24cm loose bottomed round tin. Remember to line it so you can get the cheesecake free easily!

Ingredients

200g malted milk biscuits

100g unsalted butter, melted (I didn't melt mine, which meant the base was a bit too crumbly so don't miss that!)

5tbsp caster sugar

600g soft cheese

300ml double cream

300g white chocolate, melted

200g milk chocolate, melted

2tbsp malt powder (I used half a sachet of the malteaser hot chocolate drinking powder which then meant there was enough left over for a drink too...)

37g bag malted sees

Method

Bash the biscuits up into crumbs. Putting a lot of effort into this will mean you burn off enough calories to eat a slice of this guilt free...maybe.

Mix together the butter, biscuit crumbs & half the sugar

Push into base, making sure it's level.

Leave this to chill whilst you make the topping.

Melt the two different chocolates separately in glass bowls over a simmering pan, or in the microwave.

Then, add the white chocolate to a bowl with half of the cream cheese and half of the cream.

In another bowl, you need the milk chocolate, malt powder and remaining 3tbsp sugar. Beat both bowls until they are super smoooooth.

Get the biscuit base back from the fridge and spread the milk chocolate mixture over the top, keeping it as even as you can on the top. Wipe round the side of the tin so your layers stay as neat as possible!

On top, add the white chocolate mixture and smooth with a spatula (let's just say I went for a more rustic look...) 

Finally, top with malteasers! The original recipe used white chocolate malteasers but I went for the milk chocolate version to give a bit of a contrast.

Refrigerate for 5 hours (if you can stay away that long!!)

And what you get, with surprisingly little effort (but sshhh) is a pretty impressive looking dessert! 

This goes pretty far, as it is quite rich so a small slice is plenty! Give it a go, you won't be disappointed! 

I'm going away to Suffolk this week so will hopefully have a new post up soon!

Hummingbird Happiness

For my birthday a few months ago, my friend bought me a Hummingbird Bakery recipe book.

Almost 300 pages of yummy treats; cupcakes, cheesecakes, cookies, pies...

But the section that has captured my attention the most (so far!) is home to the huge, 3 layer mountains of goodness.

They are deeeeelicious, and have got me so many compliments from people! I've always loved baking, but had previously stuck mainly to the traditional Victoria Sponge and simple, iced cupcakes.

These are on a whole other level!

If I'm honest, they use far more ingredients (and therefore money) and take up much more time than I should probably have been spending on a lot of these, particularly since they were mostly made throughout revision time (oops!)

 But they are certainly worth it!

This is their Lemon Cake with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting, probably my favourite

Chocolate Malt Cake with yummy fudge sauce in between the layers (as well as the cream cheese frosting, they don't do anything by halves!)

Cookies & Cream Cake

Mississippi Mud Cake, a little sickly I thought but others didn't think so!

I'm looking forward to my next baking day so I can try out another of their great recipes! Has anyone got any cake or biscuit recipes they think shouldn't be missed?!

N x

Vanilla Cheesecake, How You Doin'?

Recently I have had two cravings which have been pretty much constant.
1) New York style vanilla cheesecake
2) Watching FRIENDS

Now these two cravings, if I satisfied them every time I were tempted, would definitely lead to the failing of both my healthy eating and revising hard targets...

(Unfortunately, I seem to get rather too tempted, too much of the time. But we won't tell anyone that.)

So, whilst I'm currently NOT watching FRIENDS I thought I'd share my Vanilla Cheesecake with you! I've made this a couple of times now, and it's been absolutely delicious both times. My housemates at university and my family both loved it! And, more importantly, so did I!

It has a lovely creamy topping, and the base is surprisingly easy to make! Who knew it was just biscuits?!

You'll need:
150g digestive biscuits
75g butter
900g cream cheese
200g caster sugar
200ml sour cream
3tbsp plain flour
3 eggs, plus 1 egg yolk
2tsp vanilla extract

Aaand here's what to do!

First thing's first: preheat the oven to 170 degrees C and grease and line a 23cm cake tin, preferably either spring form or loose-based so you can actually get your cheesecake out (I learned this the hard way!)

Crush the biscuits by putting them in a sandwich bag and banging them against the counter/with a rolling pin. A fantastic way of relieving any anger or stress, just make sure the bag doesn't rip!

Melt your butter and stir into the crumbs. Then place this mixture into the cake tin and spread and flatten it so it covers the base of the tin evenly. Bake this in the oven for 10 minutes until golden, then leave to cool.

Beat your cream cheese and sugar together in a bowl until smooth.

Add the sour cream and flour, continuing to stir.

After beating the eggs separately, add these to your mixture with the vanilla essence. It will seem like a lot of mixture but don't worry!

Pour this mixture over the biscuit base once it has cooled, making the top surface as smooth as possible.

Bake this for 45 minutes, until the cheesecake is set. Once cooked, turn off the oven but leave the cheesecake in there to cool with the door slightly ajar- this should take around an hour or so, and prevents the surface from cracking.

And there you have it! A yummy rich, creamy vanilla cheesecake for everyone to enjoy, and perfect in front of an episode of FRIENDS snuggled under a blanket!

N x

(Recipe adapted from http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/new_york_cheesecake_20451)

Procrastibaking

Wow, again, I've certainly been neglecting this blog for a while! It seems something happens each April to get me wanting to blog again... Well this time I'm starting out with the very best intentions so fingers crossed I'll stick to it this year!

In 44 days I finish University and enter the unknown with (at least for the moment) very few plans. I'm pretty nervous about that, and pretty upset to be leaving uni and most of what goes with it! I can't say I'll miss all the work that third year has brought with it though. I'm currently going through some sort of dissertation denial stage which unfortunately isn't too conducive to getting much of that done...

This term, then, has been very hectic. There's been a lot of work, obviously bringing with it the "need" for a lot of procrastinating. This has meant there's been a lot of baking going on. Because cake makes everything better, doesn't it?

I've even branched out and started baking bread too. Kneading is just a great way of destressing. Throw a bit of dough around the kitchen and any bad vibes from work or money or hangovers or just a general bad day (we all have those!) are banished. And you get a lovely smelling kitchen and a yummy loaf at the end of it!

So I just thought I'd add some photos of what I've been baking this term...particularly as I'm back on that pre-summer diet everyone seems to go on once April's here.

Vanilla sponge cupcakes with milk chocolate icing and white chocolate shavings

Very first pizzas from scratch! With tomato sauce, mozzerella, prosciutto ham,
sundried tomatoes, olive tapernade and topped with rocket.

Chocolate Malteaser cupcakes

First loaf of bread. Slightly mis-shaped but nice and fluffy!

Loaf number two!

Pineapple upside down cake

Sorry about the quality of the photos, I'm a bit of an instagram lover (you can follow me at niobe93), and I've currently only got my iPhone available. Hopefully going to get a nice new camera soon though! Any suggestions?

I'm going to Copenhagen tomorrow with my family for a nice break away from all this horrible work and to celebrate my Dad's birthday, which should be lovely! I'll blog about it once I'm back, I'm determined to keep this up this year!

Niobe xx