TWD - Gouda Gougeres

 This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was Gouda Gougeres.

The easiest way to explain these is to describe them as savoury cheese choux buns.

I used sesame seeds instead of cumin seeds to decorate my gougeres. My gougeres were also apparently much bigger than they were supposed to be - I made a half recipe expecting about 25 gougeres, when I in fact made 8.

These gougeres were delicious, fresh from the oven.

To see what everyone else made this week, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

TWD - Goat Cheese-Black Pepper Quick Bread

 This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Goats Cheese-Black Pepper Quick Bread.

This involves making a simple quick bread, and mixing through goats cheese chunks and chopped mint.

I quartered the recipe to make four muffins instead of a single large loaf.

This quick bread is absolutely delicious - I highly recommend it.

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

TWD - Cheddar-Scallion Scones

 This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Cheddar-Scallion Scones. These scones are flavoured with cheddar, scallions, mustard powder and paprika.

They are the perfect savoury scone, with plenty of zip from the spices, cheese and scallions.

I made one of my scones into a sandwich with tomato kasundi, spinach, beetroot, silverside and a fried egg. It made a delicious lunch.

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section if the TWD website.

TWD - Pear-Comte Tart - Pear Comte Tart

 This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is pear Comte Tart. It comprises a short crust pastry, coated with mustard and filled with an egg/cheese mixture and topped with sliced pears.

It’s quite a pretty tart. I just used garden variety cheddar.

This tart made the perfect light meal served with salad.

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

TWD - Blue Cheese and Fig Bites

 This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Blue Cheese and Fig Bites, baked in mini muffin tins. 

I subbed blue cheese for cheddar, fresh figs for fresh pear, and baked them in a standard size muffin tin. It’s a pretty forgiving recipe - I think you can sub the cheese and fruit varieties for whatever you have.

They were rather good - they’d be quite nice served on a cheeseboard.

To see what everyone else made this week and their thoughts, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

TWD - Cottage Cheese Biscuits

This week's Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Cottage Cheese Biscuits - aka scones.  As the name suggests, these scones contain cottage cheese.  It is meant to give them tang, but I couldn't really detect it. 

 Regardless, this is a nice scone recipe.  They tasted fine the next day without reheating.  I topped mine with jam and cheese, as shown.  

I'd happily  make this recipe again.

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

TWD - Cheese Puffers

 

This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Cheese Puffers. 

They are pretty much what it says on the tin - cheesy eggy bites that puff up when baked.

Mine are super small as I quartered the recipe and used patty cake tins.

These cheese puffers are quite tasty - a nice side or good on their own.

To see what everyone else made this week, see the LYL section of the TWD website.

Nigella’s Basque Burnt Cheesecake with Licorice Syrup

Nigella Lawson’s latest TV series, Cook, Eat, Repeat, is currently gracing our screens on Sunday nights.  I have long been a fan of Nigella, and I enjoy watching her shows even when the recipes are not to my taste.

One of the most recent recipes from  Cook, Eat, Repeat is for a Basque Burnt Cheesecake with Licorice Sauce. It was not the cheesecake which caused angst among some viewers, but the fact that Nigella doused it in licorice sauce.

Nigella has previously let her love of licorice be known, so it came as no surprise to me that she has a licorice box. The Sardinian licorice pellets from this box were used to make the licorice  sauce for the cheesecake.

 Now I adore cheesecake and licorice, so this combination was fine with me. However, some viewers were up in arms because, not being lovers of licorice, they were upset that Nigella had sullied the cheesecake with the licorice sauce.

I can say that I loved this combination of cheesecake and lucorice. I made a quarter of the recipe in a 6” cake tin. My cheesecake refused to look “burnt” long after it ceased to be jiggly in the middle, so I gave up. It still tastes good, although being far from the burnished chestnut colour referred to by Nigella.

For the sauce, I was not in possession of Sardinian licorice pellets, nor was I going to pay $15 to buy them in Australia. Instead, i took Nigella’s proportions (halved) of sugar and water, added half a teaspoon of licorice powder that I already had from making Nigella’s famed licorice and blackcurrant cake, and a single knob of Darrell Lea soft eating licorice, and boiled that up for 20 minutes or so. I then strained out the licorice knob (which did not dissolve), and added a couple of drops of black food colouring for effect. And hey, it tasted good, even though not the same as Nigella’s sauce.

If you are a licorice lover, do yourself a favour and make this lovely cheesecake and the accompanying licorice sauce. It’s delicious!

TWD - Cheddar-Seed Wafers

 This week's Tuesday with Dorie (Dorie's Cookies) is Cheddar-Seed Wafers.  These are crisp, thin crackers packed with cheddar and poppy seeds.

These crackers are super easy to make, and there is no need to rest the dough.  The resulting crackers are crispy and very cheesy.

I liked these just on their own.

To see what everyone else baked this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

TWD - Parm Toasts

 

This week's Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Parm Toasts.  These are best described as the savoury cousin of biscotti - a dough formed into a log, baked, cooled, sliced and then baked again.

If you are not a fan of the pungent flavour of Parmesan, you will not like these Parm Toasts, as the most pronounced flavour is the parmesan.

I thought these toasts were OK, but not being a huge fan of Parmesan, I could take them or leave them.

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

Strawberries and Cream Cheesecake

Embrace me, my sweet embraceable you,

Embrace me, you irreplaceable you

                                                   Embraceable You, George and Ira Gershwin

Unless you have been walking around with your eyes closed, you will know that Friday this week is Valentine's Day.  Love it or hate it, the shops are filled with red cards, and ads for chocolates, flowers and jewellery abound.

A dessert that would be fun to make for Valentine's Day is this Strawberries and Cream Cheesecake from Coles magazine.  I did not make it for that reason, but its gorgeous pink and white hues make it the perfect dessert for V Day.  It also sings of summertime.

This baked cheesecake contains real strawberries, but the pink colouring is enhanced by a splosh of pink liquid food colouring (OK, in my case, a bit more than a splosh).

I made three quarters of the  recipe and used only Granita biscuits in the base.  While my cheesecake is not as tall as the original as a result, it was enough for me.

To make this cheesecake (3/4 recipe), you will need:

1 x 250g packet Arnott's Granita biscuits, crushed
100g butter, melted
75g strawberries, halved
3/4 tablespoon sugar
500g cream cheese, softened
90g sour cream
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
3/4 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 tablespoons plain flour
pink liquid food colouring

Grease and line a 20cm round springform pan. Put the biscuits in a food processor and process into fine crumbs.  Add the butter and process until well combined.  Press the mixture evenly into the base and up the sides of the springform  pan, using the base of a flat-bottomed glass to assist you in doing so.  Place the base in the fridge to chill while you make the filling.

Put the strawberries and 3/4 tablespoon sugar into a small saucepan, and cook over medium heat until the sugar dissolves, then increase the heat to high and cook, stirring occasionally, until the strawberries collapse and the syrup reduces by half.  Allow the mixture to cool off the heat, then transfer to a blender and process until smooth.  Sieve the mixture, keeping the liquid and discarding the solids.

Preheat your oven to 150 degrees Celsius.

Put the cream cheese, sour cream and remaining sugar into a food processor and process until smooth.  Add the eggs, lemon zest, lemon juice and vanilla extract and process until well combined.  Add the flour and process until combined.  

Divide the mixture evenly into two bowls.  To one half, add the strawberry mixture and two or three drops of pink food colouring, and stir to combine.

Into the biscuit base, place alternating spoonfuls of pink and white filling mixture. (I found that the filling mixture was more liquid than solid, so I poured portions of each mixture in alternating pours into the middle of the base instead, creating alternating rings of colour.) Using a flat bladed knife, gently swirl the mixture to marble it.

Place the cheesecake on a baking tray and place in the oven to bake for 1 hour or until set.  Turn of the oven and leave the cheesecake to cool in the oven, with the door jar, for 2 hours.

Put the cooled cheesecake into the fridge to chill.

Slice and serve the cheesecake as desired.

Blueberry and Ginger Marscapone Cheesecake

A while back, I made a delicious Blueberry and Ginger Marscapone Cheesecake from the September 2019 edition of Delicious magazine.  I had purchased the magazine for the caramel cheesecake recipe featured on the cover, but that edition is full of wonderful cheesecake recipes.  The blueberry one looked so luscious that I had to try it.

The finished product certainly did not disappoint:   

The berry topping went perfectly with the creamy ginger cheesecake beneath:

To make this cheesecake, you will need:

2 sheets frozen shortcrust pastry, thawed (or make your own, like me)
1 1/2 cups sugar
500g cream cheese, softened and cubed
1 tablespoon cornflour
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 tablespoon + 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
500g marscapone
250g blueberries

Preheat your oven to 220 degrees Celsius.

Grease a 22cm springform pan (I also lined it with baking paper).

Cut a circle of pastry to fit the bottom of the springform pan, then cut strips of pastry to line the sides of the springform pan, pressing together to form a sealed crust.  Freeze the pastry base for 20 minutes, then line the pastry with baking paper and pour in baking weights or rice.  Put the pan onto a baking tray and bake the pastry base in the oven for 20 minutes, then remove the weights or rice and bake for a further 15 minutes or until the pastry base has dried and is golden.  Remove the pastry base from the oven to cool, and reduce the oven temperature to 160 degrees Celsius.

Put 1 cup of the sugar and the cream cheese into the bowl of a stand mixer and beat until smooth.  Beat in the cornflour, then add the eggs, one at a time, beating well between each addition.

Beat in the vanilla, 1 tablespoon of the ginger and the marscapone until the mixture is thick and smooth.  Scrape the mixture into the pastry case, smoothing the top.  

Bake the cheesecake in the oven for 1 hour 25 minutes or until set with a slight wobble in the centre.  Turn off the oven and allow the cheesecake to cool completely in the oven with the door just slightly ajar.

Remove the cooled cheesecake from the oven and chill it in the fridge for at least 4 hours.

For the blueberry topping, put the blueberries, the 1/2 cup of sugar and 1/2 teaspoon ginger in a saucepan with two tablespoons of water.  Bring the mixture to a simmer, stirring to dissolve the sugar, then simmer until thickened, around 5 minutes. Cool the topping completely before pouring on top f the cheesecake for serving.

TWD - Smoky, Cheesy Cookies

This week's Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Smoky, Cheesy Cookies.  These cookies comprise a flaky pastry flavoured with smoked gouda and cheddar cheese, and spiced with salt, pepper and cayenne pepper.

I cut my cookies 2" in diameter, making them a little larger than Dorie's recommended size.

These cookies are absolutely delicious - flaky, light, cheesy with just the right kick of spice.

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

TWD - Parmesan Galettes

This week's Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Parmesan Galettes. These savoury biscuits comprise a simple dough of flour, butter and grated parmesan, blitzed in a food processor into a dough, then rolled into a log and the biscuits are sliced from the log.

You could bake them in a muffin tin so they don't spread and stay round, but I couldn't be bothered and baked them free form.  The biscuits did not stay neatly round, but they still  tasted good - a very strong parmesan flavour, as you can imagine.

To see what the other Dorie bakers made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

TWD - Old Bay Pretzel-and-Cheese Cookies

This month's Tuesday with Dorie (Dorie's Cookies) recipes both present problems for me as an Australian.  One recipe calls for biscoff spread, which is not readily obtainable here; the other calls for Old Bay seasoning, which is non-existent here.

I went with the Old Bay Pretzel-and-Cheese Cookies.  Old Bay is a particular brand of seafood seasoning found in the States.  To make a substitute requires a list of ingredients as long as your arm.  The Old Bay substitute seems heavy on celery salt, which of itself is hard to get here.  I only needed a teaspoon of seasoning to make half the cookie recipe, so I ended up making the substitute seasoning sans anything that I did not already have (being celery salt, dry mustard, all spice, white pepper and crushed pepper flakes). 

These cheesy, savoury cookies, containing crushed pretzels and made by the roll and slice method, are quite tasty.  I agree with Dorie that they would be good to serve with a beer.  I'd definitely consider making these again as a savoury snack for guests.  In the meantime, I'll need to figure out an easier way to get the spices into the mix.

To see what the other Dorie bakers made this week, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

Chocolate, Caramel & Malt Cheesecake

Happy Friday all!  Today, I thought I'd put a smile on your dial with a gorgeous Chocolate, Caramel and Malt Cheesecake that graces the cover of this month's Delicious magazine.

This cheesecake, by Phoebe Wood, is as decedent and delicious as it looks. The crushed malt biscuit crust is filled with a layer of caramel cheesecake, then a layer of chocolate cheesecake, and finished off with dark chocolate ganache.  Ooh la la.

I halved the recipe because the quantities of ingredients in the original were a little OTT for my tastes - but you can knock yourself out by making it the original way if your motto is "go big or go home".

This cheesecake was, unsurprisingly, very popular at work.  The only complaint I received was that there was not enough of it.

To make this cheesecake my way (half recipe), you will need:

250g packet malt biscuits (I used Malt O'Milk)
100g butter, melted and cooled
400g cream cheese at room temperature, cubed
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tablespoon cornflour
1 1/2 eggs (for the half, break one egg into a cup, whisk with a fork and only use half) 
125g dulce de leche (I used Nestle Top 'N' Fill)
100g dark chocolate, melted and cooled
1/4 cup malted milk powder (I used Ovaltine)
1/2 cup pouring cream

For the ganache topping:

100g dark chocolate, chopped finely
1/3 cup thickened cream

Preheat your oven to 150 degrees Celsius.  Grease and line the base of a 22cm springform pan.

Put the malt biscuits into a food processor and blitz into fine crumbs.  Add the butter and blitz until combined.  Press the biscuit mixture evenly over the base and up the sides of the springform pan, and chill in the fridge until needed.

Put the cream cheese into the bowl of a food processor and blitz until smooth.  Add the sugar, cornflour and eggs, and blitz until well combined. Transfer half of the cheese mixture into a separate bowl.       

To the cheese mixture left in the food processor, add the dulce de leche, and blitz to combine.  Pour the caramel mixture over the biscuit base, and bake in the preheated oven for 35-40 minutes (50 minutes if making the whole recipe) or until just set.

Combine the reserved cheese mixture with the melted chocolate, malted milk powder and cream, stirring well.  

Remove the cheesecake from the oven, pour the chocolate mixture carefully over the top of it, and return the cheesecake to the oven to bake for an hour or until the cheesecake is just set.  Turn off the oven, but leave the cheesecake inside with the door ajar to cool for roughly 3 hours.

Once the cheesecake is cool, chill it in the fridge for at least 4 hours or overnight.

Once the cheesecake is thoroughly chilled, make the ganache topping by placing the ingredients into a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water, and stir from time to time until the chocolate has melted and the mixture is smooth.   Cool the ganache to room temperature before pouring over the top of the cheesecake, and allow the topped cheesecake to set in the fridge for another 30 minutes before serving.

Slice and enjoy!!

TWD - Honey-Blue Cheese Madeleines

For Tuesday with Dorie this week, I made Dorie's Honey-Blue Cheese Madeleines.  This recipe arose from Dorie eating honey and blue cheese in a bar, and her love of the flavour combination inspired this recipe.

I would not have expected blue cheese to work in madeleines, which I primarily associate with sweet flavours, but these madeleines surprised me.  The blue cheese worked well with the honey, and I found the flavour of these madeleines much more interesting (in a good way) than plain old madeleines, which I find slightly uninteresting but for their elegant shell shape. The blue cheese adds a salty, sharp tang to the madeleines, which Dorie recommend serving with wine.

I was pleased that my madeleines had the desired "hump" on the reverse face.  The batter more than filled my 12 madeleine moulds, so I used up the rest of the batter by baking it in a patty cake tin.  It worked a charm, and I kind of like the flying saucer look of the patty cake madeleines.

To see what everyone else baked this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website. 

TWD - Le Cheesecake Round Trip

For Tuesday with Dorie this week, the recipe is for cheesecake.  This cheesecake is an American-style cheesecake that Dorie has  Parisianised, and it has been a hit in both of her homes of Paris and New York - hence the "round trip".  This cheesecake has a crushed cookies and almond meal crust, with more cookie crumbs in the filling.

This cheesecake was meant to be made with 907g cream cheese.  I balked at this, both from a cost perspective ($16 worth of cream cheese!!) and the sheer size perspective, so I halved the filling.  The crust was meant  to be made with Speculoos, but that is a little too exotic for the basic supermarket where I do most of my grocery shopping.  Instead, I used Marie biscuits, but added ground cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg to the crushed biscuits to give them a Speculoos-like flavour.  I also did not have almond essence, so I flavoured the filling with Queen passionfruit baking paste.

This cheesecake was delicious - in fact, I am yet to meet a cheesecake that I do not like.  Halving the filling gave me just the right amount of cheesecake, from my perspective. Dorie suggested serving this cheesecake with caramel sauce, but I thought it was perfect without.

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

Fondue at The Swiss Club

A couple of Friday’s ago, a group of us celebrated a girls’ night out at The Swiss Club in Melbourne. One of our group had bought a Groupon for four people for fondue, and given it is perfect weather for it (it doesn’t snow here in winter but is cold), I was definitely in!

The Swiss Club is a big room with a bar at one end and a kitchen at the other, with walls decorated with all manner of Swiss memorabilia:

We started with two entrees in addition to our fondue. The first entree we tried was the Prawn Madras:

The other entree was the Swiss anti-pasto platter of Swiss cured meats with potatoes and pickled vegetables:

Then came the star of the show that had brought us here - cheese fondue served with bread cubes, chopped vegetables and sausage pieces for dipping in the rich cheese mixture:

The fondue came with a house rule that if you dropped your bread in the fondue, you had to shout the table a round of schnapps. One of us (not me!) did this twice, so on top of a couple of glasses of red wine (one of which was included in the price of the Groupon), I downed two shots of apple schnapps.

We had a fun time eating the fondue:

It is a highly recommended experience!

The Swiss Club

Level 1, 89 Flinders Lane

Melbourne VIC 3000

Ph: 03 9650 1196

Orange Cheesecake with Candied Kumquats

Tim's family has a kumquat tree in their backyard.  When Tim kindly offered to give me some kumquats, I was immediately on board.  Now what to make!

After some enthusiastic Internet searches, I decided to make this Orange Cheesecake with Candied Kumquats. While my candied kumquats were nowhere near firm enough to make my topping look like the source photo,  I was pretty happy with the end result, and it tasted sensational:

The cheesecake was so creamy, and the candied kumquats added just the right amount of tartness and texture.  I only made half of the cheesecake filling, as I find American style cheesecakes can be just a little too much.

Tempted?  Here is the recipe:

Base

2 cups plain biscuit crumbs (~1 packet Arrowroot biscuits)

1/3 cup brown sugar

100g butter, melted

Filling

1/2 cup fresh orange juice
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon finely grated orange peel
500g cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sour cream
1 1/2 tablespoons plain flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs

Candied kumquats

2 cups water
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
255g kumquats, thinly sliced horizontally, seeds removed

For the candied kumquats:

Mix the water and sugar together in a medium saucepan, and stir over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Add the kumquats, and reduce the heat to simmer until the kumquats are translucent. Remove from the heat, stir in the vanilla extract, and allow the kumquats to cool in the syrup. Strain the kumquats, reserving the syrup. Combine the kumquats and 1/4 cup of the syrup in a small bowl. Return the remaining syrup to the saucepan and boil it until reduced to 1¼ cups.

For the base:

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease and line the base of a 9" springform pan.Combine the biscuit crumbs and brown sugar in a bowl, then pour over the melted butter and mix well. Press the biscuit mixture evenly across the bottom and 1 inch up sides of the springform pan. Bake the base until set and the edges are golden brown, about 20 minutes. Allow the base to cool in the pan on a wire rack.

Keep the oven on, and wrap the outside of the springform pan tightly with alfoil to stop water from getting into it.

For the filling:

Combine 1/4 cup of the sugar and the orange peel in a small saucepan. Rub with your fingers until the sugar is moist, then add the orange juice. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Reduce the heat and simmer until the mixture is reduced to 3/4 cup. Chill the mixture in the fridge until cool.

In the meantime, cube the cream cheese and beat it in a stand mixer with the remaining 3/4 cup sugar until smooth. Add the sour cream, flour, and salt and beat until just combined. Beat in the eggs, then fold through the cooled orange juice mixture. Pour the filling into the base, and place the springform pan in a large roasting pan. Pour hot water into the roasting pan until it reaches halfway up sides of the pan.

Place the roasting pan into the oven and bake for 1 1/4 hours or until the filling is just set.
Turn off the oven and leave the cheesecake in the oven for another hour. 

Remove the cheesecake in the springform pan from the oven and place it on a wire rack to cool. Once cool, place the cheesecake in the fridge to chill overnight.

Run a knife around the edge of the cheesecake to loosen it from the sides of the springform pan, then unlatch the sides of the pan. Place the cheesecake onto a plate and arrange the candied kumquats on top. Serve drizzled with some kumquat syrup, if desired.