Eton Mess Passionfruit Cheesecake - Queen Baking Club

I'm looking forward to Christmas
Though I'm not expecting a visit from Jesus

I'll be seeing my dad
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum
They'll be drinking white wine in the sun

                                                                                  Tim Minchin, White Wine in the Sun

For the Queen Baking Club Facebook group recently, the allocated recipe from the Queen website was Eton Mess Passionfruit Cheesecake.  This recipe was not difficult, but had a number of elements, meaning that it is not a recipe to hurry.  

This cheesecake is a mashup of Eton Mess, the famous English dessert made with crushed meringues, strawberries and lashings of cream,  and a cheesecake.  This no-bake cheesecake comprises a crushed biscuit base, a creamy two-tone (yellow and orange) passionfruit cheesecake filling, Chantilly cream, sliced mango and passionfruit, and striped mini meringues (though the yellow stripes don't show up well in the photos).

As you can see, it is a rather rich and luscious confection, with a very summery appeal. 

I thought the mini meringues were rather cute, albeit very fragile.  An intriguing technique used in making these meringues was to heat the sugar in the oven before adding it to the beaten egg whites.  Perhaps this was to aid in combining these two elements more easily.

My notes on the recipe are as follows:

• I used the base of a glass to smooth out the biscuit base rather than the back of a spoon.
• I poured the boiling water over the gelatine to dissolve it - I found that merely sprinkling the gelatine over the water was not sufficient to melt the gelatine, which would have then made a lumpy, rubbery mess in the cheesecake.
• I softened and chopped up the cream cheese  before beating it to allow it to beat as smoothly as possible.
• Don't top the cheesecake until you want to serve it, as everything goes very soft very quickly once the fruit is added.

For people celebrating Christmas in warmer climes, this cheesecake would make a lovely alternative to Christmas pud to have after a cold seafood main course.  (But me, I love my roast and hot Christmas pud with lashings of custard.)

Crispy Chocolate Puddings

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Toys in every store
But the prettiest sight to see is the holly that will be
On your own front door

                                                                                 Johnny Mathis

The last post in my Christmas box series is amazing but simple twist on the Chocolate Crackle to make them Yuletide-fit.  This recipe for Crispy Chocolate Puddings comes from the Woolworths website, and is a simple but effective Christmas treat. 

To make these puddings, you will need:

1/2 cup sultanas
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
200g dark chocolate, chopped
80g diced butter
3 cups Rice Bubbles (rice krispies)
1/4 shredded coconut
50g white chocolate
12 red glace cherries

Lightly spray a 12 hole muffin tin with oil.

Put the chocolate and butter in a microwave proof bowl, and melt together in the microwave, stirring well to combine.

In a big bowl, combine the rice bubbles, sultanas, walnuts and coconut. Add the melted chocolate/butter mixture to the bowl and stir well to combine.  Divide the mixture evenly between the 12 muffin holes, and press in firmly.  Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Loosen each pudding from the sides of the muffin tin with a  spatula and carefully unmould upside down.  Melt the white chocolate, and cool slightly before spooning over the top of the puddings to resemble custard, and put a glace cherry on the top of each pudding.  Allow the white chocolate to set before serving.

Rocky Road and Rum Balls

This is the penultimate Christmas box post for this year, and I will make it easy for you and me with treats that I have made before.  First up is the Rocky Road at the top of this post, which I first made nearly nine years ago (wow, it does not feel like that long).  The recipe is from the Loreto Cooks cookbook, given to me years ago by Mayor Steve before he was mayor, and contains chopped marshmallows, Cherry Ripes and Turkish Delights - three of my favourite things! 

Next up is Rum Balls, a perennial favourite, for which I first posted the recipe in the infancy of this blog in 2007.  This year I rolled the rum balls ultra small and only the first wave of box recipients received them, as they were a stop gap until the next wave came along.

Are you giving edible gifts this year?  If so, what did you make, and what was your favourite?

TWD - Speculoos

This week's Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Speculoos, a spicy European biscuit that happens to be perfect for Christmas.

Dorie's recipe suggests simply slicing and baking these biscuits, which is exactly what I did, although you could also roll out the dough and cut out the biscuits.

Before slicing my biscuit dough logs, I brushed them with egg wash and rolled them in gold sanding sugar.  I think it added to the festive nature of these spicy cookies, and I added them to this year's Christmas boxes as an efficiency so that I didn't have to bake extra biscuits for the boxes.

I thought these Speculoos biscuits were rather tasty (I ate the gnarly offcuts from the ends of the dough logs).

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

Roast Pork with Cherry Sauce - Red Tractor December

Well, this year is nearly over - where did it go?  I have reached December in my Red Tractor calendar, and the final recipe for this year is Christmas Pork with Cherry Sauce.

The calendar quote says it all:

I was very pleased with the crackle that I got on my roast pork - it is a fabulous colour:

My unusual choice of vegetables with the finished pork arose from the fact that I originally had planned to make stir fry for the week, but ended up making this pork instead. The stir fried vegetables were good, even if they did clash a little with the cherry sauce.

To make your own Christmas Pork with Cherry Sauce, you will need:

2kg boned and rolled pork shoulder (I used pork leg)
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons salt

Preheat your oven to 250 degrees Celsius (fan forced).  Unroll the pork and pat the skin dry with a paper towel.  Score the skin diagonally with a sharp knife (and I mean sharp - I used a box cutter).  Re-roll the pork and tie  with string to secure.  

Brush the oil over the pork and rub with sea salt.

Put the pork on a roasting rack in a roasting pan and roast for 20 minutes or until the skin starts to blister.  Decrease the oven temperature to 170 degrees Celsius, and cook the pork for another 70-90 minutes or until the crackling is golden and crisp.

Rest the pork for up to half an hour before serving.

For the cherry sauce:

Melt 60g chopped butter in a saucepan.  Add 2 chopped shallots and 2 teaspoons chopped thyme.  Stir over the heat for 5 minutes.  Add 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar, and cook for a further minute or until reduced by half.  

Add 300g pitted cherries (fresh or frozen), 1/4 cup cherry jam and 1/4 cup water to the saucepan.  Bring  the sauce to the boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and simmer the sauce until slightly thickened.  Season the sauce with salt and pepper to taste.

Candy Cane Fudge

This year's Christmas box production line is well under way, and a new item that I made for this year's boxes is Candy Cane Fudge from the Australian Women's Weekly website.

If you are scared of making sweets, don't be with this fudge - it is super duper simple.  If you can melt things together without burning them, then you can absolutely make this fudge.

The finished product is creamy and sweet, and the peppermint tones down the sweetness as well as adding festive red and white colour.

To make it, you will need:

500g white chocolate melts
395g can condensed milk
30g butter
1/3 cup crushed candy canes (I blitzed them in the food processor)
extra crushed candy canes to sprinkle on top of the fudge

Line a 20cm square cake tin with baking paper.

Put the chocolate melts, condensed milk and butter into a medium sized heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water (ie a homemade bain marie).  Stir the ingredients over the simmering water until melted and smooth.

Remove the bowl from the heat and stir in the 1/3 cup crushed candy canes.  Working quickly before the fudge starts to set, scrape the fudge into the prepared cake tin and spread evenly in the tin.  Rap the tin on the bench a few times to eliminate air bubbles.

Put the fudge into the fridge for ~ 2 hours to set before  cutting into squares.

Eat and enjoy!

TWD - Double-Ginger Crumb Cookies

This week's Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Double-Ginger Crumb Cookies.  They earn their moniker from fresh minced ginger in the cookie dough and ground ginger in the crumb on top.

When I went to make these, I looked at the photo and thought, "meh".  However, don't be fooled by their appearance - these cookies taste seriously delicious.  They also smell devine when baking.  The ginger taste is subtle rather than in your face.

My cookies baked quicker than the 21-23 minute cooking time stated in the recipe, so it pays to watch them carefully and rely on your nose.

In a first, the recipe said the batch made 18 cookies, and I got 18 cookies!  I was quietly pleased with this as it means I rolled the dough to the right thickness and made the cookies the size intended by their creator, Dorie.

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