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 - Snowy-Topped Brownie Drops

This week's Tuesday with Dorie recipe, and the last Dorie's Cookie recipe for this year, is Snowy-Topped Brownie Drops.  

These rich cookies are chocolate-dense, with the chocolate and butter mixture , chilled, then rolled into balls and rolled in icing sugar to give the a snowy, crackle-topped effect.  They are a riff on one of Dorie's brownie recipes.

The smell of these cookies permeates the house long after they have finished baking.  This is not a bad thing, as the smell is of chocolate.  These cookies are crisp on the outside and chewy in the middle.

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

Donna Hay's Christmas Cake

This year, for my Christmas boxes, I decided to make Donna Hay's Christmas Cake recipe from her book, Christmas Feasts and Treats.  I chose it because the fruit component was easy to obtain - raisins, currants, dates and sultanas.  This meant that the cake itself was not as pretty to look at as the cakes with colourful fruits in them, but I am erring on the side of practicality these days.

The cake was straight forward to make, and contains brandy as the booze of choice to flavour it.  I used a commercial gluten free flour mix in the cake, as I was sharing the cake with a number of people who are gluten sensitive.

I did not ice the cake, as I find that people pick off the icing anyway.  That was another time saver which enabled me to concentrate on other things in my life. 

Here is a peek inside the cake:

One of my friends said she really enjoyed the cake with fresh cream, and she had not had Christmas cake for five years.  I'll count that as a win.

If you would like to make this cake, you will need:

450g raisins
240g sultanas
160g currants
160g Medjool dates, pitted and chopped
140g slivered almonds
180ml brandy
250g butter, softened
220g brown sugar
4 eggs
335g plain flour
1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground allspice
2-3 extra tablespoons brandy

Put the fruit and the almonds into a large bowl and pour over the larger quantity of brandy.  Cover the bowl with cling film and allow to steep in a cool place overnight.

Preheat your oven to 140 degrees Celsius.  Line  a 20cm square cake tin with  a double thickness of baking paper.

Cream the butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer.  Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well between each addition.  

To the bowl of fruit and nuts, add the flour, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and allspice and combine well. Add the creamed butter and sugar to the bowl of fruit and nuts, and mix until well combined.

Scrape the batter into the prepared cake tin and bake in the preheated oven for 2 hours or until cooked through.

Remove the cake from the oven and while it is still hot, pour the extra tablespoons of brandy evenly over the top of the cake.  Allow the cake to cool completely in its tin before turning it out to serve. 

Caramilk Fudge, Spiced Nuts and Gingerbread Bells

It is Christmas box time again, and together with rum balls and apricot balls, plus some Tuesday with Dorie goodies, I made Donna Hay's Christmas Cake (recipe to follow), Caramilk Fudge and Spiced Nuts for the boxes.

The Caramilk Fudge, made from this recipe, is pictured at the top of this post.  It is smooth, creamy and delicious.  As the name suggests, it is made with Cadbury's Caramilk chocolate (caramelised white chocolate), which has made a return to shelves this year.

This super easy recipe is as follows:

2 x 180g blocks Caramilk chocolate
1 x 395g can condensed milk
40g butter

Grease and line a small baking tin (my 8" square tin was a bit too big - use something smaller if you have it to get taller fudge).  Break the Caramilk chocolate up into squares, and place these, the condensed milk and butter into a microwave safe dish.  Microwave the ingredients for short periods (30 seconds or so at a time) until they have completely melted.  Pour the melted ingredients into the prepared baking tin, then put in the fridge to set.  Cut into squares to serve. 

 The other new recipe I made was this recipe for Spiced Nuts:

Again, this is another super easy, quick win recipe.  To make these nuts, you will need:

1 1/2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 crushed clove garlic
1/4 teaspoon chilli powder
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon salt flakes
4 cups mixed raw, shelled nuts of your choice

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Put the honey, olive oil, garlic, chilli powder, paprika and salt into a small frying pan over low heat, and stir until the honey is melted and everything is well combined.  

Scrape the spice mixture into a large mixing bowl, then add the nuts and stir them until they are well coated with the spice  mixture.

Line a baking tray with baking paper.  Spread the nuts out in an even layer over the baking sheet, and bake for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Remove the nuts from the oven and allow them to cool on the tray before serving.

I also made over 100 gingerbread bells from the Bourke St Bakery gingerbread recipe that I have used before (but this time using the full recipe):

I then packaged the gingerbread up and handed them out  to advertise our choir performances at work:

I made bells because we were going to sing Carol of the Bells - but then we didn't.  Oh well, I now own a bell cookie cutter to go with my snowflakes, snowman, Christmas tree, angel and star cutters.

I am not sure what effect the gingerbread had on audience numbers (if any!), but they were fun to make.

Are you baking for Christmas?  And if yes, what is your favourite thing that you like to bake for Christmas?

TWD - Honey-Nut Nougat

This week's Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Honey-Nut Nougat.  I used cranberries and almonds to flavour my nougat.

Making nougat involves heating honey and sugar to 150 degrees Celsius then pouring it into a whirring mixmaster, so I found the risk of maiming myself with hot liquid a little scary.  However, everything went fine, and I have lived to tell the tale.

The nougat is very pretty, and of course tasty.  I am surprised that nougat is so expensive to buy when it is easy and not that expensive to make (if you take away the optional rice paper, which cost $12 for 10 sheets).  

I have made nougat once before, 11 years ago - my post about it is here.  In retrospect, I believe that on that occasion, I did not overcook the syrup, but rather, did not beat the nougat for long enough.  I am also amazed at how chatty I was on my blog back then - my how times have changed.

This nougat will be distributed to my friends and colleagues in my annual Christmas boxes.  Cook's privilege was to eat the offcuts! 

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

TWD - Double Ginger Molasses Cookies

This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Double Ginger Molasses Cookies. The double ginger comes from the crystallised ginger and ground ginger in the recipe.  There is also a good dose of chocolate flavour in these cookies from chocolate chips.

I subbed molasses for golden syrup, and rolled my cookies in chocolate ginger sugar from Gewurzhaus for extra chocolate and ginger flavour. I chose to bake my cookies in muffin tins as suggested by Dorie.

These cookies are quite tasty and are rather soft eating cookies.  I quite liked them.

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

TWD - Caramelized-Coffee Bean Pots de Creme and Croquets

This is the last November Tuesday with Dorie - Baking Chez Moi, and I have made both recipes for this month.  I paired the Caramelized-Coffee Bean Pots de Crème with the Croquets, following Dorie's suggestion to pair the pots de crème with cookies.

The Caramelized-Coffee Bean Pots de Crème called for crushed coffee beans to infuse the custard.  I didn't have coffee beans, so I just used instant coffee.  It seemed to work just fine.

I served the pots de crème with vanilla icecream as well as the croquets:

The second recipe was for Croquets, biscuits made from egg whites, flour, almonds and sugar.  The ingredients are mixed together, formed into logs, baked and sliced:

The resulting cookies are crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside, and quite sweet.  They were a good match for the slightly bitter coffee pots de crème.

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