Baked Lemon Cheesecake

I always wanted to make a baked cheesecake, so when we invited some guests the last time the time was right. As the dinner was quite heavy, I wanted something light and delicate. Well it isn't the lightest dessert, but it tasted divine (also it is quite easy to make). I found a recipe on the BBC Goodfood website, but I slightly had to modify it to my taste.

 

Baked Lemon Cheesecake

 

Ingredients

260g digestive biscuit

120g melted butter

 

600g light soft cheese/cream cheese

250g mascarpone

2eggs

2egg yolks

zest of 4 lemons

juice of 2.5 lemons

4 tbsp flour

150g caster sugar

 

few spoonful of cream fresh/soured cream

few spoonful of lemon curd

handful of blueberries

 

 

Heat the oven to 180C and line the bottom of a 23cm spring form tin with baking paper. Crush the biscuits to crumbs and work it together with the melted butter. Press the biscuit paste into the bottom of the pan and place it to the fridge while you prepare the filling.



 

 

Whisk all the other ingredients in a large bowl until completely combined, pour into the tin, then bake for 35-40 minutes. Turn off the oven and leave the cake inside until cool.

 

 

 When it is completely cooled remove from the tin and top with cream fresh, lemon curd and blueberries if you like. You can keep the cake in the fridge if you want a cold dessert summer time.

Chocolate Swirl Banana Mousse

I had some guest to visit us today and I wanted to wow them. I made two type of mini, individual desserts: a Chocolate Swirl Banana Mousse and Mini Pineapple and curd Cheese one. I used my Lakeland cake pan, that looks like a muffin pan, but the sides are straight and the bottoms are removable. But you can use dessert rings as well. It isn't the lightest dessert, because of the banana, but it is really tasty.

 Chocolate Swirl Banana Mousse

Ingredients (makes 6)

6 Hob Nobs biscuits

25 g butter (melted)

250 ml double cream

2 ripe bananas

1 sachet of gelatine (9g)

1 tsp honey
1/2 vanilla pod

30 g chocolate for the swirl
30 g chocolate for decoration-optional

Crush the Hob nob biscuits (use the end of the rolling pin or a food processor) and mix with the melted butter. Divide the mix between the 6 dessert rings/ pan cavities and using your fingers press it to the bottom, to create a flat levelled surface. 

Place into the fridge so the base can harden.

In the meantime you can prepare the mousse. It isn't traditional mousse, as I didn't want to use raw eggs. 

Put the bananas into a food processor and blitz them to get a banana puree (with the processor the puree will be light and fluffy and gives volume, that you wouldn't get by just crushing them). 

Pour 100 ml double cream in a pan and start to heat. When it reaches boiling point add the sachet of gelatine and mix it well to avoid lumps, then leave it to cool slightly. In the meantime whip the rest of the double cream to soft peaks, then add the banana puree, honey, vanilla seeds and the cooled(not hot) gelatine+double cream and incorporate all ingredients well. 

Spoon on top of the biscuit base and level with a spoon.

Melt the chocolate and place 2-3 little coffee spoon's worth on top of each banana mousse. Using a toothpick create swirl, mixing the banana and the chocolate cream.

When finished place them into the fridge to set.
For the chocolate decoration just pipe the melted chocolate on a non stick baking sheet at any shape and place it to the fridge/freezer to set. After plating just insert carefully to top of each mini cake.

Strawberry Cheesecake

I still had some strawberries from our PYO trip that desperately needed some attention, so I decided to make a strawberry cheesecake. Plus I got a Cuissential Non-stick Silicone Baking Mat for my birthday from my dear friend, the creator of Kabi's Kitchen, so I had no choice, but test it on the same day:)

Strawberry Cheesecake

For the base

250g digestive biscuit

90g unsalted butter

For the filling

350g strawberries

300g mascarpone

200ml double cream

1 dream topping

1vanilla pod

3 tbsp icing sugar

For the top

100g strawberries

1 Greens Quick Red Jel or any other red cake cover jelly

For the decoration 

50g good quality dark chocolate preferably with 70% cocoa solids

Line the base of a 23cm spring form tin. Crush the biscuits to crumbs(I usually use the end of my rolling pin) and mix it with the melted butter. Press firmly the mixture into the form and put it to the fridge for at least 30 minutes to harden. Line the sides of the cake pan.

Whip the double cream to stiff peaks, add the mascarpone,dream topping, vanilla seeds and icing sugar,and mix it together. Carefully fold in the chopped strawberries. Spoon the cream to the biscuit base.

Prepare the cake cover jelly according to the instructions. Leave it to cool stirring occasionally. In the meantime slice up the rest of the strawberries to small pieces then arrange on top of the cream. When the jelly is almost set, pour on top of the cake and leave to set in the fridge for at least 4hours.

To prepare the decoration melt the chocolate in a bowl over simmering water, than fill into a sandwich bag or any other plastic bag. Cut a small hole at one corner....I mean: small, it should be tiny to achieve a nice and delicate chocolate lines. Using a baking paper or a non -stick silicone baking mat, squeeze the chocolate on the surface creating a criss cross effect.

Put it to the freezer and leave it to harden. 5-10 minutes before serving, remove the chocolate from the freezer and leave it to defrost. When it is still hard but not frozen cut out circles with a  metal cookie cutter and arrange on top of the cake.

Mascarpone Banana Pie/Mascarpone Strawberry Pie

I made this recipe with both biscuits(digestive and hobnobs) and I also tried the chocolate covered version and the plain as well. All of them were delicious. I also experimented with the sizes. I did the pie in my big tart tin and in my small tartlet tins as well(depending how thick you press in the biscuit mix to the base, I usually make 5-6 small tartlets from this amount of biscuit). Also to get the base out in one piece you need the removable base tins!

Mascarpone Banana Pie

For the Biscuit Base

250g biscuit(Digestive or HobNobs-oat biscuit, either plain or chocolate covered)

75g butter

For the cream

4-6 tbs icing sugar

200g mascarpone

100ml double cream

1vanilla pod

5 tbsp Marsala

For the topping

3 bananas 

2 tbsp lemon juice

or

300g strawberry

Crush the biscuits to crumbs(I usually use the end of my rolling pin) and mix it with the melted butter. Press firmly the mixture into the form and put it to the fridge for at least 30 minutes to harden.

Whip the double cream to stiff peaks, add the mascarpone, Marsala and icing sugar,and mix it together. Spoon the cream to the biscuit base and add the fruits on top.

If you using banana, with a brush cover the surface of the banana slices with some lemon juice. It will stop the banana to turn brown even after a day and you won't feel the taste at all.

Put the pie to the fridge for at least 1hour to get the right taste and temperature. 20 minutes before serving take the pie out of the fridge, otherwise it will be hard to remove the case from the tin.

Coconut and passion fruit slice

The motive for this recipe?......well I just wanted to try my new passion fruit liqueur, so I married up the idea with a coconut milk "jelly" and a biscuit base. And now I have my very own recipe. I used dessert rings, triangles, squares(on the picture is a half square with my new spoon-I fell in love with this spoon in Brugge). Why I used so many forms...well I only have one of each form but it made the display of cakes more appealing.

Coconut and passion fruit slice

For the base

5-6 digestive biscuits

2 tbs unsalted butter

For the coconut jelly

250ml coconut milk

10g gelatine

80gr desiccated coconut

30-40gr white chocolate

For the passion fruit top

3 passion fruit

150ml  Passoá (passion fruit liqeur)

50ml water

5g gelatine

In order to create your biscuit base crush your biscuits (I promptly using the end of my rolling pin for this) to crumbles and mix it with the melted butter.When it is fully incorporated (if not all the biscuits crumbs "wet" from the butter, and some little more), press tightly it into a dessert ring. It is advisable to use a completely flat tray or sheet to put the rings on, as if the sheet dented the coconut milk maybe later on leek out.

Put it into the fridge to harden for at least 30 minutes.

In the meantime put the coconut milk into a heavy based pan and sprinkle over the gelatine. Leave it to absorb for ten minutes, then under a medium heat, heat it up until it is thoroughly mixed while stirring. Take off from the heat, add the dessicated coconut and the white chocolate. Depending on how sweet you like your dessert, you can put in more white chocolate but for me 30g was enough. When the liquid cooled down to room temperature pour it on top of the biscuit base and put it back to the fridge to harden.

When the coconut jelly is solid,  divide the passion fruit seeds evenly on top of them. 

Pour the liqueur and the water into a pan and dissolve the gelatine in similar way as above. When the passion fruit jelly is room temperature pour on top of the seeds, then put the desserts back into the fridge.

After 30 minutes it is ready to serve.