Cheesecake!
Oct. 29th, 2018 10:57 pm Things have been fairly quiet recently, in comparison to my last post (which I hadn't realised was quite so long ago). The talk went well in the end, and Fields of Steel was a great success. I managed to come through it not completely exhausted, which was not bad given I made 150 pies the day before the event actually started.
We had a flying visit from my parents in the last few days of the school holidays, with my aunts from England in tow, so I took a couple of days off to play tour guide. I also made it to the ABC plant fair with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dirtygreatknife .
Spring has well and truly sprung. The front garden was lovely for a short while, but is still in dire need of weeding. The vegie patch has been doing pretty splendidly this year, however, with peas and radishes in abundance and zucchinis, broccoli and tomatoes all doing well so far.
Erin has two days of school left now, and then she is finished with formal lessons for good (all being well). Her graduation is later in November. I think I am going to blub like a baby. It didn't bother me much when she started school, but it seems like five minutes ago she was a funny faced little bub with a crazy tuft of black hair, and now she is graduating high school!
I have another work trip interstate before then, and I will try and get to an event next month too, but aside from these things I am hoping for a fairly sedate run up to the end of the year. Then we are off to Queensland for Christmas.
Anyway, to make up for months of silence, here is a cheesecake recipe. I adapted it from a 16th century Spanish recipe because I needed to use up some cream cheese, and blueberries are super cheap at the moment. If you don't fancy blueberries you could do the same thing with cherries or strawberries.
400 gms blueberries
3-4 tblsps sugar
500 gms cream cheese (I have an aversion to Kraft cream cheese, but if that's all you can get...)
200 gms sour cream
3 large eggs
1/4 cup caster sugar
200 gms arrowroot or digestive biscuits (gluten free work just as well as normal ones)
90 gms butter
Preheat the oven to 150°C. Place the blueberries and first lot of sugar in a small saucepan with a small amount of water (1-2 tblsps). Bring to a boil over medium heat then turn down to low and simmer for 10-15 mins or until the blueberries are soft and juicy. Set aside and let cool.
Place the biscuits in a clean plastic bag and crush thoroughly with a rolling pin. This is an excellent opportunity to relieve tension and stress, but be careful not to burst the bag. Melt the butter (30 secs in the microwave, then stirring away any remaining lumps will usually do the trick), and mix in the biscuit crumbs, combining well.
Line a 23 cm springform cake tin with baking paper. Press the biscuit mixture firmly into the bottom of the tin, forming a layer approx 0.5cm thick. Place the tin in the fridge while you do the next bit.
Place the cream cheese in a large bowl and stir a bit until soft. Leaving it out to come to room temperature can help a lot if it is quite stiff. Add the sour cream and stir/beat together (which it is might depend on how thick your sour cream is) until smooth and lump free. Beat in the caster sugar, then the eggs, one at a time.
Pour this mixture over the biscuit layer in your tin. Scoop out about half the blueberries and approximately two tablespoons of their juice. Drop these into the cheese mixture in the tin in strategically placed blobs and swirl them around carefully with a knife or skewer. Place the tin in the oven and bake for sixty minutes or until the cheesecake is more or less set. Turn off the oven and let the cheesecake cool for half an hour inside. Then remove from the oven and pour the remaining blueberries and their sticky juices over the top of the cheesecake. Set aside to cool further, and ideally chill in the fridge for a couple of hours before serving.
If you want to make the 16th century version leave out the blueberries and sugar (all of it), and make smaller cheesecakes (these quantities are probably enough fot two) with a pastry not a biscuit base. Once the cheesecakes are baked pour 3-4 tablespoons of honey over the top of each, carefully so as much of it seeps in as possible.
We had a flying visit from my parents in the last few days of the school holidays, with my aunts from England in tow, so I took a couple of days off to play tour guide. I also made it to the ABC plant fair with
dirtygreatknife .Spring has well and truly sprung. The front garden was lovely for a short while, but is still in dire need of weeding. The vegie patch has been doing pretty splendidly this year, however, with peas and radishes in abundance and zucchinis, broccoli and tomatoes all doing well so far.
Erin has two days of school left now, and then she is finished with formal lessons for good (all being well). Her graduation is later in November. I think I am going to blub like a baby. It didn't bother me much when she started school, but it seems like five minutes ago she was a funny faced little bub with a crazy tuft of black hair, and now she is graduating high school!
I have another work trip interstate before then, and I will try and get to an event next month too, but aside from these things I am hoping for a fairly sedate run up to the end of the year. Then we are off to Queensland for Christmas.
Anyway, to make up for months of silence, here is a cheesecake recipe. I adapted it from a 16th century Spanish recipe because I needed to use up some cream cheese, and blueberries are super cheap at the moment. If you don't fancy blueberries you could do the same thing with cherries or strawberries.
400 gms blueberries
3-4 tblsps sugar
500 gms cream cheese (I have an aversion to Kraft cream cheese, but if that's all you can get...)
200 gms sour cream
3 large eggs
1/4 cup caster sugar
200 gms arrowroot or digestive biscuits (gluten free work just as well as normal ones)
90 gms butter
Preheat the oven to 150°C. Place the blueberries and first lot of sugar in a small saucepan with a small amount of water (1-2 tblsps). Bring to a boil over medium heat then turn down to low and simmer for 10-15 mins or until the blueberries are soft and juicy. Set aside and let cool.
Place the biscuits in a clean plastic bag and crush thoroughly with a rolling pin. This is an excellent opportunity to relieve tension and stress, but be careful not to burst the bag. Melt the butter (30 secs in the microwave, then stirring away any remaining lumps will usually do the trick), and mix in the biscuit crumbs, combining well.
Line a 23 cm springform cake tin with baking paper. Press the biscuit mixture firmly into the bottom of the tin, forming a layer approx 0.5cm thick. Place the tin in the fridge while you do the next bit.
Place the cream cheese in a large bowl and stir a bit until soft. Leaving it out to come to room temperature can help a lot if it is quite stiff. Add the sour cream and stir/beat together (which it is might depend on how thick your sour cream is) until smooth and lump free. Beat in the caster sugar, then the eggs, one at a time.
Pour this mixture over the biscuit layer in your tin. Scoop out about half the blueberries and approximately two tablespoons of their juice. Drop these into the cheese mixture in the tin in strategically placed blobs and swirl them around carefully with a knife or skewer. Place the tin in the oven and bake for sixty minutes or until the cheesecake is more or less set. Turn off the oven and let the cheesecake cool for half an hour inside. Then remove from the oven and pour the remaining blueberries and their sticky juices over the top of the cheesecake. Set aside to cool further, and ideally chill in the fridge for a couple of hours before serving.
If you want to make the 16th century version leave out the blueberries and sugar (all of it), and make smaller cheesecakes (these quantities are probably enough fot two) with a pastry not a biscuit base. Once the cheesecakes are baked pour 3-4 tablespoons of honey over the top of each, carefully so as much of it seeps in as possible.
