Hi Everyone,
I hope you are all doing well and are keeping dry and warm.
I am so excited to share something new with you. I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned it before, but I have started a commercial cookery course. Monday was orientation and Tuesday was my first day in the kitchen (I attend two days a week) and it was full on. The other students are only forty years younger than me. Lucky for me I’m young at heart. The dishes were very simple, we had to prepare salad and appetisers.
Our teacher, a French chef, gave us a short timeframe during which we had to watch him prepare the dishes which we then had to copy and present nicely, before washing up and going straight on to the next dish. This was so unlike my home cooking where I take my time to decide where to place my flower petals or where to put the basil leaves. At school it was literally ‘chop, chop’. You had to be very quick which was a bit of a challenge but a good experience.
For our first day we made:
Antipasto
A mezze platter consisting of: houmous from a can – (You can imagine my horror); baba ganouj, which was put in the food processor (no comment); Tzatziki.
Blanched tomato salad with a vinaigrette dressing
Green salad
Fruit salad
I didn’t think the recipes on my first day were good enough to share but if anything comes up that I think is delicious and worthwhile sharing I will be more than happy to do so. I will also be sharing any tips/hacks that I will be learning as I go along.
As for today I would like to share a delicious cheesecake recipe that was part of my catering for @Tanya Glazer’s birthday .
This is a one bowl cheese cake it’s easy to make using one bowl for all the cake ingredients and NO SEPARATING the eggs. YAY!
This delicious cake is thick, rich and creamy with a smooth consistency. A delectable, delight that will please the crowd.
Before we start the cake here are some tips that I would like to share. These have really helped me achieve a good quality cheese cake:
Make sure to take the Cream cheese out of the fridge and out of the packet, cut it into small squares and allow it to get to room temperature before using it because if it’s too firm, it won’t mix well and will need to keep mixing it which brings me to the next point!
DON’T OVER MIX the batter and don’t mix on high speed.
Overmixing will cause too much air to be incorporated into the batter which will cause the cake to rise quickly then fall and crack from excess air.
Cheese cake is more of a big fat, yummy pudding than a real cake, and puddings bake really well when there is moisture.
It also stops the cheesecake from drying out on top, it stops it from cracking (most of the time) and your cheesecake will come out smooth and creamy.
Lets get started!!
Ingredients for biscuit base
200 grams Nice biscuits (yes they are called Nice)
100-125 grams unsalted butter, melted
½ tablespoon cinnamon
Ingredients for cake
680g cream cheese, at room temperature
1 cup white sugar
1 cup sour cream, at room temperature
1 cup heavy/thickened cream
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 eggs, at room temperature
Method for biscuit base
Preheat oven to 170 degrees C
Line a 23cm springform baking tin with baking paper.
Finely crush the biscuits in a food processor then transfer into a large bowl.
Stir in melted butter and mix until well combined.
Pour crumbs into the prepared cake tin and using a glass press the mixture evenly over the base.
Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven, set aside to cool at room temperature.
Method for cake
In the bowl of a standalone electric mixer (using the paddle attachment), beat cream cheese and sugar together until smooth. (you can use a hand held mixer if you don’t have a standalone electric mixer). Beat in sour cream and heavy/thickened cream just until incorporated, don’t over mix the ingredients. Stop the mixer and fold in the flour and vanilla.
Turn mixer back on low speed and add eggs one at a time just until incorporated. Pour batter over crust.
Fill an oven proof pan with hot water and place it on the floor of the oven.
Place the cake in the middle rack and DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN DOOR before an hour. Bake for 1- 1& 1/4 hours or until centre is almost set, filling will be a little soft, it’s okay.
Allow cake to cool to room temperature before refrigerating for at least six hours or over night, before removing from the cake tin.
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