Friday, June 11, 2010

Carolyn's cheesecake

This has been one of the undoubted winners of the menu, even being described as the best dessert a customer had ever eaten. it was suggested by carolyn, who fancied the combination of ginger and lemon. this is my basic cheesecake recipe and can be adapted to your desires to be savoury or sweet.

the basic recipe is 250g of quark and 150g of cream cheese. 3 medium free range, organic eggs. blitz this with a hand blender and ignore the bubbles (unless you're very fussy). to make the savoury style you can add in savoury stuff like blue cheese, mustard, herbs etc. to make the sweet we add melted white chocolate and cream (200g, 200ml) or for a simple version, the one i like best, a tin of condensed milk. this removes the need to blend the sugar and make sure it is dissolved.

so to your egg/cheese mix add one tin of condensed milk, the zest of a lemon and the juice of two to three. the ginger is the preserved stem ginger that we have blitzed to a puree. you could finely chop if you like biting on little bits. i add about three heaped teaspoons to the mix and then blend it all together.

for the base i make some coeliac biscuits because they cost heaps and their not hard to make. my basic recipe for this is equal quantities of butter and sugar, cream in a food processor, the same volume of ground nuts (hazelnuts are great for this) and about twice the volume of gluten free flour. i usually add some buckwheat of gram flour to a doves farm plain mix. stick this in the food processor and blend together. it will not come together so add water a little at a time until a dough forms. roll out and cut into biscuits, then cook in a pre-heated 180C oven until lightly browned. allow to cool then blitz to a crumb, add more butter and pack into the base of a 9" springform pan. cook at 180C until golden and firm. allow to cool, then cover the pan with a double layer of foil, up to the rim. pour your cheesecake mix over the base, put the pan in a roasting tray and pour in an inch of boiling water (into the tray not the pan). cook in a pre-heated, 140C, oven for about 30 minutes. you want the cake to be just set. allow to cool, then refrigerate for a few hours. cut with a warm clean knife.

next menu, the cheesecake belongs to ben, who suggested a dark chocolate and ginger.

cheers

wayne

No comments:

Post a Comment