Christmas Cheesecake

As usual I have another recipe I used from BBC Good Food. We have Orange and Pomegranate cheesecake. It was scrummy and pretty easy to do too!

Ingredients: 

• 250g digestive biscuits
• 100g butter, melted
• 600g full-fat cream cheese
• zest 3 oranges (you can also cut out the segments for decoration but I got lazy)
• 3 tbsp milk
• 100g icing sugar
• 150ml double cream
• seeds of one pomegranate

Method:

1. Crush the biscuits roughly. Mix with the melted butter and tip into a 23cm springform tin. Press the biscuit evenly to form the base. Chill for about 30mins in the fridge.
2. Put the soft cheese, zest, milk and icing sugar into a bowel and blend with an electric mixer until smooth. Add the cream and whisk until the mixture is the consistency of thick custard. Pour the filling over the biscuit base and spread evenly, return to fridge and chill for at least 4 hours or overnight.
3. Top with pomegranate seeds and orange segments and serve.

Cheesecake Brownies

James and I have decided for good that we need to make a change. We have watched our bellies get rounder and our fitness decline for long enough, so starting Monday we are making some changes. Hence why yesterday I decided we would go out like a bang. Whipped up this bad boy that I found in the mag BBC Good Food.

Ingredients:

• 250g butter, plus extra for greasing
• 200g dark chocolate
• 50g white chocolate
• 375g golden caster sugar
• 5 medium eggs
• 50g plain flour, plus 1 tbsp
• 85g cocoa
• Half a tsp baking powder
• 200g tub cream cheese

Method:

1. Heat oven to 180C/160C fan
2. Grease and line a 20x30cm tin with baking parchment. Finely chop 150g dark chocolate, and roughly chop the remaining dark chocolate and the white chocolate. Put the finely chopped chocolate in a bowl and melt over a small pan of gently simmering water. Set aside to cool a little.
3. Put the butter and 350g sugar in a bowl and beat until light and fluffy. Add 4 of the eggs, beating well between each addition, then sift in the flour, cocoa, baking powder and a good pinch of salt. Finally, stir in the melted chocolate and the chopped chocolate chunks. Scrape the mixture into the prepared tin and smooth the surface.
4. Working quickly, tip the cream cheese into a bowl and beat to soften with a spatula. Add the remaining egg, flour and sugar, and mix until combined. Spoon blobs onto the brownie mixture until it is used up. Using a knife or skewer swirl the two mixtures together to get a marble effect.
5. Bake for 30mins until just set - it should still have a little wobble when it comes out of the oven, and a skewer inserted into the centre should come out with sticky crumbs (Mines took a little longer cause my oven is, well, it's shite)
6. Completely let it cool in the tin before cutting into squares to serve.

Enjoy!

Pink Jam Slice

Well I gave the goulash a try but I must say I won't bother putting it up here. It was edible, but it wasn't amazing and with over 2 hours cooking time I don't think I will do it again. I did make this though!

This recipe was from BBC GoodFood magazine March 2014 issue. 

Ingredients:

• 300g butter at room temp
• 120g caster sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 large egg yolk
• 500g plain flour
• 400g raspberry jam
• 500g icing sugar
• pink food colouring

Method:

• Heat over to 180C and line a 20x30cm baking tin with baking parchment.
• Beat the butter, caster sugar, vanilla and egg yolk together in a large bowl with an electric whisk until pale. Stir in the flour with a good pinch of salt using a wooden spoon - then your hands to bring everything together into a crumbly dough.
• Press half into the base of the tin as evenly as you can. Spread jam over the top, leaving a 1cm border. Crumble the rest of the shortbread mixture, then pat down, trying not to dislodge the jam too much. Don't worry about it being patchy. Bake for 35mins until pale golden. Leave to cool in the tin.
• Once cool, sift the icing sugar into a bowl, and stir in about 100ml water with some food colouring to a thick-ish but runny icing. Pour over the slice, then tilt the tin evenly to spread. Quickly dot over some more food colouring, then use a tooth pick to swirl and marble the top. Leave to set overnight until the icing is hard, then cut into the slices.

It took almost a day and a bit for mine to set. Mine's wasn't as pretty as the pictures in the magazine but I can only improve!

Things spotted online

Lately I have got a little addicted to Pinterest. I like it for finding ideas and inspiration. It is particularly useful when the pretty pictures leads to links of blogs with tutorials, but frustrating when it leads to nothing. Here are some of my favourites:

These would make beautiful centrepieces at a wedding or something similar but the website didn't lead to anything useful. The picture itself though is pretty.

These little teacups with their succulents are gorgeous but something so breakable would be a mistake in my flat with the three monsters.

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I love the use of light and plants here and the website it's linked to provides the tutorial on how to do it yourself. Perhaps after the move I might give it a go:

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The paper designs used for this paper chandelier is so fresh and works well together. Would perk up any dull room! Reminds me of an old flatmate as it is so her style. Wow! Just checked out the original website and this baby would set you back over £300, think I would rather give it a bash myself!:

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I wish I had found this cake sooner as I would love to have attempted something like this for James' birthday! Although I have no idea how they managed the texture! Cake decorating is so not my thing but I would love to produce something like this for someone I loved! How impressed would you be if you got this monster!

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I love this embroiderd elephant from Skunkboy Creatures whose blog I love and I am also a little jealous of! 

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And of course I need to finish off this little post with some of my fave crochet gems I have found.

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(This one was linked to a website that must not exist any more, it was just an advert for a domain name).

So these are a few of the little gems I have come across in my boredom and obsession with Pinterest. I just hope I use inspiration from these guys to actually make something rather than waste hours away just looking at the amazing things others do! Anyway, best be off, got a long line of nightshifts coming my way and I guess I better get into nightshift mode to survive them. Have a good weekend! I sincerely hope the weather is dull so that I am not sleeping through the nicest weather we have had so far - I bet that's what will happen too!

Kirst xx