Burnt top Cheesecake

Burnt top cheesecake

This is a lazy person's baked cheesecake, no folding or separating eggs. No adding topping. The ingredients get added in series and the most complicated thing is tidily getting the mixture from the bowl to the cake tin. 

Why cheesecake? Apart from pure greed, I've had some double cream in the fridge sitting and turning sour. For some reason I bought a big pot when I only needed a small one... Turning to browsing some cookery books I found this recipe for a simpler cheesecake that uses sour cream. The original recipe says use a 20cm/8" loose bottomed cake tin, but once the mixture was ready to decant I realised it would make a massive cake, so used two smaller tins, 15cm/6" and 18cm/7". Both a good size, and more manageable than one vast cheesecake both for cooking and eating. 

it looks creamy and it tastes creamy

Recipe: Burnt Top Cheesecake

The caramel coloured crust on this cheesecake gives it a slight burnt caramel flavour, matched by the creamy interior to make a delicious mouthful.

Prep

You don't need to butter the tin if you're lining it with baking parchment. I used a combination of a round cake liner and parchment. The height of the parchment stops the top of the cake from browning too much (burning), as the cooking temperature is quite high.

ready for the oven

Ingredients

800g soft cheese

225g caster sugar

2tbsp plain flour

200g sour cream

4 eggs

2tsp vanilla

Half quantities:

400g soft cheese

112g caster sugar

1 tbsp plain flour

100g sour cream

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

Method

You decide what size tin you want to use, the mixture is enough for two 18cm/7" cakes. Line lose bottomed or springform tins well with baking parchment, so that the parchment sits well above the edge of the cake tin.

Set the oven to 220C fan/240C/gas 9, don't crowd the oven.

in a large bowl mix the soft cheese and sugar until smooth and even with an electric mixer

add the sifted flour, soured cream, eggs, vanilla and salt. Mix together until you have a smooth batter.

cooling after cooking for 30m

Pour or ladle into your lined tin/s, and bang the mixture in the tin sharply on the counter to get rid of any bubbles.

Put the tin/s into the hot oven and cook for 20-30 minutes - the top with darken, but the mixture will still have a wobble.

Brown Betty

This Brown Betty is a delightful, warming apple pudding and easy to make. The combined taste of the cloves, apple, treacle and sherry is hard to beat and they combine to make a smell make that's heavenly. It’s a dish that can be eaten hot or cold, my preference is for hot, but it’s unlikely I’d turn down a helping of it cold - the flavours seem to grow that longer it's kept.

In our house this was a standard Sunday pudding, my father developed a liking for it cold, cooked in a charlotte tin and turned out, which seems like an unecessary complication. With lots of cream. You could liken it to an Apple Charlotte, a deconstructed one that tastes much better. Unlike a Charlotte that uses melted butter brushed into place, the dobs of butter sit alongside the morsels of apple and make their own way through the crumbs while it cooks. You might imagine, reading the recipe, that it might seem to be a bit dry: it isn’t.

When I was trying to remember the recipe I read quite a lot of American versions, which aren't the same and seem more complicated. I found a reference to 'old fashioned Brown Betty' in a Pan Dowdy recipe, and perhaps our family version takes its molasses (black treacle) from there. You can see that here, and I'll include the version that my father wrote, although I never saw him make it… I've written it out the way I remember making it with my mother.

The quantities are a guide - you’ll probably manage to get everything in the dish. Give it a go. And use Bramley apples if you can.

Dad's write up

Brown Betty Recipe

Ingredients

2lb/scant 1kg apples

1/2lb/250g fresh breadcrumbs

¼ kb/125g unsalted butter

Brown sugar - more than a cupful

Black treacle - about two tablespoons

½ mug/1 wine glass sherry

Several pinches of ground cloves

Pinch Cinnamon 

Method

Set the oven to 170C/Gas Mark 3/325F

Use a deep pie dish

• Peel and core the apple and cut it into bit sized piece

• Generously butter around a deep pie dish

• Scatter a layer of breadcrumbs, then some apple pieces, pinches of butter alongside dustings of cloves and some cinnamon, sprinkle over with sugar and repeat until you’ve used up all the apple - then add one last layer of breadcrumbs

• Drizzle the treacle over in a random way - if you warm the spoon in boiling water and then dry it the treacle will flow more easily

• Pour the sherry over, covering as much as possible 

• Bake for around an hour, or until the apple is completely cooked (test with a skewer)

The cooked dish has a lovely crust - eat with cream, yoghurt, ice cream, or on its own.

pan dowdy

Apple Pan Dowdy
[A TASTING-TEST KITCHEN ENDORSED RECIPE]

1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 quarts sliced apples
1/2 cup dark molasses
3 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup water

Line a casserole with pie crust. Mix sugar, spices, and salt and sprinkle over apples. Fill casserole, add molasses, butter, and water. Cover with punctured pie crust, tuck edges together, press to sides of casserole. Bake in moderately hot oven (425°) 45 minutes, decrease temperature to 325°. When crust has browned slightly and apples are tender, remove from oven.

Take a silver knife, chop up mixture, being sure that the pie crust is thoroughly mixed with apples. If dry or not sufficiently sweetened, add more water and molasses. Return to oven and bake 1 1/2 hours at 325°. Serves 10.

When finished, the pudding will look very much like Old-fashioned Brown Betty. I was told that New Englanders served Apple Pan Dowdy hot with butter. The pudding can be warmed over, in fact it is even more delicious on the second or third day if you can keep it that long.

Venison Sausage sticky tray bake

time needed: 1h minutes including prep and warming oven

Venison Sausage sticky tray bake

Having come home with two very fat venison sausages I looked in the fridge to see what would make a simple supper. In the veg collection we had sweet potatoes, carrots, onions and fresh chillis and a lovely spring cabbage.

Based on this recipe we ate very well. And considering that Steve said he'd like 'just a sausage sandwich' he managed to tuck in ok.

Substitutions, aside from the veg, which was prepped in slices, was fig jam with lemon and vinegar instead of redcurrant jelly, with a few frozen redcurrants thrown in. It was nice and sharp.

In summary:

• set oven to 220C and allow to warm up 10m
• oil all the veg except the onions and put in roasting tray, put in oven and roast 15m
• add the sausages and onions, stir through the veg, put back in oven 20m
• drizzle redcurrant (or similar) mixture over contents of roasting tin and stir, put back in oven 15m
• serve with salad or green veg.

Lemon and raspberry occasion cake

Cherry and hawthorn blossom adorn the cake

Sometimes you make an occasion cake, that has to look good, as well as taste good. I think I hit the mark with this one.

The cake is a basic sponge with equal weight of butter, sugar, eggs and flour, in this case four eggs set the weight. You can average an egg as 60g, so work that out if you like. The cooked cakes are cut in half and there are three layers of filling, each one had lemon curd, overlaid with cream and the cake above had raspberry jam. Someone said it was too tall, and it did have four layers, but then it was for an occasion.To stop the cream squirting out the side I laid raspberries to hold it in. Really, when all the layers were stacked up the whole looked a bit wobbly. A good ganache coating covers a lot of sins and that's what this cake got, white chocolate ganache.

I used a palate knife dipped into boiling water and dried, which makes it easy to move the ganache around, spread it where it needs to go. I can do piping but I don't enjoy it, and I think you end up with too much icing. So I go for a nice slather, and then in this case I draped spring flowers across it, bird cherry and pink hawthorn, both of which are edible if you wanted to eat them. The main thing is that they aren't toxic, and they look lovely.

Around the top of the cake I sprinkled lemon zest and freeze dried raspberry and added fresh raspberries around the base and dusted the lot with icing sugar.

 

 

Moist Rich Gluten Free Chocolate Cake

it's not the Holy Grail, but people like it

In my experience gluten free chocolate cake, and perhaps other flavour cakes made with gluten free flour, can taste a bit powdery. This recipe from Dove's Farm, produces a beautifully moist springy cake. This one is made with a sweetened ganache (chocolate mixed with cream), but you could use a normal buttercream.

The recipe uses milk and oil in the place of the more usual butter. It doesn't matter whether you're an experienced cake maker or not because this cake is really a doddle. Just follow it and stir everything when it says to in the recipe below.

The cake keeps well. But there isn't really a risk of that. Enjoy.

Chocolate cake

• 75g cocoa powder
• 250 gluten free self raising white flour
• 325g caster sugar
• 4 eggs
• 200ml milk
• 200ml oil
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 125 ml boiling water
• Oil, for tins

Chocolate filling and topping

• 250g dark chocolate
• 250 ml double cream
• 100g caster sugar

Equipment: Three 20cm/8” cake tins, large jug, saucepan and two mixing bowls

Preparation: 

• Pre-heat the oven at 180 C/ fan 160 C/ 350 F/ Gas mark 4
• Prepare the tins, by oiling them or using a baking liner

Method

Cake

• Sieve the cocoa and flour into a bowl
• Add the caster sugar and stir to combine
• Break the eggs into a large jug, add the milk, oil and vanilla extract and beat together well
• Pour the egg mixture into the mixing bowl and mix everything together with a whisk
• Add the boiling water, beating well – this will make a runny mixture
• Divide the mixture between the three cake tins
• Bake for 35-40 minutes – they’ll be springy to the touch and a skewer will come out clean

Cool the cakes for a couple of minutes before turning them out onto a cooling rack.

Filling and topping

• Break the chocolate into squares
• Put the cream and sugar into a saucepan and stir over a medium heat until it’s about to boil
• Pour the cream/sugar mixture onto the chocolate pieces and stir until combined
• Leave to cool, stirring every now and then until you have a thick paste
• Spread the filling over each cake, then stack them on top of each other

Asian slaw comes around again

 A dressing makes simple ingredients sing, and this family favourite will not disappoint. Give it a go, her's the link to the original post

give it a go, it's good for getting over the winter blues, commit to it without a picture

Baked charmoulah vegetables

This is an easy way to make delicious vegetables, brilliant for summer.

3 tbsp honey

3 tbsp olive oil

2 crushed garlic cloves

1 tbsp chopped fresh coriander

1tsp chilli seeds

1tsp ground coriander

1tsp ground cumin

for mixed sliced vegetables such as 

Cauliflower

Aubergine

Sweet potato

Courgette

 

Method

preheat the oven to 220C/200C Fan/Gas 7

Mix the ingredients in a bowl 

brush onto the vegetable flesh. 

lay in single layer in oven dish

Bake for 40 minutes, turning midway, until cooked through and golden. 

English apple pie

A quick and impressive dessert or cake that is easy to make, and doesn't use butter a family something that we ate quickly when it was made. 

Mum got the recipe from a pamphlet shared amongst the 'foreign community' living in Germany in 1958. Although it's called English  apple pie, we always knew it as American apple pie and it seems likely that it was written by an American, as the ingredients quantities are in cups. 

Apart from the pleasure of eating it, this recipe is easy to make, and you can substitute a cup for half an average mug, the proportions being equal for, flour, sugar, walnuts, with one large egg and double for chopped apple.

Resist temptation to add spices, the flavour is just great as it is.

Ingredients

1 large egg

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

1 cup chopped raw apple

1/2 cup broken walnuts (or other nuts/meats)

Method

prepare a pie/tart tin 20cm/8" grasing and lining it

set the oven to 180/4/350

beat together the sugar and eggs until light and thick

add the flour and baking powder 

add the chopped apple and nuts

once the ingredients are stirred through pour the mixture into the prepared tin

cook for 30minutes or until golden and a skewer comes out cleanly

leave to cool before eating - good warm or cold

Cream, ice cream or yoghurt go well with this cake, if you feel the need.

All the Gratins

These gratin dishes were originally put together to use the residual heat from the baker’s oven for the family Sunday meal, prepared and left with the baker to be cooked  in the cooling bread oven and be collected after church and taken home to eat.

 

These days we are used to strong flavours, but please don’t be tempted to add more herbs, garlic or stock. The way these dishes are put together makes them pack beautiful flavour. It’s tempting to tweak recipes, but try and resist.

You can make all the potato elements of these gratins into vegetarian or vegan dishes by substituting oil and plant milk.

The recipes are for a group of 6-8, using a large quantity of potatoes - I'll be working on versions for smaller meals and will post them in a while.

 

This recipe collection was saved by my parents, cut out from a magazine and kept, despite them having multiple cookbooks and years of experience. It's a high recommendation.

Gigot boulangere – roast leg of lamb on potatoes

 

For 6-8 people

cooking time 4h+

 

Ingredients

One leg of lamb 1.75-2kg

2.5kg/5½lb potatoes

100g butter

sprigs of thyme, bay leaves

2 cloves of garlic

pepper and salt

an oven dish as long as the leg of lamb, and around as deep as your finger

 

Method

set the oven to warm 6 (400 or 200) at least 15 minutes in advance

Lamb

 

The lamb can be prepared in advance but should be at room temperature when you start to prepare the meal

• Peel the garlic cloves, cut into long slivers and with a sharp knife puncture the leg deep into the meat and push the slivers in, repeat until you’ve used all the garlic
• Mash half the butter with pepper and salt, then slather over the leg of lamb and set aside.

 Potatoes

• peel the potatoes and cut them into thin slices then spread them out in the oven dish in layers
• between each layer put a sprig of thyme and a bay leaf and repeat until the potatoes are all in the dish
• add enough water in the dish to reach the top of the potatoes, sprinkle with pepper and salt and add half the butter
• set the potatoes to cook in the oven for around two hours – check them after 20m, and once they are boiling turn the heat down to 5/375/190. the potatoes  should be completely cooked before you add the lamb, but still be pale
• take the cooked potatoes out and put the buttered, seasoned, garlic studded leg of lamb onto them
• turn the oven to its highest setting
• cook the lamb for 15m per lb/500g to be pink/a point or 20m per lb/500g to be cooked through
• check the lamb every 20m, turning it if it’s very coloured, there is no need to baste it

Once cooked rest the lamb 15 minutes, when carving save the jus to pour over the cooked potatoes

 

Roti de porc boulangere – roast pork on potatoes

 

For 6-8 people

Cooking time 3h+

Ingredients

1.8kg/4lb rack or loin of pork

2.5kg/5½lb of potatoes

60g butter

thym, bay leaves

nutmeg

pepper and salt

 

Method

set the oven to warm 6 (400 or 200) at least 15 minutes in advance

 

prepare the pork by rubbing mashing the pepper and salt into the butter and rubbing it all over the meat

 

• peel the potatoes and cut them into thin slices then spread them out in the oven dish in layers
• between each layer grate a little nutmeg, crumble thyme and break up a bay leaf and repeat until the potatoes are all in the dish
• add enough water in the dish to reach the top of the potatoes, sprinkle with pepper and salt and add half the butter
• set the potatoes to cook in the oven for an hour
• adding water to bring it up to the top layer of the potatoes if needed before sitting the pork onto the potatoes

• the pork needs to cook through, in a low oven, allow 22-28m per lb/500g, so turn the oven to 2/300/150 ie around 1¾h depending on the thickness of the joint, then turn off the oven leaving the dish inside for 5-10m
• at this point the liquid in the potatoes will be almost completely gone
• put the dish on the table and carve the pork, pouring any juices into the potato gratin

 

Pommes boulangere – potato gratin or layered baked potatoes

 

For 6-8 people

cooking time around 2h

 

Ingredients

2kg/5lb potatoes

10 onions – medium sized

60g/4 tbsp of butter

3 tbsp oil

salt and pepper

nutmeg

 

Method

roughly chop the peeled onions and cook in a pan on a gentle heat with the oil and half the butter, stirring, making sure they stay pale. Cook until transparent.

 

Set the oven to warm mark 6/400/200 at least 15 minutes in advance

 

peel the potatoes and cut them into thin slices then spread them out in the oven dish in layers

between each layer grate a little nutmeg and add some cooked onion mixture and repeat until the potatoes are all in the dish

add enough water in the dish to reach the top of the potatoes, sprinkle with pepper and salt and add the rest of the butter and the cooking fat from the onion pan

set the potatoes to cook in the oven for an hour then turn the oven up to its maximum temperature and cook another 30m

 

This dish goes well with any roast meat, ham, dried or cooked sausages

 

Gratin Dauphinois – Creamy baked potato gratin

 

This richer version of gratin potatoes goes best with plainer roasts, boiled meats or plain fish dishes. It is delicious, but has a richness of a savoury pudding, and that’s why the quantity of potatoes is reduced. It’s delicious as a main dish and you can make it with plant milk to serve a vegan dish – don’t use coconut oil, it makes it too dessert-y.

 

Some versions of this dish include egg and even cheese, which creates something very like a potato version of macaroni cheese, tipping it over into excess stodge, don’t do it.

 

cooking time 1.5h+

For 6-8 people

 

Ingredients

2kg/5lb potatoes

four cloves of garlic

½ litre/1 pint warmed milk

6 tbsps cream or crème fraiche

 

Method

rub a peeled clove of garlic around a large deep gratin dish, and crush the remaining garlic into a paste

peel the potatoes and cut them into thin slices then spread half the potatoes into layers in the oven dish

season with pepper and salt, sprinkling of crumbled thyme and half the crushed garlic

add more layers until the potatoes are all in the dish

mix the milk and cream and pour over the potatoes, adding enough water in the dish if needed to reach the top of the potatoes – leave enough room above the layered potatoes so that when the milk boils it stays inside the dish

cook for 1½h or until the milk has boiled away and the potatoes are cooked through

 

Serve with plain meat or fish and lightly cooked vegetables