The perfect cheesecake

Yum Yum! 🙂

Lately, I have been making a lot of cheesecakes and have been using one of Jo Wheatley’s recipe!! My hubby was a keen cheesecake eater but after 3 weekends of the same dessert, he is sick of them!!!

Very simple to prepare and easy to bake!! I would normally decorate this with berries on top with melted chocolate and it looks very impressive! The cheesecake taste like a new york cheesecake, very creamy and smooth!!! I have experienced the cheesecake to have a few cracks once baked, I looked this up on Google to see why this was happening and it suggests the following reasons, that your oven is maybe too hot, cheesecake is over baked, or the batter is over mixed with too much air. Once you have baked the cheesecake, it is best to run a palette knife round the sides as the cheesecake will shrink once cooled!!

Here’s the recipe:

• 70g melted butter
• 11 x digestive biscuits
• 600g full fate cream cheese
• 2 x tbsp plain flour
• 175g caster sugar
• 2 x tsp vanilla extract
• 2 x eggs
• 1 x egg yolk
• 284ml sour cream ( i just used a 300ml pot)
• 3 x tbsp icing sugar, sifted

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180c/350F/Gas Mark 4. Grease a 20cm springform cake tin
2. Melt the butter and crush the biscuits in a food processor and mix together. Press the crumbs into the base and bake in the oven for 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool to prepare the filling
3. Beat the cream cheese until smooth, then add the flour, sugar, vanilla extract, eggs, yolk and half of the sour cream. Beat until smooth, light and fluffy. Pour into the tin
4. Bake for 30 mins until only just set. Remove from the oven and leave to rest for 5 mins.
5. Mix the remaining sour cream with the icing sugar and spoon over the cheesecake carefully. Return to the oven for a further 15 mins until just set but still very slightly wobbly in the centre
6. Leave the cheesecake to cool in the tin and then chill in the fridge for atleast 4 hours or overnight. It is best to serve under room temperature. Remember, when you take the cheesecake out from the oven, run a palette knife around the edge to prevent cracks. Decorate with berries on tip and melted chocolate! Yum! 🙂

All decorated!

Feast for my friends from HK

Dinner Feast!

Last Saturday, I was busy cooking in the kitchen preparing a feast for one of my best mate and her boy friend as they were coming down here from Hong Kong. For the feast, I cooked chicken, veg, potatoes and salmon! I love cooking for my friends and I get to make a dessert. This time, it was not be a cheesecake, I made a Pavlova as the boy friend is from

Summer Pavlova!

Oz and I haven’t made one in a while. I forgot to take pics making the Pavlova so next time when i make it, I will post the recipe up! 🙂 I have been watching Australia’s Kitchen Rules and one of the couples was from Oz and the other from New Zealand and they were having this massive debate about where the Pavlova comes from!! It was like a really serious debate and they each believe passionately it is from their country!

I didn’t have any left over so that was a good sign that they enjoyed the food!!! 🙂

Happy Father’s day!!!

Biscuitbox

It’s Dan’s first Father’s day and unfortunately I didn’t have time to bake him anything as we had friends coming round for lunch yesterday. And we had a family dinner booked for this evening!

Yummy!!!

I was looking at this website biscuitbox for christening favours and they made special biscuits for Father’s day which looked really cute! I ordered the star one as u can see from the pic…Dee was enjoying munching the packaging!! As he is 6 months now, he was allowed to have some crumbs to share with father!!! The biscuit was iced beautifully and tasted delicious with a cup of tea!!!

Wishing u all a Happy Father’s Day!!!

Bialetti Moka Express

Bialetti Moka Express

As a belated birthday present for my hubby, he has always liked drinking coffees and we got a cafetière but is always so messy to clean afterwards! He has mentioned that he wanted those coffee makers on the stove and always intrigued how it makes the coffee so i searched online and found one called ‘Bialetti Moka Express’ from Amazon. Since having our Dee, i do love shopping online since it is difficult to go shopping with a baby. I can only shop properly if he is sleeping or my hubby is looking after him. My favourite stores at the moment is Amazon (quick delivery), Mothercare and Kiddicare!!! 🙂

 

My hubby was so pleased with his Bialetti Moka Express! At my old work place, one of the directors was French and he would always make his coffee on the stove and make it really messy because i think he over boils it and you can just smell the aroma of burnt coffee from the kitchen. I personally don’t drink coffee as i don’t like the taste so I don’t get excited about the different types of coffee beans like my hubby does!

Dan was fascinated with the whole mechanism and kept making alot of coffee to test it out As I don’t drink coffee, he has to have the whole pot to himself which is like 6 espresso cups!!! By the end of the weekends, he had a headache!!! Too much caffeine!

He was showing his new toy to my mum as she is a coffee drinker as well, she likes lattes and my mum said she wanted one as well! 🙂 We made her coffee on her electric stove, i don’t think it has the same effect as making it on the gas hob because the heat switches on and off so it is not constant! My mum was still happy though as the coffee is still very smooth and silky like! I can only take their word for it! 🙂

Made of 3 components

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cold water is filled at the bottom just beneath the safety valve and the coffee is packed in the middle. Put it on the stove until it boils, it would take about 5 – 10 minutes or so. You will need to watch it because the coffee can burn very fast!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coffee will then start spitting out from the top

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The coffee will then start to flow quite quickly and you will need to take it off the heat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A very nice coffee! 🙂