perfect pastry, perfect cheesy mix, dark chocolate - YUM!

This is not the cheesecake I learnt to bake at my mother’s knee.  That cheesecake is a light and fluffy, lemonscented confection.  This cheesecake is heavier, richer, chocolatey-er, and easier to bake.  I have been making it a lot at the deli recently and as it has been so well received we keep baking it.  The original recipe came from Julie Le Clerc’s Little Cafe Cakes.  And she says the idea for a polka dot cheesecake came from Maida Heatter.  Genius-whoever started it.  Here is my version.

For the pastry:

Put

4 cups plain (cake ) flour

• 8T caster sugar
• 240g ground almond
• 500g chilled butter

into your food processor and pulse till grainy

Add

• 2 t vanilla extract

Mix

• 8 egg yolks:16T cold water

Gently work into a pastry.

Push into buttered, floured, loose based tins.  This pastry makes 2 20-25cm tins.  You can always freeze the one prepared tin, ready for your next baking day. Chill the other one in the freezer too, until ready to bake.

Preheat the oven to 180*C

For the filling:

Melt:  150g dark bitter chocolate and allow to cool

Cream together

• 300g  ricotta
• 150g creme fraiche
• 100g cream cheese
• 1 golden caster sugar

When light and fluffy, add

• 1 t vanilla extract
• 2 large freerange eggs

and beat gently until all combined.

Take the pastry tin out of the freezer and grate a few hazelnuts over the bottom.

Bake for 10 minutes then remove and cool.

Take out 1/4 to 1/3 of the mix and fold in the melted chocolate.

Fill the cooled pastry case with the rest of the ricotta mix.

Put the chocolate mix into a piping bag with a large nozzle.  Pipe big blobs of chocolate ricotta into the cake at regular (or random) intervals.

You can drag a skewer through the blobs if you prefer hearts to polka dots.

Lower the oven temp to 150*C and bake for 25 minutes (if doing small individual cakes) or up to 50 mins for larger cakes.  The surface should be dry but not cracked and the centre should still be a little wobbly.

Allow to cool before cutting.

YUM!

chocolate cheesecake - what ricotta was made for

Okay, I’ve finally succumbed to the dark side.  I have signed up for facebook, bowing not to peer pressure, but to TDPS (teenage daughter pressure syndrome).  And you’re right.  My daughter is not yet  a teenager, but she is practising hard, and there is nothing more demoralising for someone barely 36 years young (okay 36 and a half…three quarters) than to be patted pityingly by a child who has it firmly settled in her mind that you are way too old ever to be hip, or to understand why social networking sites are important.  So fine, I admit I signed up so I could keep an eye on her, but she is blithely ignoring my friendship requests.  I think I should write a letter to someone at the facebook site…only who?  And signed what?  Desperately unhip mother seeking access to daughter’s life? 

Maybe I’ll just look around this facebook thing to see if all the dark predictions I made and conspiracy theories I foresaw are in actual fact, vaguely possible.  Ooh, this is so immediate.  Usually it takes ages to get a blog/comment conversation going.  Hmm, a lot of unknown people asking to be friends though.  Sorry guys, no can do.  I don’t pick up hitchers either.  My husband would kill me.

But lots of old blogging friends (you are all welcome) and quick access to some blog posts which makes things easy for lazy people like myself.  Hmm, easy to upload pics too, and a good place for non-foodie pics.  Okay, so it’s not all bad.  I think I’m getting the hang of this. 

Only, whoops, I seem to have spent most of the day pottering around in here.  No work on the new deli newsletter.  Barely touched a new blogpost.  Haven’t even looked at my synopsis for the publisher.  Insidious this… I knew there was a reason I warned Dakota about this.  Luckily, I have emergency back-up.  I can call a friend.  There is a chocolate ricotta cheesecake sitting on the deli counter, and the other me, the sensible one, is refusing to allow me to taste it until I log off from facebook.  Okay, just one last check…

Just kidding, this cheesecake is good.  It’s no contest.  I don’t know who started this chocolate polka dot thing.  I got it from Julie le Clerc’s  Little Cafe Cakes.  She says the concept is Maida Heatter’s.  As usual I’ve tinkered a bit.  Used my own pastry recipe and adjusted the filling to what I had in the fridge, but it’s still to die for and I make it often in one form or another.  So cheesecake 1 – Facebook 0.  But that’s today.  I’m sure we’ll go another round tomorrow.

For those of you who haven’t figured this out yet, I always post the recipes separately, to Vanielje Kitchen Cook Book (VKCB) in the sidebar.  This works out to be a lot easier in the long run when you are looking for a recipe and don’t want to trawl through all my stories or ramblings from months ago.  So what are you waiting for.  Open up my cookbook and get baking.  Ohh, and feel free to pop in and chat on facebook…

xx

The thing is that the little runt everyone felt sorry for is now a big fat bruiser who bodes fair to rival his new little boy in his propensity for mischief. And they are only seven weeks and 6 years old, respectively. A match that is, dare I say it, Perfect!

I left the exhausted adventurer to sleep and came back home to check on my Chocolate Bread. I made it for my daughter who had her school performance of Joseph yesterday. My husband, on a rare day of working from home was able to attend the matinée with me, where he held my hand as I teared up and sobbed (semi-unobtrusively) from the opening number. I am now officially the most embarrassing mother at school. I am also the proudest, hence the chocolate bread treat.

She had a sleepover last night and a birthday party today, but chocolate bread should remind her that home is a good place to be too, and the enticing cocoa overtones are wafting beckoning fingers out the door already.

I’ve just tested it by toasting a slice, smearing it with homemade cream cheese, topping it with slices of ripe apricots and drizzling the whole with local heather honey. Mmmm! One more time. Just Perfect….

For the recipe check vkcb in the sidebar or click the Chocolate Bread link above.

This is a very quick and easy loaf, enriched with a little butter and sugar and flavoured with cocoa powder and dark chocolate chips.  It is not as sweet as you might think, and is delicious as toast or with cream cheese or mascarpone as a snack.

• Sift 3 cups of organic strong white flour (bread flour) into a bowl
• Add a good pinch of salt, 2 Tablespoons of caster sugar and 2 Tablespoons of good quality dark cocoa powder and mix.
• Cream 15g of fresh yeast with 1/4 cup of warm water
• Make a well in the middle of the flour and add 3/4 cup of warm water and the yeast mix.
• Start drawing in the flour and mix until you have a dough.
• Add 30g of softened butter and knead into the dough.  Continue kneading on a floured surface until you have a smooth and elastic dough.
• Leave to prove in a lightly oiled, covered bowl, until almost doubled in bulk.  Depending on how warm your kitchen this should be about an hour.
• Turn out and gently knock back, using a little more flour if necessary.
• Knead a handful of organic dark choc chips or pieces into the dough, then cover with a lightly oiled piece of clingfilm and leave to rest for a few minutes.
• Shape the dough into a round loaf and place in a buttered round cake tin to rise.
• Once again it should nearly double in bulk (about 45 mins).
• Bake in a pre-heated oven at 220*C for the first 10 minutes then turn the oven down to 190*C and bake for another 20 minutes.
• If the bread is coming away from the sides of the tin you can turn it out gently and lightly tap the bottom to make sure it is cooked.  If not return it to the oven for 5 minute increments to finish cooking.
• Brush the finished loaf with a little melted butter and allow to cool on a rack before cutting.