Lemon Cheesecake

About a year and a half ago, I promised Kristof I'd teach him to make cheesecake, and I only got around to it this week-end (I know, shame on me!!!).

We used the lemon cheesecake recipe I always use, and which always produces a seriously yummy result (this is THE lemon cheesecake, at least according to my standards!).

The recipe is online here, but for some reason their site was down while I was shopping for ingredients (a bit of a "gaaahhh!!!" moment) so I'm posting it here too (I figure there are less chances of both sites being down).

 
Ingredients
 

For the biscuit base

        10 digestive biscuits or 20 dinosaur biscuits (which makes it even better, just use the ones without chocolate)
        75g melted butter
        1 tbsp clear honey

For the filling

        750g mascarpone cheese
        juice and zest of 2 lemons
        200g white powder sugar 

Preparation

1. Brush the bottom of your springform cake tin with some of the melted butter (this is totally optional since this is a no-bake cheesecake). 
2. Crush the biscuits and tip them into a bowl, add the melted butter and honey and stir until well combined. The butter and honey are what will hold the biscuits crumbs together.
   
   

   

   
   

   Unfortunately I can't promise that no dinosaur biscuits were harmed while making this cheesecake!
   
   

   
   

   

   
   
3. Tip the mixture into the bottom of the cake tin. Level it and tap the whole surface repeatedly to make it as compact as you can. Chill in the fridge while making the filling.
   
   

   

   
   
4. For the filling, mix the mascarpone cheese, lemon juice and zest and sugar together in a bowl.
   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   
   
   Do not over-mix or the mascarpone will become runny (if that happens your only hope is adding gelatine like I had to do for my caramel version, which doesn't impair the taste, but of course the texture is completely different!).
5. Spoon the mixture into the tin on top of the chilled biscuit mixture and chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours. 
   
   

   

   
   
6. When ready to serve, unclasp the springform ring and ease the cheesecake out.
   
   
   

   
   

   

   
   And enjoy:)

Yummy lemon muffins

I adapted this recipe from a banana bread recipe in a "cafe food" booklet from The Australian Women's Weekly (that I randomly found in an Irish supermarket a few years ago).

Now why start from a banana bread recipe? Well I'm a beginner baker so I don't have that many recipes under my belt yet... And that one is a favourite, so one day I tried pouring the batter into a muffin tray instead, and then tried making a batch with different ingredients... And it worked:)

So here we go:
- 185g flour
- 5.5g baking powder
- 100g white sugar
- 20g butter
- 1 egg
- 50ml milk
- 2 untreated lemons
- sesame seeds (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C (200 if using a fan oven) and line the muffin tins/muffin tray.
2. Mix flour and baking powder in a large bowl.
3. Rub in the butter (you can also melt it in the microwave to mix it in easier).
4. Stir in the sugar and milk.
5. Juice and zest your lemons, and add the juice and zest to the mix (watch out if you have cuts on your hands the lemon juice will burn!).
6. Spoon into the muffin tray and sprinkle with sesame seeds if desired (I did half with and half without in case somebody was allergic).
7. Bake in the oven for 15min (a little less if you want the center a little gooey).

And enjoy!

I made this for the Show&Tell meeting last week (meetings with cake are always more interesting;) ). One of my colleagues usually brings some cake, so I decided it was my turn this time (except I didn't mention it so I was one of 3 people that brought cake... So it was a very good meeting!).
It went down a treat and was all eaten:) And I got a great compliment as my colleague Gerd, who has been taking evening baking classes for a few years, asked me for the recipe:) Here's her blog about baking: Veel Afwas! (in Dutch). She's definitely not a beginner!

Here's the only picture I have (I saved mine for after the meeting as I was full from the other treats):

Caramel Cheesecake

I made a yummy cheesecake for New Year's dinner, starting from this recipe (I've made the original lemon version twice before, and it's fab!).
Here's the modified recipe:

For the biscuit base

30 speculoos biscuits
75g butter

For the filling

750g mascarpone cheese
100g brown sugar
100ml caramel sauce (or you could replace sugar + caramel sauce by 200ml caramel, made by dissolving 200g brown sugar in 200ml water)
a pinch of cinnamon

Preparation method

1. Brush the bottom of a 23cm springform cake tin with some of the melted butter.
2. Crush the biscuits and tip them into a bowl, add the melted butter and stir until well combined.
3. Tip the mixture into the bottom of the cake tin. Using the back of a spoon, gently push the crumbs from the centre outward, until smooth and level. This will form the base of the cheesecake. Chill in the fridge while making the filling.
4. For the filling, dissolve the sugar into the caramel sauce, with a bit of water if necessary (or make the caramel).
5. Mix the caramel and the mascarpone cheese in a bowl until well combined. Do not mix the mixture too much!!
6. Spoon the mixture into the tin on top of the chilled biscuit mixture and chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours.
7. When ready to serve, unclasp the springform ring and ease out the cheesecake.

Tip

If you've over mixed the filling and ended up with "mascarpone soup" (like I did), leaving it in the fridge overnight won't help firming it up again. What you need to do is add gelatine:
1. Place 4.5 sheets of gelatine (or the appropriate quantity if you changed the amount of mascarpone, see here) under at least 3/4L of cold water in a bowl and leave it for 5 min.
2. Pat the gelatine dry.
3. Place it in a small quantity of warm water in a pot (I used about 100ml), and dissolve on low fire (don't bring to the boil).
4. Take off the fire and gradually add the filling to the gelatine (not the opposite - I don't know why this matters but apparently it does!).
5. Leave it to cool in the fridge for 2 hours (I put it in an ice bath before putting it in the fridge).
6. Tip it into the springform tin over the biscuit base (the filling should now be firm enough to not run everywhere), and smooth it with a spatula.
7. Leave it to chill for at least another 2 hours. And this should save your cheesecake without compromising the taste:)

Little note: During this whole operation I somehow got cheesecake in my hair! (of course this was right after washing my hair...). How does Brie Van De Kamp do it? ;)

I forgot to take a picture of the complete cheesecake, so here's what's left: