Ricotta Cheesecake

Adapted from this recipe.

Ingredients:

For the crust:
1 cup (100 g) graham cracker (digestive biscuit) crumbs
1/4 cup (57 g) unsalted butter, melted

Recipe also adds 2-3 tablespoons sugar but I figure graham crackers are sweet enough by themselves.

For the filling:

2 1/2 cups (570 g) ricotta
8 oz (230 g) cream cheese at room temperature*
1 cup (200 g) sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch (corn flour)
4 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup berries
The zest of one lemon or orange

* So says the recipe. I've tried several other proportions of ricotta and cream cheese, depending on what I have in the fridge and it's always fine. More ricotta makes the cake creamier, more cream cheese makes it, well, cheesier :).

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 F (180 C) and butter a 9 inch (23 cm) springform pan.
Wrap the outside of the pan with two layers of heavy aluminum foil (otherwise water leaks in and cheesecake leaks out). How to line a springform pan.

For the crust:

In a medium sized bowl combine the graham cracker crumbs and melted butter.
Press the mix evenly over the bottom of the springform pan.
Cover and refrigerate while you make the filling.

For the filling:

Recipe says to drain the ricotta first. I must be buying some fake ricotta, because I swear!, there is nothing to drain there.

Beat softened cream cheese until smooth.
Add the ricotta and sugar and beat until smooth.
Beat in the cornstarch.
Add the eggs, one at a time, beating about 30 seconds after each addition.
Beat in the lemon zest and vanilla extract until incorporated.
Fold in the berries.
Take the crust out of the fridge and pour the filling in it.
Place the springform pan in a large roasting pan.
Pour enough hot water into the roasting pan to come about halfway up the sides of your springform pan.
Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes, or until the top of the cheesecake has browned and the center of the cake moves slightly when the pan is gently shaken.
Remove the pan from the water bath and cool on a wire rack.
Once cooled, cover and refrigerate the cheesecake for at least 6 hours, preferably overnight.

Choc Berry Butter Cake

My twelve-year-old sister and I made this yesterday. It's based on a simple butter cake recipe with various innovations along the way.

Ingredients:

All tablespoons are 20mL metric tablespoons

8 ounces butter / margarine
8 ounces caster sugar (super fine sugar)
4 eggs
8 ounces self raising flour
2 heaped tablespoons cocoa
2 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk
1 or 2 ~400g / 1 pound tins of mixed berries in syrup (my tin had strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries) - strained and the syrup reserved
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 C and grease and flour an approx 20cm x 20cm (8" x 8") square cake tin.

2. Cream margarine and caster sugar.

3. Add eggs one at a time and mix together thoroughly

4. Sieve (sift) in flour and cocoa and stir in until completely incorporated.

5. Add sweetened, condensed milk, 2 tablespoons of the berry syrup, and the vanilla essence one at a time and stir until completely incorporated.

6. Gently fold in the mixed berries. I used one tin of berries but the mixture could easily have taken another tin's worth so use your own judgement depending on how berry-filled you like your cakes!

7. Spoon the mixture into the greased and floured cake tin and place in pre-heated oven. bake for about 50 minutes (I cooked mine for an hour and it was just slightly burned on one corner, so check regularly!).

8. Once baked, turn onto a wire cooling rack and leave to cool.


Icing (Frosting):

I made this with the aim of trying to replicate a crystally, slightly crunchy icing I'd tasted on a cake at a school morning tea, but it didn't work very well. This is a modified recipe replacing the white sugar I originally used with more coconut.

Ingredients:

All tablespoons are 20mL metric tablespoons
All cups are 250mL metric cups

2/3 cup icing sugar (confectioner's sugar) - preferably the pure stuff not icing mixture
1/2 cup dessicated (shredded) coconut
1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
2 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk
2 tablespoons of the syrup from the tinned berries
Red food colouring (can be ommitted if you don't mind the icing being a funny brownish colour)

Method:

1. In a bowl, combine sieved (sifted) icing sugar and coconut.

2. Add the melted margarine and stir thoroughly.

3. Add the sweetened condensed milk and the berry syrup and mix thoroughly until all ingredients are combined.

4. Add four drops of red food colouring to make a nice pastel pink - or more or less to your own tastes!

5. Using a flat implement, smooth onto the top and sides of the cake. You may need to refrigerate the mixture slightly to make it firm enough but don't leave it too long - this icing sets rock solid! Once the cake is iced, refrigerate overnight to set the icing.

Berry Pie

I've been eyeing this recipe for a while, especially since it's from a book that I am contemplating getting. I finally got a chance to make it - my first ever American pie, yay! It's delicious too :). The crust takes in from the filling and gets wonderfully juicy, but not soaked and it holds the filling beautifully. And the filling has this divine tartly sweet taste that cooked berries have. OK, enough with the self-promotion, on with the recipe :).

Ingredients for one two-crust 9-inch (23 cm) pie:

For the crust:
14 tablespoons (7 oz, 200 g) unsalted butter
2 1/4 cups (320 g) all-purpose (plain) flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
5 to 7 tablespoons ice water*
1 tablespoon vinegar**

* Ice water = water with ice in it. I don't remember why the cold temperature is so important, but it is.

** The vinegar's purpose is to prevent the dough from forming tight gluten bonds and help it stay flaky. You can't taste it, so don't skip it. The recipe said cider vinegar, but I used wine vinegar. I assume any type will do.

For the filling:
1/2 cup (100 g) sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons (20 g) cornstarch (cornflour)
a pinch of salt
the zest of one lemon (about 2 teaspoons), finely grated
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
4 cups (about 1 lb, 500 g) berries. The recipe uses fresh blackberries, I used a mix of frozen raspberries, blueberries and marionberries.

Directions:

For the crust:

* The crust is not labor-intensive, but it takes a while to make, as it has to rest in the fridge a few times in increments of 1 hour, 30 min, and 1 hour, so a total of 2 and a half hours. The resting is important, as it allows the dough to settle, not shrink during baking and form the flakes that it should. If you don't care to wait, just use store-bought crust.

Divide the 14 tablespoons of butter into 2 portions: 9 tablespoons and 5 tablespoons (130 g and 70 g).
Refrigerate the 9 tablespoon portion and freeze the 5 tablespoon portion for at least 30 minutes.
Place the flour, salt and baking powder in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the blade. Process for a few seconds to combine.
Add the refrigerated butter, cut into 3/4 inch (2 cm) cubes, and process for about 20 seconds or until the mixture resembles coarse meal.
Add the frozen butter, cut into 3/4 inch (2 cm) cubes, and pulse until the frozen butter is the size of peas.
Add 5 tablespoons of ice water and the vinegar and pulse 6-7 times
Pinch a small amount of the mixture to see if it holds together.
If not, add another 1 tablespoon water and pulse 3 times.
Try pinching again to see if it holds together.
If not, add the final 1 tablespoon water and pulse 3 times.

At this point, my dough still looked like a mess of dry crumbs, but I am happy that I resisted my urge to add more water in it :).

Divide the dough in half. Wrap each portion with plastic wrap and flatten into discs. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 2 days.

Remove one disc of pie dough from the fridge.
If it's too hard to roll, let it sit out for about 10 minutes.
Roll out the dough to about 1/8 inch (0.3 cm) thick and about 12 inches (30 cm) in diameter.

I always have trouble rolling buttery doughs, as they tend to stick to the counter and tear. So I cover the counter with plastic wrap, cover the rolling pin with plastic wrap and roll it like that. Easy to clean up too!

Carefully transfer to a 9-inch pie pan.
Trim the dough edge to about even with the edge of the pan.
Cover with plastic and let dough rest in fridge for at least 30 minutes and up to 3 hours.

For the filling:

In a medium bowl, whisk together the sugar, cornstarch, salt, lemon zest.
Whisk in the lemon juice to make a slurry.
Add the berries and gently toss them to coat with the slurry.
Mine were frozen and easy to handle, but if you are using fresh, be careful not to crush them.
Let sit for about 15 minutes.

Assembling the pie:

Toss the berries once more and then pour the mixture into the bottom crust.
Roll out the remaining disk of dough to about 12 inches in diameter.
Moisten the edges of the bottom crust with water and gently place the top crust over the berries.
Tuck any overhang under the bottom crust and press down to seal the two crusts.
With the tip of a knife, cut 3-5 slits in the top crust to allow steam to vent.
Cover pie loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour before baking.

Set your oven rack to the lowest position, so that the bottom crust bakes well.
Preheat oven to 425F (220 C).
Place pie on a rimmed baking sheet to catch any juice.
Bake for 30-45 minutes or until the crust is golden brown.
Check the pie after 20 minutes and protect the edges from over-browning (mine did!) with a ring of foil if necessary.
Allow pie to cool on a rack for at least 4 hours before serving. This is not only to protect you from burning your mouth :) but also to allow the filling to settle.

Cranberry Muffins

Original recipe from here. Those are American-style, not English muffins. Cups are American standard cups that hold 240 ml of liquid. This recipe makes 12. You will need one 12-cup (or 2 6-cup ones) regular muffin pan, for which the cups measure about 3 inches/7.5 cm in diameter.

As far as the filling goes, that recipe is very versatile. You can substitute other berries for the cranberries, or substitute the walnuts with chopped apple for cran-apple muffins. Or make some combination of fillings - as long as you keep everything to 2 cups, you should be fine.

Ingredients:

1 1/3 cups (165 g) all-purpose (plain) flour
2/3 cup (135 g) white sugar + 1/3 cup (70 g) brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda (bicarbonate of soda)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon*
1/3 cup (70 g) shortening
1/2 cup (120 ml) milk**
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg, beaten
1 cup chopped cranberries
1 cup chopped walnuts

* Original recipe also calls for nutmeg and ginger but I skip them
** Recipe uses orange juice, but I prefer them with milk

Directions:

The main principle of making muffin batter is to mix the wet and the dry ingredients separately, and combine them in the end, mixing with a wooden spoon (no mixer!) just so all the dry ingredients get moistened. Proper muffin batter may be lumpy, but that's OK. Overmixing creates a dense heavy texture, and that is not the purpose here.

In a large bowl sift together flour, sugars, cinnamon, baking powder and baking soda. In a small bowl beat egg, milk, vanilla and shortening together. Stir into dry ingredients until dry ingredients are moistened. Fold in cranberries and walnuts.

Spoon into muffin pan - this one is more dough-like than batter-like, so pouring is kind of difficult. Bake at 350 F (175 C) for 25 minutes or until brown.

Cream Pie 2

This is one of my mother-in-law's recipes but it looks like a spin-off from Chrisell's recipe a few posts down, so for the sake of consistency, I'll call it Cream pie 2.

Ingredients:

3 eggs
1 cup + 3 teaspoons sugar
3 tablespoons flour
1 lb (500 g) heavy whipping cream
1/2 oz (14 g) gelatine, for Americans, that's two envelopes of Knox gelatine.
1 cup fruit - berries work best, but sliced banana is good too
1/4 cup of cold water

Directions:

For the base:
Separate one egg white from the yolk - for how to, see here.
Set egg white aside, beat yolk with the remaining 2 eggs, 3 teaspoons of sugar and the flour.
Pour batter into a buttered pie dish.
Bake at 350F/175C for 6-7 minutes or until lightly brown.
Let base cool.

For the filling:
In a large bowl beat whipping cream with sugar until it forms soft peaks.
In a separate bowl beat egg white until it forms soft peaks.
When egg white is properly beaten, it should cling to the bowl when the bowl is flipped.

That is not of paramount importance in this recipe, but it is if you are making meringue.

For gelatine:
Soak gelatine in cold water.
Put the dish containing gelatine in another dish filled with water and put the whole constuction on the stove on low heat.
Continously stir until gelatine is dissolved.
Let it cool a little bit.

OT: should we make one post with instructions on how to work with gelatine, separate egg whites etc., so everybody can reference to it?

Add fruit (chopped or sliced if necessary) to whipped cream mixture and stir with a wooden or plastic spoon - no mixer at this point!
Add whipped egg white and stir.
Add gelatine and stir.
Pour everything on the cooled base and leave in the fridge for at least 4 hours.

I didn't get to take a picture before the pie was cut: