Nutella Cheesecake

Before this cheesecake I was a cheesecake virgin.

Ok half a virgin (my previous attempt at age 15 had failed miserably so I refuse to acknowledge it).

I have always been scared of cheesecake.

It always seemed too fiddly, folding whipped cream or using gelatine. It just seemed to be a set up for failure.

I have also not been much of a cheesecake fan. My Mum doesn't like cheesecake so I guess out of the following in her footsteps and the constant seeking for approval complexes that I too do not like cheesecake (that much).

Anyway, back to the story of how this cheesecake came to be.

Remember my good friend Jamal? I made him this carrot cake last year for his 20th birthday. Exactly a year later (funny how birthdays are an annual thing) I am making him another cake. This year however I had promised him a cheesecake. He loves cheesecake.

So I prepared to get out of my comfort zone and overcome my fear of cheesecake for Jamal. Because he is worth it. I wasn't too sure what type to make, it wasn't allowed to contain gelatine so it either had to be baked or heavily cream cheese based.

I saw lots of links online to delicious looking masterpieces but I wanted something simple.

I consulted my hero. Nigella.

Trust Nigella to have a wickedly rich cheesecake recipe that was simple as to do. She is a legend.

I made a few adjustments based on my life rules:

1) You can never have too much nutella. So I added a wee bit more to the base.
2) You can never have too much dark chocolate. So I melted some in.
3) Hazelnuts are good. So I put in two packets rather than the 100g required.

The only problem with adding more nutella is that you then require more than one jar. Ok to be honest I used Pams hazelnut spread because I am too poor for the real deal but it still worked. The good thing about Pams is that they have a 400g jar (which is what you need for the filling) and a 220g jar which is a perfect wee top up for all the spoonfuls that accidentally make their way into your mouth over the course of making this. So I recommend buying both. The worst part is that you have left over spread in the cupboard  . . .

You will need to toast the hazelnuts. You do this buy baking the nuts for 10 minutes at 180 degrees on a piece of baking paper. You then transfer them to a clean tea towel and rub them between it to remove the skins. The skins are bitter and you don't want them in this magical dessert. The toasting also helps to enhance that wonderful hazelnutty aroma we all know and love. Just keep and eye on them and be careful not to burn them.

Also, the best thing about this is that you only need to leave it to set in the fridge.

The only problem with this is that you need to exert patience whilst waiting for it to set.


Nutella Cheesecake
Adapted from Nigella Lawson's recipe 

Makes 20cm cheesecake

Base:
250g (1 packet) digestive biscuits
75g butter, softened,
3 tablespoons nutella (from that small jar)
40g of toasted hazelnuts

Filling:
400g nutella
100g 75% + cocoa solids dark chocolate, melted either in a double boiler or carefully in the microwave
500g cream cheese (2 tubs), at room temperature
75g icing sugar, sieved
100g toasted hazelnuts, chopped

In a food processor, grind up the hazelnuts. Then add the digestive biscuits and blast until a coarse crumb. Add in the butter and nutella and pulse until evenly distributed.

Line the base of a 20cm springform cake tin with baking paper (you trap a piece of baking paper in between the base and the outer ring). Grease the sides with butter.

Press the base mixture firmly into the base of the tin and place in the freezer to chill whilst you make the filling.

Cream together the cream cheese and icing sugar until aerated and light. Spoonful by spoonful add the nutella until it has all been added.

Very slowly add the melted chocolate whilst beating. If you add it all in at once you will melt the cream cheese.

Gently mix it together until a dark, smooth mixture lies in front of you.

Place about a half cup of this filling mixture on the base of the cheesecake. Sprinkle a small handful of the chopped hazelnuts over this. Then pour over the rest of the filling. Scatter over the rest of the hazelnuts. Cover with cling film then leave to set in the fridge overnight.

To release this from the tin, carefully pour hot water over the sides of the tin. This should melt the very outer surface slightly. Then release the spring form lever and slide the cheesecake off the base.

Enjoy!!!

Snickers Truffles

This excellent weather we are having today. By excellent I mean stormy and wild. The best kind of weather. None of this mellow sunny rubbish. I like my weather to have guts.

Funnily enough I made this fudge/truffle thing yesterday when it was boiling hot (well hot for Dunedin anyway) and beautiful sunshine. Today is a far better fudge consuming day.

I found this recipe for peanut butter fudge in the latest Donna Hay Magazine issue. It is a great issue, I can't wait to make more from it. It isn't a true fudge recipe really, it doesn't involve boiling up sugar or anything like that. It resembles the truffles I had to make for the pretzel peanut butter brownie I made a month or so ago. So I think I will call this a truffle slice rather than a fudge.

I made one small change in the recipe though.

The original didn't call for snickers bars.

Snickers bars make everything better.

Don't you agree? Ok they do unless you are allergic to peanuts.

Then they kind of ruin the party.

But anyway, I dotted 10 halved mini snickers bars along the bottom of the tray I used to set the fudge. The fridge makes them quite brittle and they kind of fell out of their fudge settings when you cut them into cubes. So I propose that next time to spread a thin layer of fudge down first then dot the half snickers bars then cover it with the rest of the truffle/fudge mix. This should hopefully contain the snickers bars a little better and prevent them from falling off.

This recipe is pretty difficult to screw up. Just make sure you sieve the icing sugar or else it will be lumpy. I used my stand mixer to mix it all together but a handheld beater or even a spoon and an enthusiastic arm would do the trick.

So. Lets do this.

Snickers Truffle Slice
adapted from Donna Hay Magazine issue 68 (April/May 2013)

150g butter, chopped
1/3 cup cream
390g smooth peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
400g icing sugar, sifted
10 funsize snickers bars
chocolate chips for fun

Line a small slice tin (I used a small lasagne dish haha) with baking paper.

In a small saucepan, melt together the butter, peanut butter, cream and vanilla, stirring until smooth. In a large mixing bowl, sift your icing sugar.

Once the peanut butter mixture has become all nice and smooth pour it into the icing sugar and mix until evenly combined and smooth.

Cut all the snickers bars in half.

Spread about a third of the fudge mixture onto the bottom of the tin. Dot the snickers bar halves in a grid formation (4 x 5). Spoon over the rest of the mixture and smooth flat. Using a second sheet of baking paper, place it over the top and smooth the fudge really flat with your hands or a flat bottombed object.

Sprinkle with the chocolate chips and gently press them in.

Leave to set in the fridge for a couple of hours before slicing into squares.

Enjoy!

White Chocolate and Coconut Cookies

Hello all!

This is just a breather post. A non chocolate laden browniesque recipe to cleanse the palate. Ok well it is chocolate laden, but there is no dark chocolate, or snickers bar in sight! So it will do.

I feel like I need to be a bit more adventurous in my cookie baking. It is like there are only so many types you can make before you delve into what I call the 'nut-based' zone, where every other recipe contains an expensive ground nut base such as almond, or hazelnut.

I also feel that there are only so many sorts of chocolate bars bloggers can hide inside cookies before it becomes a bit crazy, a bit ott and just a bit gluttonous. I feel there are many baking blogs out there which aren't really baking blogs at all. Instead they are just methods for assembling pre-mix cakes with the confectionary isle's worth of chocolate bars into one heart attack and diabetic coma. The craft, skill and love lacks somewhat.

So maybe I will have to dive into those fancy looking almond based cookies after all.

So anyway whilst skulking the works of Donna Hay online for new recipes to try I found a recipe for coconut and white chocolate chunk cookies.

I love coconut.

I love white chocolate.

I love cookies.

We had a winner.

Although I have to say, the appearance of the final baked cookie looks nothing like the picture on her website. I wonder what happened. I wonder how she got them so excellent looking.

Regardless, they tasted excellent.

Ah, speaking of excellent, I managed to find a new cookie consumer. All my current cookie consumers (who receive snap lock bags full of cookies on a semi regular basis) are all on diets. Apparently Maxie wants his abs back. Boooo!!! But through sheer luck, my lack of social normalcy and a casual chat in the Link at uni I managed to find a new consumer. There is nothing better than gifting fresh baking to people who appreciate it. I get as much joy giving it away as I do making it, so if I can brighten someone else's day as well it is well worth it. Baking equals love folks.

I swapped the self raising flour here for an extra cup of plain plus a teaspoon of baking powder. I also added more white chocolate melts. Because you can never have too many of those.


Coconut and White Chocolate Cookies
adapted from Donna Hay
makes 25ish

125g butter, softened
3/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
150g white chocolate melts or white chocolate chopped into chunks
1 cup desiccated coconut

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Beat in the egg and mix until voluminous. Mix in the vanilla.

Mix in the flour, baking powder and coconut.

Stir in the chocolate.

Roll into balls and use the palm of your hand to flatten them on the tray (lined with baking paper).

Bake at 180 for 12 minutes or until lightly golden brown.

Easy as that.

Enjoy!!

Snickers Bar Brownies

For the good of man kind I felt like I had to write this post.

It will be short, sharp but definitely not lacking in chocolately noms. In fact the sheer obscene quantity of chocolate in this brownie will compensate for the lack of words. Who needs words when you have chocolate?

(This is basically me procrastinating reading an article on the acidity of milk)

So I took another mindless trip to New World and ended up buying fun sized snickers bars, more dark chocolate and some Gaviscon. I don't know why. I just did. It was a bit silly considering I had purchased 1.6kg of chocolate for baking the day before. I think it was because it was only $1.99 a bar. Dam you strategic pricing. My baking excess supply store is looking a bit ridiculous.

So I found myself up rather late and feeling too lazy to go to bed (taking contact lenses out, brushing teeth and showering are all very strenuous activities I would have you know!) so I decided to make some brownie to take to my friend Max the next day. Yes. Logic. Baking brownies is far less effortful than sleeping . . .

So anyway the Snickers bar brownie was born. I got a bit carried away with the chocolate. I think 700g went into this. Fliiiip. Oh and I felt like the peanuts in the Snickers bars wern't enough so I buried spoonfuls of peanut butter in there too. YOLO.

Eww. Can't believe I just said that.

So the base for this brownie is from Butter Baking. I just switched around the inclusions to suit what I had. It is a good brownie base. I recommend having fun with it! So once again you can add really whatever you like to it. Whatever your inner fat kid desires.

Snickers Bar Brownie
Adapted from Butter Baking 
Makes 20x30 cm trays worth

225g butter
1 3/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup + 2 tablespoons cocoa
100g dark 70% chocolate
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
3/4 cup plain flour
3/4 cup dark chocolate chips
3/4 cup white chocolate chips/melts
12 funsize Snickers bars (212g worth)
1/3 cup crunchy peanut butter
more chocolate chips to sprinkle over the top


Preheat the oven to 170 on bake.

In a heatproof bowl over a sauce pan with a few centimetres of boiling water in it, melt together the chocolate and butter. Once melted add in the sugar and stir to dissolve. Remove the bowl from the heat and either transfer to a larger bowl or a stand mixer and beat in the cocoa and vanilla until smooth and lump free.

Beat in the eggs and the egg yolk one at a time until the mixture becomes really thick and luxurious.

Add in the flour and stir until just combined.

Stir in the chocolate chips both dark and white.

Line a 20x30cm baking tin with baking paper. Spread the brownie mixture into the tin.

Chop the fun size bars in half and place insert them in rows into the batter. So 4 half bars by 6 half bars.

Using a teaspoons, make small holes in the batter and fill them with small blobs of peanut butter.

Using a spatula, smooth some of the brownie batter over the tops of the snickers bars and peanut butter blobs so that they don't burn and everything is nicely sealed in.

Sprinkle over some more chocolate chips if you wish.

Bake for 20-25 minutes (23 is the magic number for my oven). You want them to still be really gooey inside. Once they cool they will firm up.

Leave to cool for a decent amount of time before slicing, or else they just mush everywhere.

Sprinkle with edible glitter if you do feel so inclined.

Enjoy!!!