Mary Berry’s.

Hers, of course looked much more pretty, mine looked ok, but tasted great, that was our dessert on Christmas Eve this year.

For the base I used 150 g digestive biscuits, 25 g plain chocolate, which I melted with 50 g of butter. Whizzed it all in a blender, pressed onto the prepared lined tin and prepared the filling.

300 g white chocolate buttons, melted above the boiling water, 400 g of Philly, 150 ml soured cream, 2 eggs,  1 tsp vanilla extract all went onto the bowl of the KA, plus about 6 ginger stem balls, roughly chopped.

Baked in 170 degrees for about 45 minutes,  ended up looking like a giant soufflet, but it set in the end.

Right before serving I decorated it with some whipped cream, chocolate and icing sugar. The ginger bits in it- genius.

Merry Christmas!

How my French improved, I’m so proud. :-)))

Moka and her boys are in Winchcombe for Christmas.  I made a galette with some frangipan, no photos, as there was no time and somehow it did not happen, but there was some puff pastry left and some frangipan, so Moka made it into 6 delightful things. Apart from frangipan she added some thinly sliced apple and some roughly chopped chocolate. Brushed with egg and baked till golden. Delicious when eaten warm. 🙂

One of Florek’s favourite sweet treats. Every now and then he picks it from the shelf in Sainsbury’s, so I thought maybe I can make it.  Found a recipe in February’s GF, bought another tin to make it more convenient and made it this afternoon. I have to say I’m not stunned by the taste, but I like the way it looks plus the man is happy, so mission accomplished.

It took a long time to prepare the square tin, line it with kitchen foil divided in half, then lined again with baking paper. But it was worth it, the sponges  baked at the same time and came out easily.

For the sponges KA mixed 175 g of soft butter and caster sugar, 3 eggs, 50 g of ground almonds, 140 g of self raising flour, 1/2 tsp of baking powder and same amount of almond extract(£4 for a tiny bottle, not a great value for money). Half of the mixture went into one side of the tin, the other half was mixed with Dr Oetker’s pink food colouring and went into the other half. It all baked for 30 mins in 180 degrees until the stick came out clean.

Once cooled, I cut them into 4 long, exact, rectangular cakes, brushed them generously with warm apricot jam and placed on a ready rolled white marzipan, also brushed with apricot jam. Finally, more marzipan went onto the cake, tightly,a bit of crimping around the base and that’s that.  Sugar galore.

From mojewypieki.com. I was drawn by stunning pictures of the cake, that somebody commented on as being too perfect and photoshopped. Nonsense, great food pictures are essential, I wish mine were equally good. But at least they’re mine. 🙂

For the base I used 75 g of crushed Oreo biscuits and 1 tbsp of melted butter, all blitzed, pressed onto the bottom of my small, round tin and chilled, while I made the filling.  Kitchen Aid has made a lovely mass out of 360g of Philadelphia cheese, 125 ml of double cream, 5 tbsps of sugar, 2 eggs and 1 egg yolk, a tsp each of potato and plain flour and some vanilla paste.  Poured it all onto the base, pushed some quartered Oreos onto it and into the oven in 150 degrees for 50 minutes.

After about 2 hours of leaving the cheesecake in peace I whipped some cream with icing sugar and a squeeze of lemon and decorated the top, plus some extra Oreos and white chocolate hearts. Lovely, sweet, indulgent.