I have to say I’m blown away by this one, I will not try to be modest, it really is one of the best cheesecakes I’ve ever made.  I saw a recipe on mojewypieki.com, but did not follow it all the way, the glaze on top is Gregg Wallace’s toffee sauce, with a pinch of sea salt.  I only had one slice of the cake- Lisa is bringing her mum over for coffee later, but I know it will not last beyond tomorrow evening. Which is fine, because the next in line in black forest cake, Florek’s request for his birthday followed by our wedding the day after.  I also have duck ragu slow cooking on the stove, lots happening in Oluta’s kitchen.

So the cake itself sits on a base made of 125 g of crushed digestive biscuits blitzed with 40 g of melted, salted butter. Salted butter really makes a difference here, I love it.  Having visited Polish deli yesterday I was able to use some great quality quark cheese, still lots left. I used 350 g of the cheese, 60 ml of double cream, 3 whole eggs, 4 tbsps of vanilla sugar ( Dorota’s recipe called for more, I thought white chocolate will do the job nicely), 100 g of melted white chocolate and a splash of vanilla extract- all this worked by kitchen aid, not for too long. According to Dorota, too much air in the cheesecake makes it rise too much in the oven.  I poured it onto the base, secured it additionally by some alu foil and baked it for about an hour in 160 degrees- in a water bath.

After it cooled I generously poured toffee sauce all over- 150 g of double cream, 75 g of brown sugar, 25 g of salted butter and a pinch of sea salt, all heated up. Finished with chopped, roasted peanuts. 10 out of 10, standing ovation and sending myself some flowers. 🙂

…known as” Porzeczkowiec” on mojewypieki, where I first spotted it.  I love everything that contains blackcurrants and I happened to have a jar of  currant  jam in the pantry, so I made it yesterday. To be fair, I started the day before yesterday, I’ve made the sponge as in the recipe, totally cocked it up, wasted the time and ingredients, chucked it and yesterday made it my way. I made the sponge the way I always make it, the Bozena way( 4 eggs, 4 tbsps of plain flour, 2 tbsps of potato starch, 1 tsp of baking powder, a glass of sugar, 2 tbsps of cocoa). And it worked, as always. I cut the sponge in half, lightly drizzled cassis liqueur all over it( can’t really taste in, but it’s light and moist). Half of the 450g jar of blackcurrant jam went on the bottom layer. Then the Philadelphia layer; 200 g of soft butter with 5 tbsps of icing sugar and about 400 g of Philly and whipped into a yummy, calorific goodness. Onto the jam. The second sponge, jam. Then 500 ml of double cream- this is the big tray of cake, half of it is going to Ewa’s tomorrow- 2 tbsps of icing sugar, some vanilla paste and 4 tbsps of mascarpone whipped again. Neatly onto the jam, lots of grated chocolate on top.

Lovely cake, light and luxurious, no idea how calorific, but I’m not losing sleep over these things normally.  Will be made again.

…with a smear of ganache and a ganache centre. Originally I thought I’d make orange and cocoa shells and orange filling, but my orange shells turned out nearly perfect this afternoon, so I just filled them in and they’re disappearing rather quickly.  Simple filling- mascarpone, orange curd (Waitrose) and orange zest. Kept on adding the curd to make the filling citrusy and quite sharp. The little ganache addition in the centre is a nice surprise for the palate. Thumbs up.

According to Dorota from mojewypieki. com, these were the taste of our childhood. Only having made and tasted them I understood what she meant.  The filling reminded me of “warm ice cream” sort of treat we used to get as kids, a super sweet meringue served in a cone.  Ptysie today had about 50 ml of blackcurrant juice/puree added to the Italian meringue, good call, otherwise they’d be far too sweet.

Choux pastry according to Dorota’s recipe turned out to be quite thick, difficult to squeeze through the piping bag, but still rose in the oven and turned out alright.  The filling; Italian meringue made with 120 g of sugar, a splash of water, 50 ml of blackcurrant juice for the sugar syrup and 2 egg whites and 20 g of sugar for the meringue. It holds rather well the next day. Ptysie are light and pleasant, but I think I’d like that filling to have a bit more character.  Nice though. 🙂

I wanted to bake macarons again and looked to Macarons & more website for a flavour inspiration.  A chap called Tim Kinnaird took part in Masterchef a few years ago, reached the final but did not win. His macarons  are still remembered, but now he runs his own company, inspiring guy! One of the flavours he sells is salted caramel, my new favourite. I thought chocolate shells would be better and reduce the sweetness a bit, so I baked them replacing 40 g of icing sugar with cocoa. The filling was wild and random, yet successful- I blitzed about 2tbsps of mascarpone, 1 tbsp of Philadelphia, 3 tsps of salted caramel spread- roughly and just a tsp of peanut butter. And it tastes pretty damn good. A smear of salted caramel on top and a sprinkle of toasted nuts. Thumbs up.

I might have found the ultimate gingerbread recipe. It’s moist, not too sweet, rich and delicious, all I have to do when making it next time is double the amount of ginger, both fresh and ground.

The recipe is from bbcgoodfood.com. 140 g of Medjool dates, pitted, chopped and soaked in 125 ml of boiling water for about 30 minutes, then blitzed into a paste with the liquid and all.

75 ml of oil( I used vegetable), 75 g of black treacle, 50 ml of maple syrup and a tsp of freshly grated ginger( moooooooore needed!!), all well mixed together.

In the bowl of kitchen aid 250 g of plain flour, 50 g of muscovado sugar, 1 tsp of bicarb soda, 1 tsp of ground ginger ( more needed, or perhaps mine is a bit out of date, it is down the sink now) and 1,5 tsp of cinnamon, a lot, as always.  Finally 175 ml of buttermilk and 1 whole egg complete the list of ingredients. They all make quite a runny batter, which bakes for about 40 minutes in 140 degrees. The author of the recipe is right, when the cake is wrapped in foil overnight, it’s even better the next day, sticky and moist. Yum.

I’ve been looking at mojewypieki. com, trying to find some inspiration  for Wednesday evening- ladies’ night at Lisa’s. Saw these and salivated over the keyboard. First batch was baked and eaten, more on Wednesday, so they’re nice and fresh.  I’m thinking of maybe filling half of them with coffee cream, for a change. Nothing wrong with whipped vanilla cream, but maybe something a little stronger.

The pastry- amazing!!! 250 g of flour, 125 g of cold, chopped butter, 125 g of soured cream, pinch of salt, kitchen aided, chilled for an hour. Rolled out pretty thin, wrapped around my horn metal moulds and baked for about 12 minutes in 200 degrees. While the first batch was in the oven I logged into Amazon and ordered another 6 of them, so I can be a lot more efficient.

The recipe recommended some sugar on top, I skipped that bit and instead sprinkled some icing sugar with a dash of cinnamon on ready stuffed ones. Fabulously creamy, filling, caloryfic and yummy.

This cake took time, effort, some skills and it wasn’t cheap. While I was making it, dividing the work into 2 days, I was thinking about how much I love doing it, how great it feels to take some eggs, butter, nuts, sugar, chocolate etc and turn it into something that delicious. I couldn’t help thinking about hurtful it was, when 2 months ago one of my best friends came to the conclusion, that she needs a break from me, as we have completely different passions and interests. We always have , but suddenly it became a problem and I hate that. But, while stirring my ganache I was thinking- screw that, I feel strong about what I love doing and if someone, even a close someone has a problem with that, that is her freaking problem, not mine.  The blog will remain about food as it has always been, not about reinventing myself, just to please someone.

I first heard about dacquoise on GBBO, but never attempted it until I saw the recipe in mojewypieki.com. Dorota makes it look doable, maybe not easy, but possible. So I started with a nutty meringue, made of 4 egg whites, a tall glass of mixed almonds and hazelnuts, toasted first, then whizzed smooth with 1 tbsp of potato starch. Egg whites got whipped with roughly a glass of caster sugar and a pinch of salt, nuts added, then onto a large, rectangular baking tray, oven only 130 degrees hot, for 1,5 hour. After that time it remained in the oven for another 1,5 hour to dry.

That same day I also prepared the base for the coffee cream- 4 egg yolks lightly whipped with 1/3 glass of sugar, 1 tsp of corn starch, then 3/4 glass of milk was heated up well and slowly added to the eggs, all returned to the heat and stirred till thickened. Then covered with cling film and left till next day in the fridge.

Next day I started with my ganache; 180 g of mixed dark and milk chocolate, covered with 3/4 glass of double cream, which was heated up with a splash of maple syrup. After a minute or 2 it just took a good stir and there was a lovely, shiny ganache.

The coffee buttercream caused me some trouble. I suspect it was the butter(190 g of it, less than recommended) that was maybe too cold in comparison with the egg mixture, but it split pretty badly in the kitchen aid and made me curse and call it names, none of those helped. Google did, so I increased the speed, as instructed and added some ganache, alongside 2 tbsps of hazelnut vodka and 2 tbsps of dry, instant coffee, mixed. It took some time to make the texture acceptable, it wasn’t exactly perfect, but it tasted great.

And then I could start putting it all together. Dorota has a short film included, which makes the assembling of the cake easy. First the meringue is trimmed on the edges, then divided in 4 equal rectangles. 3 are covered with ganache and left to cool for about 15 minutes, the fourth one gets covered by buttercream. The fourth one is then covered by the ganache side number 1, cream on that and repeat again. What emerged then needs a nice, smooth cover of buttercream all over it, chills in the fridge for about 2 hours. Finally- ganache all over, whole hazelnuts on top, flaked almonds on the side- Izzie helped doing that and we both loved it.

What I like about dacquoise is the texture and -in a Masterchefy language- the balance of flavours. It’s got it all- nuts, coffee, chocolate.  And I’m very pleased to be capable of making it. 🙂

Link to the original:

Torcik czekoladowo – kawowy dacquoise

In the mood for pistachios and having some fantastic Conference pears from Hayles fruit farm ( autumn was warm and dry this year, the apples and pears are fabulous ), I searched for a recipe that would accomodate both. I found one in GF, but adjusted it the way I thought would be best. It is, the next day even better!

For my small square tin I used 140 g of unsalted, roasted pistachios, shelled, 100 g of which I whizzed with 60 g of milk chocolate and 50 g of caster sugar. In KA bowl I had 100 g of self raising flour waiting, another 50 g of sugar, 100 g of soft butter. I added the whizzed ingredients and combined with 2 beaten eggs and a splash of milk.  Scraped it into the lined tin, added a few chunky pieces of pears and baked in 190 degrees for about 22-25 minutes, cooled.

Finished with a simple milk chocolate and cream glaze and the remaining 40 g of pistachios, roughly chopped and sprinkled on top. Excellent with a cup of tea on a Thursday morning, when the house is lovely, clean and quiet( toddler in the playgroup). Bliss. 🙂

If I ever publish a cookbook( loud laughter), I might include this bread in it. Mainly due to the fact, that I haven’t copied a recipe here, I just thought this morning- something with pesto would be nice, as pizza went down so well even with Izzie.  So I used 300 g of mixed seed posh flour, which was expensive to buy, but I still got it, as there is so much more to learn in my relationship with bread baking. Crumbled in some fresh yeast, didn’t measure it, just a bit more than for our regular pizza. A splash of olive oil, a pinch of salt( it needs more!) and warm water, added slowly while KA worked the dough- I wanted it quite runny, but not too runny.  It proved in the oven still slightly warm after lemon macaroons till more than doubled in size. Then I knocked it down, rolled out, spread out some pesto on it, quite generously and rolled tightly for the second proving. After about 20 minutes of it I baked it in 200 degrees for about 35 minutes, then switched off the heat and kept it in for another 10.

Ok, it wouldn’t win awards in competitions, but it does taste great with a chilled glass of wine, while it’s still warm. Salted butter is a must. Will be made again, maybe some salty serrano ham on the side or something.