Rainbow Cheesecake

There was another epic baking session at Miss Sarah's house again.  This time we addressed our most ambitious project yet: a Rainbow Cheesecake.  I had found this recipe on Buzzfeed, of all places, and thought that it looked incredible.  So we had no choice but to make an attempt.  There was a wide array of ingredients to juggle.

For the crust:

• 200g finely crushed Oreo biscuits (filling removed)
• 2 tablespoons caster sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 pinch salt
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

 Filling:

• 910g cream cheese, room temperature
• 300g caster sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 pinch salt
• 240ml sour cream
• 240ml double cream
• 4 large eggs
• 1 each of liquid food colours (blue, yellow, green, red)

Also needed: 9 inch spring-form cake tin.

We began by making the biscuit base.  After separating the Oreos from the filling, they were crushed, and the crumbs were mixed with the salt, the caster sugar and the cinnamon.  The crumbs were then mixed with the butter.

Mmmm, Oreos.

Miss Sarah gets to work.

The base was then pressed into the cake tin, and was then baked in the oven at 180°Cfor 10 minutes.

Looking good so far.

A perfectly-baked biscuit base.

It was then time to make the filling.  First the cream cheese was whisked until it was very smooth, and then caster sugar was added, and the mixture beaten again.  This was followed by the addition of the vanilla essence, the double cream, the sour cream and the salt.  The mixture was beaten once more until smooth.  The eggs were added one at a time, and the mixture was beaten briefly in between each egg.

That is a lot of cheese, cream and sugar!

Then it was time to attempt the most spectacular part of the recipe.  The filling was separated into six bowls, and each bowl was coloured with a different food colouring.  The recipe I found states that: "Red = 25 drops of red, Orange = 18 drops yellow + 6 drops red, Yellow = 18 drops yellow, Green = 18 drops green, Blue = 18 drops blue, Violet = 18 drops red + 12 drops blue".  Miss Sarah and I found, however, that more drops were needed in order to get the depth of colour that we were after.

Meant to be red.  Kind of mostly pink.

Beautiful colours.

The individual bowls of filling were then added to the cake tin, one at a time, starting with the pink/red.  The mixture was poured directly into the centre of the tin, and spread out to fill the tin.  the next five colours were poured one at a time directly into the centre too.  the mixture we had seemed a little slow to spread out, but the results turned out OK in the end.

OK, so not that impressive right now, but it will look better soon.

The cake tin was covered in tin foil (to prevent leaks) and placed in a roasting.  The tray was then filled with boiling water, up to about 1 inch height on the side of the cake tin.  Then it was into the oven, at 170°C for 1 hour and 40 minutes.

Ready for baking.

After the 1 hour and 40 minutes was up, the oven was turned off, but the the door was opened a crack, and the cake left to cool down in the oven for an hour.  Unfortunately for the cake, I had put foil over the top for the last ten minutes of the bake in an attempt to stop the top of the cake from browning-up too much.  The foil, alas, took some of the top of the cake off when it was removed.  Still, it could have been worse.

Could have been worse - most of it is intact.

We then left the cake in the fridge for four hours, before making the perilous attempt to successfully remove it from the cake tin.  There was a small leak in the foil (sob!), which meant that some water had got in, but luckily for us, it only affected the very edge of the biscuit base, which seemed to be a little soggy when we first got it out of the tin.  However, by the next day it was dried out enough to not be noticeable.

Looking good!

Perfect cross-section of colours.

I love how distinct these colours are.

Made it home safely, mostly in one piece.

The cake was absolutely beautiful.  It was very sweet, of course, but it had a fantastic flavour.  What amazed me the most about it was the texture - it was so incredibly light, it had an almost mousse-like texture.  Lovely!  Fairly successful for the first cheesecake I'd ever made.

I can certainly recommend trying this recipe.  It is quite time-consuming, but definitely worth the effort.

Beckie.

Baking With Miss Sarah

I had a really lovely day yesterday, as I spent much of the day with one of my dearest friends, Sarah. We'd decided that we must simply have a baking day, so I hauled a giant bag full of ingredients and various baking implements to Sarah's house, and we set up camp in her kitchen for the day.

We had a very specific plan for the baking session; we wanted to make something called 'jap' cakes, or japonaise cake. I love these little cakes. I remember having them as a child, and was delighted to discover that the amazing Wienholt's bakery in the village where I live sold these little treasures. Wienholt's sells two different versions, a praline one and a chocolate and coffee one. The cakes are amazing, but they are a little pricey to be buying them every single week, so Sarah and I decided to have a go at making our own.

Searching for a recipe online, there was very little out there. There seemed to be a lot of people asking where they could find a recipe, but only a few people providing a recipe. Luckily for us, 'Caroline Makes...' has a wonderful recipe that we decided to use, adding our own little alterations:

2 egg whites
113g caster sugar
113g ground almonds
Three drops of almond essence
Chocolate buttercream (with two teapoons of chocolate-hazelnut spread)

Chocolate sprinkles

First we whisked the egg whites until they were stiff, and then we whisked in half the sugar, which created a meringue mix. Then we stirred in the rest of the sugar, the ground almonds, and the almond essence. The resulting mixture was spread out to a thickness of about 1cm on a baking sheet, and was then put in the oven at 180°C. We had our mixture in the oven for about 15-20 minutes, which in the end may have been about five minutes too long, but we'll adjust that for next time.

When we brought the mixture out of the oven, it looked and smelled amazing, and we set to work cutting out the little discs using a round biscuit-cutter. The leftovers were very moreish, and were soon eaten by Sarah, myself, and Sarah's parents.

Tasty tasty off-cuts.

We managed to get ten discs in total out of the mixture, which would make five cakes in total.

Ten perfect little discs.

Then it was onto making the buttercream. We used this simple recipe from the BBC Food website, but we halved the quantities and used some this rather nice chocolate icing sugar from Silver Spoon instead of normal icing sugar. We didn't use the milk that the recipe asked for, adding two teaspoons of chocolate-hazelnut spread instead. This produced a really scrummy buttercream that we had trouble not eating straight out of the bowl.

Delicious chocolatey hazelnutty buttercream.

Then we set up the assembly line:

Miss Sarah on the assembly line, with the all-important chocolate sprinkles.

Here, we sandwiched some of the buttercream between two of the almond meringue discs, and then used a palette knife to cover the sides smoothly in buttercream as well. These were then rolled and covered in chocolate sprinkles.

Very nice little delights.

The result was five lovely-looking little cakes, that tasted absolutely amazing. Even the cross-section looked good!

That's a beautiful cross-section right there.

After we'd finished the 'jap' cakes, we took a lunch break, and then came back refreshed to start out next project. We decided to do one of my favourites, the custard tart, but with a slight twist. For the pastry, I yet again made use of the Crazy Kitchen's shortcrust pastry recipe, as it has never failed me. What we did this time was halve the quantities, and again used the chocolate icing sugar instead of normal icing sugar. The un-baked pastry definitely looked very different in colour to the shortcrust pastry I normally make.

Chocolate pastry.

The pastry rolled out as nicely as ever, and was pressed into the tart tin.

Pressing the dough into the tin.

We then pricked the base with a fork, covered it with baking paper and filled it with baking beans, and put it into the oven to blind-bake for twenty minutes at 180°C.

Ready for the blind-baking.

After twenty minutes, it came out, and had an egg-yolk-wash. It then went back into the oven for five minutes.

Complete with egg-yolk-wash.

Then it was time to make the filling. Again, I made use of James Martin's Honey and Date Custard Tart recipe. As usual, I left out the dates, and substitued the honey with 50g caster sugar. I also added a teaspoon of nutmeg to the custard mix, poured it into the pastry case, and then sprinkled nutmeg lightly over the top.

The filling ready for the oven.

The tart was then baked initially for fifteen minutes, after which it was checked, and found to not be quite ready yet. So we put it back in, and kept checking on every two minutes until it was baked perfectly, with just enough of a wobble in the centre.

Just baked!

Once it had cooled a little, we popped it out of the tin and put it on the cooling rack. What is noticeable here is that the pastry, once cooked, actually was not that different in colour to the usual shortcrust pastry.

Ready for testing.

The custard tasted as nice as ever (I do so love nutmeg), but the pastry was a revelation. It had a slight hint of chocolate that was not overwhelming, and didn't interfere with the flavour of the custard. In short, it was beautiful. I do believe I shall be making this chocolate-y pastry again.

Beckie.