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Sunday 26 October 2014

No Bake - Chocolate orange & vanilla Cheesecake

Personally I am not much of a dessert person, I found patisserie very boring very unsatisfying even though "back in the day" I was relatively good at it, I once got a gold certificate in wedding cake making, I cant stand marzipan! I think the biggest reason I don't have much love for desserts is my lack of a sweet tooth, being a complete habitual I do of course like certain sweet items like smarties, bourbons, lindt lindor chocolate etc but desserts cakes they don't really float my boat, I would rather have a savoury item instead.
Cake and all things sweet seem to be in the increase with home baking at the moment, I think its a cross over between the generous pleasure given by a treat such as a cheesecake or a cream cake and the joy brought us by The Great British Bake Off. Supermarkets have dedicated isles for ingredients you wouldn't have found a decade ago.

I looked through some of my recipe books and food magazines alike and there was one general similarity with baking for the mass audience every recipe cost an amount of money which tips over that point of reason, also each recipes highlighted took a length of time to make which was not practical. I don't have all the answers of course I don't but I did make this recipe for 2 reasons, 1 practicality and 2 taste. Making this around a hyper active almost 2 year old was not the easiest of things involving him in the process was tricky. When he is a little older it would be perfect for him to get stuck in make or at least contribute more than the tasting!

to make you require;

  • 1 pack Ginger Nuts
  • 1 pack equal size digestives
  • 1 pack 250g salted butter
  • 3/4 tub soft cheese I used mascarpone
  • 1 tub double cream 600ml
  • 3 dessert spoons of caster sugar
  • 4 drops of vanilla essence
  • 3 bars of cooking chocolate
  • 1/2 a terry's chocolate orange
  • 12 chocolate orange matchmakers
To start we need to create the base a buttery biscuit base! To do this put the biscuits in a blender and blend to a fine crumb. mean while heat up a pan and melt 225g of the butter until melted. Combine the 2, once mixed thoroughly pour in to your cake tin, smooth this mix out with the back of a spoon or a spatula. Put this in the fridge to cool and set.

Whilst this sets, time to make the chocolate orange. boil a pan of water and set a mixing bowl over the top making sure that no water can boil over, essential no water gets into the mix. break up all the chocolate and put in the bowl, leave 4 cubes of chocolate refrigerated. add 10 matchmakers and the terry's chocolate orange segments. Allow this mix to melt but don't overcook, add the 25g of butter and mix in to a velvety rich mix. Take this off the heat and take you base out of the fridge palm down ensure it is cold and press set, when you touch it, it should feel firm and not move. pour your chocolate mix on to the base and smooth this out with a spatula or a bask of a spoon. this needs to be refrigerated asap.

Whipping cream by hand can be quite a pain in the arms literally but speed and consistency add the cream to your bowl and add the sugar, not only does this the sugar give a sweet taste it also binds and helps the cream thicken quicker. whisk until firm fluffy peaks are formed, you can hold the bowl upside down and the cream will sit staring at you not moving. at this stage fold in and  mix the Mascarpone and then the vanilla essence.

Fold the mix in to your set chocolate orange base smooth over and decorate using the chocolate that's left, grate curl flake the chocolate over. Chill for 3 hours.

Serves 16 reasonable portions, its a fun easy recipe which like all recipes I do can be amended to your liking. Enjoy