Sticky toffee + Cheesecake= "The Best Cheesecake Ever"

Well really, who knew that such a wondrous thing existed in the world. A recipe for a sticky toffee cheesecake.

Obviously, this needed to be attempted. I had sort of assumed, however, that it would all go horribly wrong, following the same rules as my Gin & Tonic Cake Theory- that through combining wonderful things into one baked good, a wormhole of awesomeness would open in the fabric of the universe, therefore mother nature intervenes to ruin any attempts at baking perfection.

The base of this cheesecake was made of crumbled shortbread, which was a concept i'd never come across before. Then we placed little bits of fudge all over the base:

Recently, I haven't had a huge amount of success when it comes to baked cheesecakes, but it came out of the oven in all its glory and begged to be smothered in a thick layer of caramel, with a dusting of grated chocolate.

Well, we were understandably eager to stuff our faces with some of this delight. And we were most definitely not disappointed. The only thing was that the shortbread biscuit base was rather soggy, but this seemed to be remedied the next day, after it had been left in the fridge for a while. Boyf and i seriously loved this cheesecake, and boyf's housemate also gave it his seal of approval, branding it "the best cheesecake ever". We just used a ready made caramel sauce for the top, but i think this would be even better with a home made caramel, if you have the time.

Tarting it up

The theme for the last Private Pie Club meeting was Great British Pies, as it was being held on the Tuesday of British Pie Week. I decided to do something North-Eastern, as I'm a Geordie girl who very much loves the North East.

I had a look through my local cookery books and found a recipe for a North Country Tart, which I thought sounded perfect. And if we ever do a "pie that describes you theme", this recipe would do for that also :)

The tart is basically a sweetcrust pastry base, with a layer of raspberry jam topped with a golden syrup, egg, sugar and coconut concoction. Why it is north country, I have no idea- The streets of Newcastle don't appear to be lined with native palm trees sprouting coconuts or raspberry jam, but never mind. 

I wanted to use some local ingredients, so I got myself down to Mmm Newcastle, and got a few other bits and pieces in the Grainger market also. I remember when the Grainger Market was a place that your grandma went to, and it was possibly the uncoolest place to be. Nowadays it's getting really quite vibrant, and i love being in there. It's so much cheaper for fruit and vegetables than supermarkets too. I just wish that it was open a bit later so i could nip in after work. Anyway, I got a jar of J.R. jams raspberry jam from there. I do love a jar of jam with a hat on!

 The recipe only asked for 2 tablespoons of jam, but to be honest the jam was so good that I went ahead and put pretty much the whole jar in. 

jammy goodness

Then after that, the gooey golden syrupy coconutty goodness went in....

The tart was starting to look good, but i felt it needed a bit of extra panache. All that expanse of topping with nothing to break it up... And I felt that some special British Pie Week decoration was in order. 

There was only a small sliver left at the end of the Pie Club meeting, and that was quickly snapped up by the bar staff, so I think it went down quite well. I did have a little bit of it, but then swiftly managed to get distracted by spilling my pint all over myself. 

And, if you want to get all North Country yourself, here is the recipe for a 12 inch tart dish:

Ingredients:

• 250g sweetcrust pastry. 
• 1 jar of JR Jams Raspberry jam
• 75g butter
• 37.5g caster sugar
• 1&1/2 tablespoons of golden syrup
• 150g dessicated coconut
• 1&1/2 eggs, beaten.

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180oC (fan oven)
2. Line a tart tin with the sweetcrust pastry. Spread the jam onto the bottom of the tart.
3. In a saucepan, melt the butter, sugar and golden syrup together until it has all gone lovely and gloopy. Take off the heat.
4. Stir the coconut and beaten egg into the syrup mixture.
5. Turn the mixture into the tart tin. Decorate with pastry offcuts and glaze with egg yolk, then put into the oven to bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the filling has set and the pastry is golden and crisp.

Stir Up Saturday and Sunday

Hi all,

I'm so behind on blogging, I really do apologise. So now it is time to do some serious catching up!

A few weekends ago I decided I would have my own little Stir-Up Sunday, although it was actually Saturday, and it spilled over into the sunday anyway.

I made christmas puddings, to Nigella's recipe. I am very pleased with myself for managing to avoid the disaster which occurred last year, which led to the destruction of one christmas pudding, one steaming pot, and one rather pricey Jamie Oliver pan. This time I kept a keen eye on them while they were steaming and made sure no melting happened.

This year's puds seem to have a much better colour than when i've made them in the past. Last time I used cointreau and they were quite er, potent shall we say. This year, I invested in some sherry, so they should be a bit more gentle on the taste buds.

Then I also made stollen. A long time ago i was a pre-reg pharmacist working in a hospital, and there was a German pharmacist working there. She brought some stollen in, and I loved it, so demanded the recipe. I remember her telling us the recipe off the top of her head, then she said "You'll never be able to make it properly without being actually German" (I do think she was kidding).

Anyway, I've made stollen every year since to that recipe and it's pretty much always a triumph/ What that you say? You want the recipe? Well only if you are very, very good.

I always make huge quantities of the stollen mixture, then get a bit scared by the fact that it appears to attempt to take over the whole kitchen after proving.

And here they are in all their Fresh-Out-The-Oven glory. This time I made one big one and two little ones. One will probably be accompanying me to work at some point, as i've been getting requests for stollen already from my colleagues.

Hayley xxx

POST- CHRISTMAS UPDATE:

The Christmas puddings were an absolute triumph. My family really enjoyed one on Christmas day, and even my Grandma, who is very vocal about not liking Christmas pudding, tried some and declared it yummy. The boyf and I had our own little Christmas Dinner also when he came up after Christmas, and he seemed to thoroughly enjoy his generous portion with ice cream!