Soufflé Cheesecake

From rich creamy ones to non baked types, I love all sorts of cheesecakes, but this weekend I had a sudden craving for this very Japanesy soft cheesecake, Soufflé Cheesecake. ;)

As the name suggests, this cheesecake is very light like a soufflé and quite literally melts in your mouth as you eat. I had a slice in the evening after eating a lot of pizzas (again!). Although I was very full I destroyed the cheesecake with no problem. It's such a light cake that I could eat two, three slices easily!

To make this soufflé type cheesecake requires bit more than just keep adding the ingredients and bake (Don't get me wrong, The WOS cheesecake is still one of the best cheesecakes too!).

There are two things to remember.

One, beat the egg whites just to the right point. We want soft peak. If the egg white is not beaten enough then the cake will not have nice light texture and will lack the height. However, if the egg white is beaten too much, it will become difficult to fold in.
Two, steam bake on a low heat. Make sure that the tray always has water in it. If the water gets low during the bake, add more boiling water.

I like to keep mine as light as possible, but you can add biscuit base to give it a bit of crunch. ;)

Ingredients

Cream cheese 250g

Milk 250g

Egg 5

Sugar 100g

Plain flour 50g

Lemon 1

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºc with a tray filled with hot water.

2. Heat up cream cheese, milk and half the sugar on a low heat until they are combined well. Set aside to cool down.

3. Separate the eggs. Add egg yolks into the cream cheese mixture and mix well.

4. Sift flour into 3. Fold.

5. In a separate bowl beat egg whites with the remaining sugar and juice of lemon to soft peak.

6. Add 1/3 of beaten egg whites into 4. Fold gently until it's mixed in well. Fold another 1/3 of egg whites and mix well. Repeat the same process with the remaining egg whites.

7. Pour the mixture into a greased and lined tin. Smooth the surface.

8. Turn the oven down to 160ºc. Put the tin on the water filled tray and bake for 60 minutes (if the top starts to get too dark, cover with foil).

9. When the cake is baked leave it to cool in the oven before taking it out of the tin. Chill in the fridge.

Pizza party!

Last weekend we had our family and friends around and had an utterly awesome pizza party! Yes, we've finally got THE pizza oven in our garden! (we talked about this even before we had the house...)

As a baker I couldn't have been more excited to have everyone around for something floury and includes a lot of dough and baking. ;D

I was so looking forward to this that the day before and the morning before everyone arrived I was most of the time in the kitchen preparing the pizza dough, cakes, buns, pastries... I loved it.. I love doing multiple bakes and preps. It makes my blood go 'Boom Boom!';)

After all the preps, it was time to light the oven, which was Andy's job, and before I knew the first pizza was ready even though there were only few guests... Then, more people arrived. More pizzas were made... While I was busy chasing Lana, chatting to friends, everyone got involved making their own pizzas (some with unique toppings, others with classic stuff). In the end I didn't need to do any rolling or anything! I was just tasting every one's pizza. Yum yum yum...

I also made plenty of other nibbles...

I made mini buns for mini sliders. These are, of course, made from my trusted guy, Banana yeast starter, and they went down very well. I honestly believe a good bun makes all the difference...

There were some mini cakes. Jam donut muffins, chocolate cake, and carrot cake, chestnut cake. And an all time classic, very popular cream puffs, which were filled with custard and fresh cream. :)

Then there were macarons again... This time I made green tea ones and filled with sweet chustnuts cream. This macarons were probably my favourite of all the things I made for that day...

I was so busy enjoying myself that I forgot to take pictures of other stuff but, there were other food like vegetarian sausage rolls, another sourdough bread (milk and honey loaf), and palmier biscuits (they were addictive too...)

And also special thanks to Esther, who brought a lovely chocolate. ;) (I forgot to take a photo;(...)

Big thanks to everyone who came around and made our pizza party such a fun time. It was simply awesome. xxx ;D

Gluten-free Bakewell tart

I've made gluten-free cakes and biscuits before but I'd never used what-so called gluten-free flour until now... However, the other week Andy bought me a bag of gluten-free flour (I got Doves Farm plain white flour), and said to me that one of his colleagues was gluten intolerant and hadn't been tasting my cakes that I bake for him to bring in almost every Monday...

So, that's how I came to try gluten-free flour for the first time. I made a sweet pastry with it for my Bakewell tart. I used the gluten-free flour the same way as I do with usual plain flour. When I was preparing the pastry, I felt it was a little wetter than normal, and it was a bit too soft to roll it out so instead I flattened it by pressing on to the prepared tart tin directly, which indeed worked very well. ;D

As the filling of Bakewell tart doesn't have any flour in it, I didn't need to worry about that part.

The result of my first gluten-free tart? It was a great success! The gluten-free pastry was really nice. The more crumbly texture reminded me of shortbread. (Maybe it's because the Doves Farm flour has rice flour in it...) The almond filling was sweet and moist, went really well with the pastry.

I got a good feedback from Andy's colleagues too, and most importantly everyone in the office could have a piece. ;) I can definitely see this gluten-free flour appearing more often in my cakes and pastries. ;D

Milk & Honey loaf

Hello everyone, it's been a little while since my last post... but I'm still here and baking breads and cakes more than ever.

Because of the recent heat wave here in the UK, it's been a little difficult to maintain my starters (by the way, I call them 'my trusted guys'). The house gets too hot for my guys if I leave them outside the fridge too long but then I do need to take them out to the room temperature when I want to use them... Hum, the timing is even more important now in this hot weather..

I keep checking the conditions of the guys (I normally have only one starter out while the others rest in the fridge). If it's looking less energetic I feed a bit. I also leave it at the coolest place in the house (which is Lana's room!) during the day.... yes I'm like a mad man (or mad baker in this case.)

Though, I believe that anyone who keeps their own starter will understand what I mean... The longer you've had the starter the more you feel attached to it. ;D

Anyway, look!, my guys do respond to my hard work! They are coping with the heat ok and still producing awesome breads!

This one is our recent favourite Milk & Honey loaf. They are nice and soft with a good crust outside, and every bite there is a slight sweetness from honey. Not only does it taste good as is but also it's an excellent choice for sandwiched or cheesy toasts... hum yum yum...

How does everyone keep their starter in this heat? ;)

Coconut Swiss Roll

My love for Swiss rolls has been mentioned quite a few times here on my blog, and the recipe has already made it to BON APPETIT.

This Coconut Swiss Roll is a variation of my basic Swiss roll, but it's a little bit different.

It has no sugar, no flour in the actual sponge nor in the cream. Hum, good news for those who are watching their sugar and carb... Well, I'm not a health mania but I still love this Swiss roll!

I used coconut flour in stead of plain flour and honey as a substitute for sugar.  (I've been using a lot of honey recently, aren't I? ;D) Although some of the ingredients are replaced, the method of making the sponge is the same as the basic Swiss roll sponge.

The sponge had less volume and was slightly more fragile than the basic Swiss roll but still had a nice texture with a beautiful flavour of coconut.

I rolled dairy free cream and my homemade coconut jam known as Kaya in the middle (I came across Kaya when I was in Malaysia and loved it so much that I often had roti kaya for dinner...).

So here we are..., ultimate Coconut Swiss Roll! I have to admit it was really good that I had more than half the cake to myself, but still there was no sugar, no flour, I didn't feel guilty at all! In fact I felt super satisfied! ;D

More Swiss Rolls?
Chestnuts Swiss Roll
Thank you cows... Swiss Roll
Grape jam Swiss roll
Blackberry and cream cheese Swiss roll Bush de Noel
My Birthday Swiss roll
Dad's Birthday Swiss roll

Avocado 'Cheese'cake

As I promised on my previous post, I'll share the recipe for the healthy 'cheese'cake that I made on Father's day.

So..., the secret ingredients were...'Avocado' and 'Yoghurt'. It might sound weird but believe me, it works.

First, you start with draining the water of the yoghurt a day before. Line a colander with kitchen towel and place it in a bowl. Pour the yoghurt on top of kitchen towel. Leave it in the fridge for overnight. Following day you'll see water in the bowl and end up with thickened yoghurt which is going to be the alternative to cream cheese.

Then, puree an avocado really smoothly, mix it with the yoghurt. I didn't want to add any sugar so I added honey instead, which is a great substitute for sugar!

Now, we're almost there! Add gelatin to set, pour the mixture into cups and chill for at least a few hours.

This fake cheesecake tasted so good that I ate three portions! It's a great healthy dessert for little people too. :D (Not for babies under 12 months though, because of honey....) I think this avocado dessert is going to appear a lot during summer. :D

These are the basic ingredients. Add whatever you like to spice it up!

Avocado 1

Yoghurt 500g

Honey 20g (It was sweet enough for me but adjust for your liking)

Gelatine leave 4

Father's Day cake & dessert

It was Father's Day yesterday. Did everyone remember to send a big love to your dad or dads? I made Rum & Fruit cake for my dad and dad-in-law, who were both away this Sunday but the cakes were safely sent to them;)

I started the preparation for the fruit cake a little in advance by soaking the mixed dried fruits in rum for a month. I also made a jar of honey and rum soaked walnuts to put in the cake. Both the fruits and nuts were added to a nice moist butter cake along with a fair amount of rum... I added quite a bit of rum in order to make the cake last longer because I was sending it to my dad in Japan which my dad received a day before Father's Day. Yay!

And there was another dad who I made a Father's day treat for..., yes... on behalf of Lana..., it's my hubby and the coolest dad for Lana, Andy! I made a special cheesecake for him (also me and Lana). But it's not a usual cheesecake. It was a sugar-free, flour-less cheesecake. See? I care about our 'daddy's health', so went for a healthy option. ;D

Not only did the cheesecake have no sugar nor flour, it actually had no cream cheese nor cream! However, it tasted like and as creamy as those high calorie ones! I was well impressed!

I'll share the secret ingredients and the recipe on my next post... (so watch this space! ;D)

With Lana's footprint. :) This is how I sent the cake to Japan.

お父さん、いつもありがとう。