Apple cheesecake tart

  

I've just realised that I forgot my blog's 8th birthday a week or so back. This apple cheesecake tart more than makes up for it.  I have been trying to think of a three word combination better than that.  Bank holiday weekend? Winning lottery ticket? Tiny fluffy puppy? I’m sure there are others!

This tart is glorious mainly because of the combination of textures.  The flavours obviously work, but it’s the crispy pastry with the creamy cheesecake layer topped with the soft, juicy apples and spice.  The apple juices bake down into the cheesecake giving it a delicate fruity tang; the apple slices hold their shape but retain a little bite but still yield to gentle pressure from a spoon or fork.

This would work beautifully served warm as a dessert with vanilla ice cream.  I served it at room temperature with thick cream.  I think you could also make smaller, individual tarts which would look very pretty served for dessert with a ball of ice cream on top (or on the side).

Normally I photograph my bakes as I serve them for eating.  This one wasn’t going to be served until the evening so I decided to photograph it in the afternoon.  Tip: If you serve desserts in the kitchen and bring them through to the dining room no one notices if there’s a slice missing!  Just call me ‘Two Desserts’......(aka The Very Thoughtful Lady Who Wanted To Ensure Dessert Was OK Before Inflicting It On Anyone Else).

Ingredients

For the pastry:
175g plain flour
85g unsalted butter, cold
30g caster sugar
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon cold water

For the filling:

250g cream cheese – I used Philadelphia
2 eggs
60g caster sugar

For the apples:

4 Cox’s apples, peeled, cored and sliced
70g caster sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Method

Start by making the pastry: place the flour and butter into a food processor and blitz until you have fine breadcrumbs (you can do this by hand using the rubbing in method if you prefer).

Add the sugar and cinnamon and blitz again.

Add the egg yolk and water and blitz until a ball of pastry just starts to form.

Tip the dough out onto a sheet of clingfilm and bring together, using your hands, to form a ball of pastry.  Handle as little as possible.

Flatten into a disc and roll out between two sheets of clingfilm so that you can line a 23cm round, loose bottomed flan tin.

Prick the base with a fork.

Cover with clingfilm and refrigerate for one hour.

Preheat the oven to 200C/fan oven 180C/400F/gas mark 6.

Remove the pastry from the fridge and line the pastry case with either baking paper or non stick foil.

Weight the paper/foil with baking beans.

Bake for 10 minutes, then remove the beans and paper/foil and bake uncovered for a further 5 minutes.

Leave to pastry case to cool.

Reduce the oven to 190C/fan oven 170C/375F/gas mark 5.

Now make the filling: place the cream cheese, eggs and caster sugar into a food processor and blitz until you have a smooth, well combined mixture.  You can do this in a stand mixer, or by hand if you prefer.

Pour into the part baked pastry case.

Now attend to the apples: toss the sliced apples in sugar and cinnamon.

Layer over the top of the cream cheese mixture.

Bake for 35 minutes or until golden and set.

Leave to cool in the tin.

Serve in generous slices with thick cream.

Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.

Eat.

Spiced oat traybake

The mornings are staying darker longer, and we’re putting the lights on much earlier in the evening – if that doesn’t mean Autumn’s on its way then I don’t know what does!  I therefore take this as my trigger to start thinking about spices and oats and more substantial baking…in truth, my thoughts never leave such things but it’s nice to be a tiny bit seasonal if possible.

This traybake is simple to make and, next to fancier fare, could look a bit plain but that’s just how I like it.  There are very few decorated fancies that can hold a candle to something with raisins and oats in; they’re so wholesome and like eating a big hug.  If raisins aren’t your thing then replace with any other dried fruit, or be a complete maverick and use chocolate chips or even chopped ginger.  As long as you choose something dry, that won’t ooze during baking, the cake will work.

The smell of this baking will drive you wild.  I went for a cinnamon/mixed spice mix as I find cinnamon on its own can be overpoweringly dominant but, as with the fruit, mix it up to suit your tastebuds.

I think the oats and raisins mean you can get away with eating this for breakfast.  I do like a cake that is acceptable at any time of the day (ok, that’s all of them in my world, but I do try and fit in with ‘normal’ views…or at least pretend to!).  Now, you might think this photo is blurry, but I prefer to think of it as ‘how Monet would’ve viewed the cake’:

The final thing it is my duty to point out(!) is that the texture of this cake is lighter than sponge.  I know, I know, you see ‘oats’ in the title of a bake and it’s impossible not to think of flapjacks and that heavy, dense texture.  But this cake is a million miles away from that; it is unbelievably light and airy...and I say that as someone who has done their research*.

*Research = eaten three pieces in one sitting.

Ingredients

300ml boiling water
80g porridge oats
110g unsalted butter, at room temperature
150g dark brown soft sugar
125g caster sugar,  plus an extra 2 tablespoons to sprinkle on top
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
pinch of salt
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon mixed spice
200g plain flour
70g raisins

Method

Pour the boiling water over the oats and leave to stand for 20 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180C/fan oven 160C/350F/gas mark 4.

Grease a 30cm x 20cm traybake tin. (I recommend greasing or using non stick foil as this is a sticky sponge and it didn’t seem to get on well with the baking paper I stood it on to cool after baking).

Beat together the butter and both sugars until well combined – it will never go light and whippy with dark sugar.

Beat in the eggs one at a time.

Stir in the oats and vanilla, mixing well to ensure all the ingredients are combined.

In a separate bowl combine the dry ingredients i.e. bicarbonate of soda, salt, cinnamon, mixed spice and flour.

Stir the raisins into the dry mix – this will coat them and stop them clumping in the batter.

Add the dry ingredients to the oat mixture and stir well enough to combine all the ingredients.

Spoon into the prepared tin and level the surface.

Sprinkle over the extra caster sugar.

Bake for approximately 30-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the mix comes out clean.

Leave to cool, in the tin, on a wire rack.

Serve in generous slices with a mug of tea.

Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.

Eat.

Brown butter spice cake

Christmas may be over but winter is definitely here, which is why I was drawn to a spicy cake this week.  This cake had so many lovely facets that appealed to me: tea, spice, treacle, brown butter and even a bit of citrus.  All the flavours were offset by a very simple classic buttercream.

It’s worth taking your time over making the brown butter.  Your nose will tell you without any doubt that there is a huge difference between brown butter and burnt butter!  Gently heat the butter and it will become foamy; let this stage pass and the butter will turn clear and a wonderful dark amber colour…and it smells divine.  It’s also a bit like caramel in that you’re better to take it off the hob just before it’s at the stage you want, as it carries on darkening and you risk taking it too far.

This is such a comforting, homely looking cake but it packs in so much flavour – the best of all worlds.  The tea and citrus lifts what would otherwise be a lovely but ordinary dense gingerbread; I expected the cake to be more sponge-like but it isn’t – it’s definitely in the gingerbread camp.    Not sure what I did but my cakes came out huge!  I had to shave a bit off each one just to get it to a size that would fit in any of my storage tins!  Still, it gave me the opportunity to photograph a whole layer:

This cake is a keeper, by which I mean you’re best off making it a day or two in advance – it gets stickier and more flavoursome.  Bring on the snow – I’m ready for it!

Ingredients

For the cake:
250g unsalted butter
250g caster sugar
2 eggs
100g treacle
250ml tea, made using 2 teabags
Grated zest of 1 orange
600g self raising flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon mixed spice

For the buttercream:
100g unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
200g icing sugar
1 tablespoon milk
 


Method



Preheat the oven to 180C/fan160C/350F/ gas 4. 
Line two loose bottomed 20cm round sandwich tins with baking paper.
Now make the cakes: melt the butter in a pan until it turns brown (but not burned).  Do this over a gentle heat – at first it will foam, but will brown shortly after.
Strain the butter through a coffee filter or several sheets of kitchen paper into a bowl and leave to cool.
Beat the cooled brown butter into the sugar, eggs and treacle.
Stir in the cooled tea and orange zest (I put the zest in the tea so that it infused the flavour into the tea).
In a separate bowl mix together the flour, spices and baking powder.
Beat the butter mixture into the flour mixture.
Divide evenly between the prepared tins and level the surfaces.
Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.   Mine actually took a fair bit longer – nearer to 40 minutes.
Cool, in their tins, for 20 minutes before de-tinning and leaving to cool completely on a wire rack.
Now make the buttercream: beat the butter until it is soft and whippy.
Beat in the vanilla and icing sugar.
Beat in the water.
Place one of the cakes on the serving plate and spread the buttercream over it.
Place the other sponge on top.
Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.
Eat.

Speculaas biscuits

Anyone who has been to the Netherlands is bound to have either eaten, or brought back and eaten, or brought back as gifts (and then hopefully eaten when visiting) Speculaas biscuits.  I have enjoyed them thin and crispy, and also thicker and more gingerbread-like in texture.  The warming combination of spice is lovely and, while they are traditionally a Christmas biscuit, I see no harm in enjoying them all year round.

What has stopped me making speculaas thus far is the absence of an authentic spice mix, or recipe to make one.  Therefore when Steven Dotsch, of the Speculaas Spice Company kindly offered to send me a sample of their speculaas spice mix I typed, ‘yes please’ as fast as my biscuit-loving hands could manage!  Opening the sachet released a heavenly waft of warming spices and I sat there sniffing, turning away to let the smell disappear, and then turning back and inhaling again.  I would have carried on doing this a lot longer had I not become aware of Mr CC watching me with a puzzled expression.

There seems to be a wide variety of speculaas biscuit recipes out there; I did some window shopping and then chose which elements to include in my version.  I opted for ground almonds and orange zest because I planned to make the thicker, more gingerbread-like textured biscuit and both ingredients released oils that would stop the dough from being too dry or bready.  The orange was the first flavor to hit followed by the warming spices; I particularly liked the texture of these biscuits as they were light and crisp.  Here they are ready for the oven:

Freshly baked:

I love this photo – you can see the dark flecks of spice in the biscuit:

The smell of these baking was the smell of Christmas!  I was tempted to break out my Michael Buble Christmas CD until I remembered it was June and I didn’t need to give Mr CC any more reasons to doubt my sanity. (As a side note, I suspect the mere fact that I own Michael Buble CDs is enough to make Mr CC doubt my sanity…let’s just say he’s not a fan! Of Mr Buble, that is.  I know he likes me!)

Ingredients

For the biscuit dough:
250g self raising flour
125g soft brown sugar
3 teaspoons speculaas spice mix
50g ground almonds
1 orange – zest only
100g unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 egg
1 tablespoon milk

For the glaze:
1 egg white, beaten
3 teaspoons soft brown sugar
Handful of flaked almonds 


Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C/ fan oven 160°C/350°F/ gas mark 4


Line two baking sheets with baking paper or non stick foil.


Place all the biscuit dough ingredients in a mixer or food processor and blitz together until you have a ball of dough. 


Shape into a fat disc and wrap in clingfilm.


Refrigerate for about 30 minutes.


Roll the dough out between two sheets of clingfilm – this stops you needing to add extra flour to the dough.  Aim for just under 0.5cm thickness. 


Using the cutter of your choice cut your biscuits out and place on the baking sheet – they spread a little but not much.  I used a 7cm round cutter and got 22 biscuits.


Reroll the dough to ensure it is all used – it rerolls very well so you should be able to use every last scrap.


Brush with the egg white and then sprinkle on the soft brown sugar.

Arrange the flaked almonds on the top of each biscuit.
Bake for approximately 14 – 18 minutes or until the biscuits are turning brown.  I like to rotate my baking sheets halfway through the cooking time to encourage even browning.


Leave to cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before removing and placing on a wire rack to cool completely.


Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.



Eat.

Medlar and cinnamon upside down cake

This week’s bake turned into a bit of a voyage of discovery that all commenced one lunch time as I passed a Mediterranean greengrocers and saw a box of fruit labelled ‘medlars’.  I suspected they weren’t medlars because the medlars I’d seen were like oversized rosehips.  So I bought some and then went off to do my research (I know that’s the wrong way round – I should have researched first, but that’s just not the way I roll).

I googled medlars and site after site came up with the rosehip-looking type.  Dead end after dead end.  So I put my faith in google; I typed “soft fruit medlars that look a bit like apricots” and bingo!  I asked and the internet delivered.  What I had were loquats aka Japanese medlars aka Japanese/Chinese plums or biwa if you prefer.  It seems to be the fruit of a thousand names!

Mine felt like ripe apricots and the skin peeled off easily without needing to dip the fruit in boiling water.  For this cake I probably could have left the skin on as it’s very thin but I didn’t want to risk it.  The stone comes out easily but I also peeled away the thin white papery layer around it.

They have a beautiful flavour and were really juicy.  Imagine a less gingery mango with elements of orange, peach and apricot and you’d be getting close.  Fruity and sweet at first but finishing with a sharper acidic flavour I really fell for them in a big way and wished I’d come across them sooner.

This upside down cake contains cinnamon and vanilla, two spices that work well with most fruits.  You could serve this cake at room temperature for afternoon tea, or hot with custard or ice cream for dessert.

Here’s to more happy discoveries at the greengrocers!

Ingredients

For the base of the cake:

10-12 medlars, halved, stoned and peeled -  prepared weight 340g
60g unsalted butter
125g soft brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

For the sponge:

140g unsalted butter, at room temperature
140g golden caster sugar
2 eggs, plus 1 white
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
200g plain flour
1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
75ml milk

To serve: cream, ice cream or custard

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/ gas mark 4.

Use an all-in-one liner for a 20cm round springform tin.  If you don’t have a liner, wrap the outside of the tin in foil as you don’t want anything to leak during baking.

Start by making the base: Place the butter in the cake tin and put into the oven for about 3 minutes or until it has just melted (but isn’t burned or bubbling).

Stir in the brown sugar and cinnamon.

Arrange the fruit into the butter mix and put the tin to one side.  I put my medlars cut side down so they sat flush to the tin.

Now make the sponge: beat the butter and sugar until pale and whippy.  Don’t skimp on this stage.

Beat in the eggs one at a time followed by the additional white and vanilla.

Stir in the flour, baking powder and milk and mix until the batter is smooth and well combined.

Spoon over the fruit taking care not to disturb it.

For upside down cakes it’s important that the cake doesn’t ‘dome’ too much whilst baking because, when you turn it out, this will become the bottom.  I manage this by making a dip in the centre and building up the batter around the edge of the cake – during baking this usually settles out to an even layer.

Stand the cake tin on a tray in case the caramel bubbles up and bake for approximately 1 hour but check after 40 minutes to ensure the top isn’t browning too much.  If it is, loosely cover it with foil and continue to bake until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Leave to cool for 30mins-1hour in the tin before turning out and leaving to cool completely.  If you’re serving for a dessert turn out after about 10 minutes cooling time.

Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.

Eat.

Cream cheese biscuits

For reasons I won’t bore you with, it’s not been a great start to the year so I felt justified in ‘buying me a little happy’.  This manifested itself in an Oxo Good GripsCookie Press. Regular readers of the blog will know that I’ve never had much success in piping biscuit dough and usually end up spooning it onto the baking sheet instead, but with this lovely bit of kit my luck has changed!

The recipe is from the instruction book that comes with the cookie press and Mr CC declared them the best biscuits I have ever made.  I think he’s right.  They are lovely: crisp, buttery, flavoursome and small enough that there’s no shame in eating several!

Because they are small and thin they crisp up quickly from the oven.  We ate some warm and they had an almost nutty flavour, which was surprising given that they don’t contain any nuts.  When cool that nuttiness goes, but the cream cheese gives a boost to the flavour; you wouldn’t know they contained cream cheese but it does add something.

The recipe said the yield would be about eight dozen biscuits.  I never have a lot of luck in getting the suggested amount thus expected to get half that.  I got well over 100!  It is the recipe that just keeps on giving!  The shape looked so crisp unbaked that I thought I would lose all that definition on baking:

But guess what?  They kept their shape:

Ingredients

230g unsalted butter, at room temperature
85g cream cheese – I used Philadelphia
250g caster sugar
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
310g plain flour
½ teaspoon cinnamon

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/gas mark 4.

Line baking sheets with baking paper or non stick foil – you will need about six, but I only had three so re-used them as the batches finished baking.

Beat together the butter and cream cheese until combined.

Add the sugar, egg yolk and vanilla and beat until combined.

Weigh out the flour and cinnamon.

Gradually beat into the butter mixture.

At this point you can spoon small teaspoons full of the dough onto the baking sheet, but I used my cookie press.  Fill the cookie press with dough (you will have to refill about four times) and press your cookies onto the prepared baking sheet.  They don’t spread a lot so place them as close together as the cookie press will allow.

Bake for 15 minutes, turning the trays halfway through the baking time.  The biscuits are ready when they are a light golden colour.

Leave to cool for five minutes on the tray before transferring to a wire rack and leaving to cool completely.

If using a cookie press this recipe will make about 100 biscuits.

Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.

Eat.

Turkish Tahini cake

 

Jacqui Small Publishing really is becoming one to watch for any (slightly obsessed) book buying baker (i.e. me!).  I’d had Roger Pizey’s “Worlds Best Cakes” on my radar for a little while, waiting for it to be released and – joy of joys – I was offered a copy to review!  Please also see the offer for all readers at the end of this post.

Like many bakers I read my books when they arrive and tab the pages that interest me.  As you can see there were quite a lot of tabs in this lovely book leaving Mr CC to suggest that it might be easier if I tabbed the pages of things I didn’t want to make!

I will be making so many recipes from this encyclopaedic book and what I particularly loved was the variety: easy to difficult, simple flavours to complex, everyday to exotic.  It truly covers the globe and my eyes (OK, my stomach!) were drawn to this Turkish tahini cake for several reasons – I love tahini but have never considered it a baking ingredient; also, the recipe doesn’t contain any butter or eggs, which instantly sets it apart from virtually all my other bakes.  I have never seen a cake like this and the novelty of it excited me.  Make sure you buy a tahini that is pure sesame seed; some were called ‘tahini sauce’ and had lots of other ingredients.

When you think about it, tahini is a perfectly sensible cake ingredient – it’s pretty similar to peanut butter really and we’re all used to seeing that.  It added a gentler, more subtle flavour than peanut butter; I sometimes find peanut butter can overpower everything else, but the tahini sat alongside all the other flavours.  The batter had that lovely almost Christmas cake richness to it:

This was a moist cake with a squidgy fruitiness – I loved it.  It is a heavier cake (intentionally so) so don’t make it expecting a light, airy sponge.  It was a perfect cake for an Autumnal afternoon.

To order World's Best Cakes at the discounted price of £24.00 including p&p* (RRP: £30.00), telephone 01903 828503 or email mailorders@lbsltd.co.uk and quote the offer code APG20.

Alternatively, send a cheque made payable to: 

Littlehampton Book Services Mail Order Department,
Littlehampton Book Services,
PO Box 4264,
Worthing,
West Sussex BN13 3RB. 

Please quote the offer code APG20 and include your name and address details. 

*UK ONLY - Please add £2.50 if ordering from overseas.

Ingredients

250g tahini (Make sure you buy one that is 100% sesame - I poured the oil off the top before using)
200g caster sugar
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 tablespoons cognac – I used rum because I prefer it!
200g plain flour, plus extra if needed
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
150g walnuts, chopped
75g glace fruit such as cherries or peel, chopped – I hate glace fruit so used dried morello cherries
75g sultanas
240ml orange juice
3-4 handfuls sesame seeds

Method

Preheat the oven to 170°C/fan oven 150°C/325°F/gas mark 3.  I upped the oven temperature as my cake was not taking on any colour – I would recommend baking at 190°C/fan oven 170°C/375°F/gas mark 5 – but you know your oven.  If things cook quickly stick with the original temperature.

Line a 20cm round springform tin with baking paper.

Beat the tahini until it is smooth and light.

Keep beating and add the sugar gradually.  Beat it as you would normally beat butter and sugar – it behaves similarly.

Mix together the cognac (or rum) and bicarb and beat in.

Weigh out the flour, cinnamon, walnuts and fruit.  Tip half into the tahini mix and beat in.

Beat in half the orange juice.

Beat in the remaining flour and fruits, followed by the orange juice.

The batter should be thicker than a normal cake batter – quite thick and heavy.  If it isn’t add some more flour.  Mine was at dropping consistency so I added three further tablespoons of flour and this made the mix noticeably heavier.

Spoon into the prepared tin and level the surface.

Sprinkle over the sesame seeds.

Bake for approximately 50 minutes or until the cake is dark and a skewer inserted into it comes out clean.

Leave to cool for 20 minutes before removing from the tin and leaving to cool completely on a wire rack.

The cake keeps beautifully and – if anything – the flavours improve over time.

Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.

Eat.