Baked chocolate cheesecake

My boyfriend’s mum is staying this weekend, and I wanted to make something special for pudding on Friday night. I love the creamy richness of no-bake cheesecake, white chocolate being a favourite, but I’ve never made a baked cheesecake. So I thought I’d give it a go.

I found this recipe on the Waitrose website. Quick and easy, I made it after work on Thursday night, then had to wait until last night to enjoy the fruits of my labour. It’s simple, smooth and rich, and a great base recipe which could be adapted with different flavours. I’ve already got my eye on a banoffee version, and an Oreo no-bake cheesecake so watch this space!

Baked chocolate cheesecake

200g ginger nut biscuits, crushed to a fine powder
50g butter, melted
150g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids plus)
750g mascarpone
125g light brown muscovado sugar
2 tbsp cornflour
3 large eggs, beaten
Cocoa powder, to dust
Mini eggs or raspberries to decorate

The perfect Easter treat

Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4. Grease and line the base of a 23cm non-stick, spring-form cake tin.
Mix biscuit crumbs and melted butter together, then press into the prepared cake tin and chill for 5-10 mins
Melt the chocolate and leave to cool.
Whisk mascarpone, sugar and cornflour in a large bowl until smooth. Whisk in the cooled chocolate and eggs, then spoon into the tin.
Cook for 55-60 minutes – the cheesecake should still feel wobbly, but it will set further as it cools. I think mine was slightly overcooked, hence the cracks on the top. Delicious nonetheless but be brave and don’t overcook!
Leave to cool then chill overnight in the fridge. Decorate with mini eggs, raspberries or topping of your choice and serve with natural greek yoghurt or chilled pouring cream. Yum.

Simple baked chocolate cheesecake

10Mar2011

Easy chocolate brownies

I love chocolate. I love brownies. And I’ve used the same tried and tested recipe for as long as I can remember. Dating from when my mum had to test it for a cookery book years ago, ‘Best Ever Chocolate Brownies’ is a recipe that is lovingly scribbled on a piece of A4 paper in my eight-year-old handwriting, smeared with the chocolatey remains of numerous baking sessions over the years, and lives folded in half inside at old Mrs Beeton at my parents’ house.

Now I’m a big bad grown up with my own kitchen. When I wanted to whizz up a batch of brownies to take round to some friends, I couldn’t remember the exact details of that sacred recipe. So, in the interests of trying new things for this blog, I googled around, pinched ideas from various recipes I found and combined them to produce this quick, simple, one-pot (almost) batch of brownies.

They’re so easy to make, and completely delicious – no photo could do justice to their squidgy, dark, chocolatey joy. Served warm they ooze outwards, bulging and baring their barely cooked centres. Cooled they transform to pack a more intense fudgy punch.

Easy chocolate brownies
250g salted butter
200g dark cooking chocolate
100g white chocolate chips
80g cocoa
65g flour
350g soft brown sugar
4 large free range eggs, beaten

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C/350 degrees F
Grease and line a 24cm sq. tin
Melt the butter and sugar together over a bain marie. Leave to cool
Sift together cocoa, flour and baking powder then stir in the sugar and cooled chocolate and butter mixture
Add the beaten egg and stir all ingredients to combine
Bake in the oven for about 25 mins. You want them to stay fudgey and gorgeous, so take them out earlier rather than later, and before an inserted skewer comes out clean.

Enjoy 🙂

2Mar2011

Chocolate Pecan Pie

A slice of gooey chocolate joy!

We recently visited the Big Easy on the Kings Road for the first time. Self-styled as ‘deluxe crab-shack dining’ this local institution transports you to another time and place, serving up lip-smacking, rib-sticking dishes; the perfect spot if you want a buzzing atmosphere and a big feed.

After polishing off platters of crab claws dripping in sweet drawn butter, smokey seafood, sticky ribs and piles of fries, our thoughts turned to dessert. Nine times out of ten I’ll choose a pudding based on its chocolate content, but if there’s pecan pie on the menu then the chocolate takes a back seat. It’s my ultimate indulgent Amercian pudding – nuggets of crumbly pecan set in a syrup so sweet it almost makes your teeth itch, all encased in warm, flakey pastry and served with a dollop of cold vanilla ice cream.

A week later a friend asked me to make dessert for a girly dinner, and my thoughts returned to pecan pie. Flicking through my recipe books, I found the following from my trusty Green & Blacks book. As you may have guessed, it’s got chocolate in. In fact the chocolate plays such a vital part it’s a cross between a pecan pie and a truffle torte. And that’s no bad thing. It’s still sweet, nutty and delicious, but slightly less cloying than a traditional pecan pie, and the ultimate addition to any baker’s repertoire. It’s also really simple to make – the pastry is whizzed up in a blender and the filling mixed in one other bowl.

Quick. Delicious. Easy as pie.

Delicious, and easy as pie . . .

Chocolate Pecan Pie (adapted from the Green & Blacks Chocolate Recipe Book)

Pastry
275g plain flour
75g icing sugar
150g cold unsalted butter, cubed
2 large egg yolks

Sift flour and icing sugar together then blend in a food processor with the butter. Add egg yolks at the end and bind into a pastry. Roll the pastry out thin, about 2mm, then roll round your rolling pin and drop onto a 28cm loose-based tart tin. Fill in any gaps with excess pastry and leave a slight edge – the pastry will shrink slightly while cooking.

Chill for 30 mins, then fill the case with baking beans, or uncooked rice, and bake for 15 mins at 180 degrees centigrade. Remove the baking beans then cook for 10 more minutes til a pale golden brown.

Remove from oven and reduce to 160 degrees centigrade.

Filling
275g dark chocolate
200g chopped shelled pecans (100g chopped, 100g reserved for decorating)
3 large beaten eggs
225g light soft brown sugar
250ml evaporated milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
50g melted butter

Melt the chocolate and butter together. Combine all the other filling ingredients (minus 100g whole pecan nuts), then add the chocolate and butter mixture.

Pour into pastry case and decorate with remaining pecan halves. Cook for an hour, covering with foil towards the end if necessary to present pastry from burning.

Whole Chocolate Pecan Pie