Baked Banoffee Cheesecake

So good. And not that difficult. So no excuses not to make it.

Mmmmmm... Crumbly biscuity base, gooey sweet banana toffee and creamy cheesecake...

The recipe for the base and the cheesecake bit is from here. 

I used double the amount of base so I could put it up the sides of my tin to stop the toffee sticking, which is IMPORTANT. Also, more biscuit.

Once you've made the base, baked it briefly and allowed it to cool a little, thinly chop 1-2 bananas and neatly place them onto the base in a nice flat layer.

Now, make the toffee sauce: equal amounts of brown sugar, butter and cream. Mine was about 5 tablespoons of each. Heat the mix gently until the sugar has dissolved and the butter melted. Leave to cool while you make the cheesecake mix.

Now, pour the toffee over the bananas so that they are just covered. Gently spoon the cheesecake mix on top and smooth out the top.

Bake at 180°c for 40 minutes, or until cooked on the outside but with a little bit of wobble in the middle (mine took about an hour).

Leave to cool COMPLETELY - we ate ours still warm and it was nice, but SO much better the next day when it had properly set.

Cute Little Chollah

A few weeks ago, Christian was telling me about a bread that his mum used to buy all the time, which he missed. Then I was reading my copy of Delicious. and there it was! The first time I made it I shaped it into a 8-stranded plait (the Paul Hollywood one from the Great British Bake Off), but this time I just made two little cobs - isn't it sweet!

I really enjoy making bread, and don't really understand why people find it so scary! My only advice would be that you need to get your hands in and just learn what the right consistency FEELS like. It might take a few goes, but you'll get there.

I was just going to link to the recipe, but it doesn't seem to be on their website, so here it is:

Mix 1 tbsp sugar and 7g dried yeast into 225ml body temperature water and leave for 5-10 minutes until it has about 2cm of froth. 

Mix together 50g sugar and 200g PLAIN flour and then add the yeasty water. I always mix bread with one hand, keeping the other clean to put in the flour bag, but a spoon is fine if you don't like getting messy. It will be really sticky at this point - that's fine.

Now add an egg and 50ml oil, then add about another 200g plain flour so that the dough is now thick and elastic, but still a bit wet - you might need some more flour. Knead for about 10 minutes until the dough is smooth and springy, then leave in an oiled bowl for 2 hours, pressing it down gently once or twice during that time.

Tip the dough back onto a floured service and just knead it through for about half a minute to smooth it out again. To make the cobs, cut it in half and then form each half into a circle. Place on a greased baking tray and dust with flour, then slice a cross in it using a sharp knife. Leave to rise for another 20-30 minutes and then bake at 180°c for 20-25 minutes, until it sounds hollow if you tap its base.

Batch of Summery Fresh Summer Rolls

So summer rolls are the fresh healthy version of spring rolls - not deep fried, and full of crunchy vegetables. Perfect for a hot sunny day like today was!

I first had these at my FAVOURITE London restaurant, Cay Tre Soho, a vietnamese. They're brilliant for only needing one specifically asian ingredient: the rice paper rounds. I got mine from a Chinese supermarket for £2 for a massive pile which I barely made a dent in this evening.

First, speed peel a carrot into thin slices, slice up about 5 big iceberg lettuce leaves into strips, and cut up ⅓ of a cucumber into matchstick sized sticks. Also, cut 12 cooked king prawns in half down the middle and rip up some coriander leaves (about 16 leaves will do).

Now, fill a large, shallow bowl with water and put a chopping board ready, with your fillings in easy reach.

Drop the first rice paper round in the water a poke it a bit with your fingers, then turn it over a poke it some more until it starts feeling a little soft (maybe 15 seconds, not long at all!). Put it on the board and lay three prawn halves outside down about a quarter of the way down. 

Next, layer your cucumber, carrot, lettuce and coriander on top of the prawns, keeping it fairly neat. Don't overfill it (my mistake on my first one), but do be prepared to make a few awkward looking ones before you get the knack.

Now to roll it up... Tuck in the sides a little, then just roll it up from the top, trying to keep it tight. Again, it will take a few tries before they start looking nice, but don't try to undo it once it's been rolled, just accept it and moooove on.

Yay! Misshapen slimy things. Practice makes perfect though, right?

So, to draw attention away from your sculpture work, time to make a dip. (And then you can laugh at everyone else losing their cucumber into it. Not that I would be that mean.) I'm not entirely sure I mastered the dip to be honest, so I'm not going to write it out here, but it revolved mainly around garlic and sweet chilli sauce, which was also from the Chinese supermarket although I'm sure you can get it at Tesco too.

Because Christian needs lots of food, we also stir-fried some noodles with the leftover sliced vegetables, some spring onions and soy sauce, and, of course, served it with jasmine tea, with afters of sake and cappellino cake.

Tray of Ginger and Honey Cappellino Cakes

Cappellino means little hat in Italian (or at least I'm pretty sure it does), which I thought was a cuter name for these than 'butterfly-cakes-I-got-bored-with'. I made the cake mix with creme fraiche, which has made it super light, and slightly more sugar than usual which has made the crust lovely and crispy - perfect for the hats! This was also the first time I got to use my new silicone cupcake cases, which seem great so far - the bottoms of the cupcakes are much softer than paper cases, they come out easier, and it's better for the environment (and my purse). Now to find out how easy they are to wash...

Cream together 4oz butter and 8oz sugar. Mix in 1 egg and a few drops of vanilla extract, then stir in 120ml creme fraiche. Sieve in 4½oz plain flour and a teaspoon of baking powder and spoon into a muffin tray (I got 12 fairly large fairy cakes). Cook for 20-30 minutes at 170-180°c. (I know this is low, but it makes the tops flat, which is useful for the topping.)

Now you'll have this:

So far, so yummy, but this is where it gets super exciting.

Christian's mum gave us a jar of M&S Stem Ginger and Malt Whisky Conserve this weekend. It's gorgeous just on toast, but I thought it would be ideal to contrast with the sweet, fluffy cakes. The cream manages to contrast again with the cake and the jam, both with its textural creaminess and its slightly savoury taste.

So, wait until they're cool, then, to start the cappellino, cut out a cone from the top of each cake using a sharp knife (if it's blunt you'll just make a mess). Put a tiny half-spoonful of the jam in the bottom of each hole. To make the cream, mix together about 100g cream cheese, a soup-spoonful of creme fraiche and about 2 teaspoons of honey. Make sure to taste it as you add the honey - it's not supposed to be super sweet, but you don't want it to just taste like cheese! Now share out the cream between all the cakes - it probably won't fit in the holes, but that's fine. Finally, put your cappellino back on top.

And there you are. 

I was thinking of trying to get some pear in there as well (pear and ginger being one of my favourites), but didn't manage it. I bet it would also work great with fig jam, if anyone out there has a glut of figs.