No Bake Cheesecake

Cheesecake. Yum. That completely sums up my long-standing love affair with no-bake cheesecake. But I'm fussy about my cheesecake. Don't give me those stodgy baked varieties, I have no time or taste for them. It's got to be the refrigerated variety every time - despite my intense dislike of gelatine (I rarely eat jelly and look for yoghurts that don't contain gelatine).

Refrigerated cheesecake is unbelievably simple, but can be dressed up to look sophisticated and impressive. With very little effort (and preferably a functioning refrigerator) you can wow your guests.

This weekend was a long weekend in the US for the Labor Day holiday. We duly had guests over and I decided to make cheesecake for dessert. Something I haven't done for about 15 years. I don't know why. It's a dessert I love, but rarely make. It was also the weekend that we had FRIDGE TROUBLE [cue dramatic music]. So, on Wednesday of last week I decided that our fridge, that was easily 10 years old, that we'd discussed replacing before it died on us, that came with the house when we bought it, needed to be retired. I duly went out and bought a new fridge (and dishwasher too) and organised for them both to be delivered and installed on Friday. They were. In a timely and efficient manner.

My new, gleaming, brushed stainless steel, French door, pull-out-freezer-drawer fridge took up pride of place in the kitchen. It shone, announcing its newness to the world. It set off my electric kettle, my stand mixer and my espresso machine beautifully. All stainless steel, all shiny and new, letting the world know how much I love to cook, how much my kitchen is a source of joy for me. Everything looked great. I loaded up my shiny new fridge with all the fresh and frozen produce from the old fridge (all of which had been carefully packed on ice until then) and I smiled beatifically and my glorious new appliance. Then I went about doing all the things the installers had recommended - ditching the first 3 gallons of water from the dispenser, turning on the ice machine and waiting for it to produce happy little rectangles of frozen goodness, and generally fussing about.

I started to get suspicious when that evening the fridge still hadn't cooled. By the time I went to bed, I had worked myself into a fair state of worry. But we decided to give it overnight and see how it went. Saturday morning came around. Still nothing. Not a puff of cold. No icy fingers gently caressing all the things we'd stored in there. Naturally, I turned quickly to Google for the answers. "The compressor" it shouted, "No, the gasses have to settle and that can take 3 to 5 days" it debated, "Rubbish! There's a blockage" it equivocated. All the while, my mind screamed "YOU GOT A DUD!".  My beautiful, brand new, expensive fridge had suddenly become a costly meat safe. We checked on theory 1 and 3 and decided to give it a little more time for theory 2. Meanwhile, I marinated meat and made cheesecake.

Sunday morning rolled around and still nothing. The meat in the freezer had defrosted, the food in the fridge was starting to go off. There was nothing for it. I rang the store I bought it from, explained the problem and asked for a replacement asap. They were actually very good about it, but couldn't organise a delivery for the same day. Still, Monday we would have a new fridge. Yes ma'am, the situation had been escalated to the manager's attention. Yes ma'am, they would be happy to reimburse me for all the food losses. Yes ma'am, they would bring the new fridge on Monday and wouldn't leave until they were sure that it actually was working. Umm…ok. But where was I supposed to store the marinated meat and the cheesecake (the REFRIGERATED cheesecake) in the meantime?

Thank goodness for two large coolers (eskies) and a quick-thinking husband who trotted off to buy a small bar fridge. So disaster averted, the defrosted meat had to be cooked up or thrown out. So began my day of cooking every last bit of meat we had in the house. With only two people joining us for dinner, needless to say we were very well stocked. So at the end of that very long story, here's my recipe for cheesecake.

Ingredients:
Base/crust:
2 cups crushed graham crackers
2 tbsp sugar
125g butter (melted)

Filling:
3 pkgs (8oz/226g each) cream cheese (softened)
1 pkt gelatine (7g)
1/2 cup water
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup whipping cream
1-2 tsp orange essence (or vanilla)
zest of 1 lime
juice of 1/2 lime

Method:
Line the base of a round spring form cake tin with parchment paper. I cut off a square piece, larger than the base of the tin, placed it over the base then put the wall belt on and closed it, securing the parchment paper onto the base. This will make removing the cheesecake from the base much easier later (and that will stop any scratching up of your cake tin from cutting cheesecake on it!).

Mix the graham cracker crumbs, the sugar and the butter well. Firmly pack it into the cake tin and place in the fridge (hopefully you have a functioning fridge at the time).

In a stand mixer, place the cream cheese and sugar and beat until soft and mixed through.

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, place the water and gelatine. Allow to sit for a minute, then place over medium heat. Stir constantly until gelatine is dissolved. Remove from heat and beat into cream cheese mix in the stand mixer.

Add lime zest and juice and continue to mix on medium-low speed. Gradually add cream and orange essence, continuing to beat the mixture. The mixture will be of pouring consistency and you'll think it's a little too runny, but don't panic. The gelatine will set it well.

Pour over the refrigerated base and return to the fridge for at least 3 hours (preferably overnight).

When you're ready to serve, run a warm palette knife, butter knife or thin plastic spatula around the inside edge of the wall belt to separate the cheesecake from the tin. Open up the spring and remove the wall belt. Carefully slide the cheesecake off the base of the tin and onto a serving plate using the parchment paper. Decorate with whatever fruits you like and serve.

And Give Us Our Daily Bread...

Bread has been my Everest for some time now. I've experimented with numerous recipes over the years and have had countless unsatisfactory loaves. About 5 years ago, when I managed to pin down an excellent pizza dough recipe (that I now use as a standard), I thought it could double as a bread recipe. And it did for a long time. But (and there's that ubiquitous but), it was never quite right. Never quite fluffy or light enough, and never strong enough to handle being sliced very thin. So naturally, more experimentation followed.

I now have a recipe that consistently produces beautifully light and fluffy loaves as well as rolls. The thing to keep in mind with bread (as with most dough recipes) is that the amounts of the ingredients vary each time you make it. Humidity, heat, consistency of the flour and the fat content of the milk all make a difference to the dough. Humid days require more flour, dry days require less (or more liquids). And my final tip: use bread flour. Regular plain or all purpose flour doesn't have enough gluten to hold the rise required for bread.

Ingredients:
4 cups bread flour
1 tbsp (roughly 16g) instant yeast
2 tsp sugar (caster/super fine)
2 tsp salt
2 eggs (lightly beaten)
30g/2tbsp butter
350 ml milk

Plus:
1 egg
2 tbsp milk or cream
whisk together for glazing bread

Method:
Preheat oven to 200C/400F.

Heat milk and butter together in microwave for 2 minutes.

Place flour, yeast, sugar, salt and eggs in bowl of stand mixer with paddle attachment (or you can mix by hand, but this takes longer). Mix till combined.

Add milk and butter and mix until dough starts to come together and away from the sides of the bowl. Change attachments to the dough hook and mix for 2 − 3 minutes.

Turn dough out and form into a ball. Place upside down into a lightly greased/oiled bowl (I use olive oil) then turn the right way up so the dough is coated with a little oil on all sides. Cover bowl with plastic wrap (glad wrap/cling wrap) and leave in a warm place to rise for at least 1 hour (or until dough is doubled in size).

Turn dough out and knead lightly for a few minutes. This helps to redistribute the carbon dioxide released by the yeast and will give you a lighter and fluffier bread.

Lightly grease the pan you're using to bake the bread in (loaf tin for a loaf or tray for rolls), shape bread and place in pan. Cover lightly with cling wrap (I use the same one I used earlier, but turned the other way round so there's no condensation. The condensation built up on the cling wrap will affect your bread and lead to less rise. Leave in a warm place to rise again for at least 1 hour (or until doubled in size).

Again, remove the dough and punch down and knead. Reshape, place in tin and liberally brush on egg and milk/cream mixture. Sprinkle bread with poppy seeds, sesame seeds, flax seeds, or leave plain. Place in preheated oven and bake for 25 minutes. When properly cooked, the bread should make a hollow sound when tapped.

Turn oven off and remove bread. Take bread out of tin, wrap in clean tea towel (this will catch the moisture coming off the bread and avoid soggy bread).

If you're making rolls, you can stuff them with cheese, meat, veggies or whatever you like. This recipe has been the most consistently reliable I've come up with. But remember, amounts of flour and liquids will vary according to the ambient temperature and humidity.

The Bells of St Clements

Orange Cake with Lemon-lime Icing

Moving to a new country brings with it a whole raft of issues to contend with. For me, moving to the USA from Australia has meant learning a whole new language for food. I spend extraordinary amounts of time standing in grocery stores reading. No, not reading books. Reading labels. Trying to figure out what the composition of different items are, trying to figure out what's similar to the ingredients I'm used to working with. These aren't automatically the things you think of as troublesome or issues to overcome when you move from one first-world, English-speaking country to another. Especially when those countries are so culturally similar; at least at first glance.

But here I am. Living in Texas. Standing in supermarkets, grocery stores, specialty stores and fresh markets, and reading. I go in with enthusiasm. Determined to find ingredients and overcome the differences. I usually leave exhausted and often defeated by the variety. Each time, I stand in front of an array of flours and baking sodas and remember Barry Schwartz's TED Talk on The Paradox of Choice.

Today was my first foray into cake baking since we arrived and thankfully, it worked. I have no electric mixer (hand-held or stand), no food processor and no baking pans apart from a roasting pan that came with the apartment we're staying in, and I'm working with an oven (and temperatures measured in Fahrenheit not Celsius) that I'm not entirely familiar or comfortable with. Add to that, the fact that I was converting from Australian measurements and recipes to US measures. A rose may well be a rose by any other name, but a cup is clearly not the same measure across nations. It was a daunting prospect having to cream butter and sugar by hand. I haven't done that in years and remember it as being labour intensive and arm-aching. But I was determined. So here's the recipe for a moist, tart orange cake with lemon and lime icing.

Orange Cake
(this is not a super sweet cake, in fact it's quite tart, but works very well with the icing and is delicious warm or cold)
1 US cup unsalted butter, softened (I put it in the microwave for 10 seconds to really soften it since I was creaming by hand)
1/4 tsp salt
1 US cup extra fine sugar
3 large (free range/cage free) eggs at room temperature (around 60g each - large but not jumbo)
1 tsp finely grated orange zest
1 1/2 US cups unbleached self-raising flour (I used King Arthur)
juice from 6 small-medium oranges (not navels, they're too big)

Method
Preheat oven to 340F.

Grease the sides and base of your roasting pan.

Microwave butter in mixing bowl for 10 seconds. Add salt. Using a whisk, begin creaming butter. Add extra fine sugar and cream butter and sugar together till light and fluffy (this takes about 10 − 15 minutes).

Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well for a few minutes after each egg. Don't rush the addition of the eggs as the mixture will be more likely to separate and develop a curdled appearance. Add the zest with the last egg.

Add half the flour and stir until just combined. Repeat with remaining flour. Mix in juice and aerate by whisking.

Spoon mixture into pan and smooth over so it's evenly spread.

Bake for 35 minutes. A skewer inserted should come out clean and the cake should spring back when lightly pressed in the centre.

Remove the cake from the oven and allow to cool in the pan (it will come away from the sides on its own). I left the cake in the pan and poured the icing over the top.

Lemon-lime Icing
1 1/2 US cups icing/powdered sugar
juice of 1 lemon and 3 limes
1 tbsp butter

Method
Put a plug in the kitchen sink and fill with very hot water. Place your mixing bowl with all ingredients into the water bath (sink) and whisk ingredients together. The icing will be quite runny. Let sit for 5 minutes or so and it will thicken. Pour over the cake and spread evenly.

Slice and enjoy!

A Tale of Stormy Weather and Root Vegetables

It's Winter in my part of the world and we've just had a category 2 cyclone hit the coast. Up here in the hills, it was wet and windy, but not much worse than that. We've been fortunate to not have lost power or had any storm damage, but the weather does turn one's mind to thoughts of warm and stodgy food. Root vegetables are gloriously in season now and we're getting some delicious beetroots, parsnips, carrots, potatoes and the rest.

I'm purposely leaving swedes (rutabagas) out of this collection. They're a vegetable that have resisted my many overtures at friendship. Bitter and distasteful, they do their best to shun my tastebuds, while taunting my eyes with their rotund, yellowy-puple forms displayed so temptingly at the grocer's. We have a tenuous relationship on which I'm choosing not to dwell.

Beetroot, on the other hand, is a firm favourite of mine. I'm becoming increasingly convinced that I must have eaten a lot of dirt as a child and that is why I love the deep earthy taste of beetroot. To me they really do taste like soil; sweetened and glorified. I'm not talking about the over-processed, over-sweetened variety found in tins and plastic bottles. I'm talking about the fresh, dirt-covered variety you find in the fresh food market. The kind you have to wash, peel and cook before you can eat them. The kind that stain your hands the deepest ruby red for days on end. The kind you wear dark colours near even when you're only looking at them... just in case. Real beetroot.

So now you know my dirty secret. My deep and abiding love for the earthiness of beetroot. Given the season, the weather and the availability of my ruby treasures, I thought it was time to venture into some uncharted and politically fraught territory (uncharted for me). I decided to slide down the slippery slope of attempting to make borscht. Let me say from the outset, there are as many ways to make borscht as there are families in Eastern Europe. I must have scanned 50 recipes for it, each one with a detractor commenting at the bottom of the page that "this is not how you make borsch/borscht" (they can't even agree on the final consonant!). In the end, I got the gist of the various recipes and decided to make my own version.

This is NOT a traditional borsch/borscht recipe from anywhere, but I'm hoping it will become a tradition in our house.

Ingredients:
Vegetable Stock
3L water
1 carrot
2 stalks of rosemary
4 bay leaves
2 cloves garlic
2 French shallots or 1/2 a medium sized red onion
salt to taste

Soup
8 - 10 beetroots
1 large nadine potato
2 - 3tsp raw sugar
pepper to taste
150g salted butter

cream to serve

Method:
Make a stock as you would for any soup (if you have chicken or beef stock on hand, you can use that). Allow the stock to simmer and flavours to infuse for at least an hour (the longer you leave it, the richer the flavours - top up the water as you need to).

Peel and chop the potato (large pieces is fine). Add to the stock. Top and tail, peel and quarter the beetroot and add to the stock. Add sugar (I use raw sugar because I like the richer, slightly molasses flavour of it).

Cook for at least an hour (make sure all the vegetables are very soft and easy to mash).

Remove bay leaves and rosemary sticks (the leaves will have fallen off by this stage). Blend the soup with a stick blender (or do in small batches in a blender).

Taste for salt and add if necessary. Add freshly ground pepper and butter. Stir through and taste. Serve warm with a dollop of cream.

NOTE: A chilled version of this soup would be wonderful in Summer.

Doughnuts and a Patch of Warmth

Fresh doughnuts: golden puffs of sweet doughy goodness

It's not yet winter but nobody bothered to let Mother Nature know. We're waking up to mornings of 1C or less. Since I'm no fan of bitter cold days, a little patch of warmth inside my marvellous kitchen is a joy devoutly to be wished. And nothing says warmth like baking.

When my eldest son complained of feeling hard done by because he missed out on eating the last of the store-bought doughnuts to his younger brother, I promised him I'd make some. I've made doughnuts before and it's something that fills me with both dread and joy. The dread comes from the anticipation of getting the mix right, of not knowing whether it will rise enough, or puff the way it should when fried.

And the joy? Well, there is nothing as sumptuous as the smell of a kitchen filled with the aroma of freshly cooking doughnuts. It's a unique smell. It's not the deep, earthy aroma of a bread dough, or the sweet vanilla, chocolate or flavour-of-your-choice aroma of a cake. It's not the half-way-inbetween sweet earthiness of brioche. It is an unmistakable, uplifting, heart-lightening, worry-dissipating aroma all of its own. It has the power to entrance and delight. The power to carry the soul to another plane.

And there's nothing quite so close to unadulterated bliss as the taste of that first hot doughnut, drained, and dusted in cinnamon sugar. Feeling the slight crunch as your teeth break the crust then sink slowly into the light, fluffy fried dough, the smell of cinnamon wafting up to your nose, sugar coating your lips and spreading gently across your tongue. The burst and pop of tastebuds all across your tongue, as the flavours combine and your salivary glands spring into action.

There are things to remember and rules to follow when making doughnuts. They require yeast so, like bread, they need to be double proven to really work well. It means spending a little more time, but it's definitely worth it. I can't emphasise enough how important it is to double prove the dough (for breads and for doughnuts). This batch are probably my best to date. They rose beautifully and the gluten in the flour stretched its cobwebby fingers across pockets of nothingness, giving the doughnuts an ethereal lightness. Like all baking and bread recipes, you need to stick to the recipe as much as humanly possible.

I like deviating wildly from recipes and seeing what happens. In the kitchen, I'm a veritable mad-scientist tossing together ingredients like volatile chemicals, playing fast and loose with timings and temperatures to see what emerges, but I've learned along the way that breads and baked desserts are not to be messed with. They are the starched, Victorian, stiff-lipped, highly rule-governed great aunts of the baking world. They work according to ratios, so don't fiddle with the quantities, temperatures or timings. This, of course, comes with its own caveat. You can always fiddle with the quantities of flour and milk. In fact, it's necessary to do so according to the ambient humidity. The more moisture in the air, the more flour you'll need. The hotter and drier the day, the more liquid you'll need. The cooler the weather... well, you get the idea. Use your best judgement to get a firm, pliable and soft dough that's easy to knead.

...and don't forget the "holes"!

Doughnuts
(makes 30 doughnuts plus 30 holes - depending on size of cookie cutter)
Ingredients:
110g butter, cubed
375g plain flour
5 egg yolks
1 1/2 - 2 tbsp caster sugar
20g yeast
3/4 cup warm milk

oil for deep frying
caster sugar and ground cinnamon for dredging

Method:
Place milk, sugar and yeast in a bowl and stir until dissolved. Whisk in egg yolks.

Add flour to bowl of food processor. With motor on low speed, slowly pour in egg mixture and knead for 5 minutes.

Increase speed to medium, then add butter in 3 batches and beat until dough comes together. Remove dough and knead on a clean, dry surface until dough becomes shiny and smooth.

Place dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap (Glad Wrap/Cling Wrap etc.) and stand in a draught-free, warm place for at least 1 hour or until mixture doubles in volume.

Knock down dough, then roll out on a work surface until 2 cm thick (don't roll it too thin or you'll get flat doughnuts!). Use a cookie or pastry cutter to cut out your doughnuts. Remember that doughnuts will expand in the second proving, so don't worry if they look a little small when you cut them out. Use a smaller cookie cutter (I used the large end of an icing/frosting nozzle) to cut out the "holes" in the middle of the doughnut. Place doughnuts and holes around 4cm apart (to allow for expansion) on lightly oiled baking sheets (or you can cover your baking sheets in parchment/baking paper). Cover the trays and stand in a draught-free place for 1hour or until risen [I cheated a little here. I turned on the oven to around 200C while I was kneading, rolling and cutting the dough, then turned it off. I placed the doughnuts on the baking sheets in the warm oven with the door ajar to rise. It's much quicker and you get an even proofing].

Heat oil in a deep-fryer or deep saucepan to 180C [if you don't have a thermometer, it should take 10 seconds for a cube of bread to spin and brown. The temperature is important] and cook doughnuts in batches until golden on both sides. Drain well on absorbent paper [this step is important. Don't be tempted to dredge the doughnuts while still covered in oil. It makes them sweat and become sticky, and they won't last as long].

Dredge with combined caster sugar and ground cinnamon. Serve while still warm or wait till they cool down (these don't keep well and are best eaten within a couple of days).

NOTE: If you want jam-filled doughnuts, don't cut out the "holes". Proceed with the recipe otherwise and once dredged, use a long, thin piping nozzle and icing bag filled with jelly or conserve (use something with no pieces of fruit, which will get stuck in the end of the nozzle) to pierce and fill the doughnuts.

Hippety Hoppity!

It's Easter! Time for chocolate hangovers and hot cross buns coming out the wahzoo. So here's an easy recipe for hot cross buns (guess what we're having for breakfast??).

Hot Cross Buns
(makes 12)
Ingredients:
1 tbsp dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm milk
1/2 cup sugar (I use raw sugar)
4 1/2 cups plain flour
2 tsp mixed spice
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup dried cranberries
1 egg
50g melted butter

Method:
In a large bowl add the sugar, flour, yeast, mixed spice, cinnamon and dried fruit. Mix until combined.

Make a well in the centre and add the melted butter, egg and milk.

Use a butter knife to mix then tip out onto a lightly floured bench and knead for 8 minutes or until smooth and elastic (add more flour or milk if dough is too sticky or dry).

Place dough into a lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise in a warm place until doubled in size (I left mine overnight so the dough would be ready to bake for breakfast).

Take dough out and knead lightly then portion into 12 segments of roughly equal size.

Roll into balls with your hands and arrange on a greased baking tin (I prefer a tin for buns and rolls as the heat up the sides gives a more even cooking).

Allow to rise in a warm place for another 40 minutes. Use this time to preheat the oven to about 200C and make up a mixture for the crosses.

Crosses: mix flour and water till it is a wet paste and pipe over the buns.

Glaze mixture: 1/4 cup hot water, 3 tbsp of caster sugar.

Bake for 10 mins then turn oven down to 180C and cook for another 20-25 mins or until springy to touch.

Brush glaze over them as soon as they are out of the oven. Eat hot or allow to cool!

Baking Butter Biscuits

A bit of alliteration and some delicious basic biscuits are the result!

Butter Biscuits
(makes 30)
Ingredients:
125g butter, softened (I used salted butter to cut down on the sweetness of the biscuit)
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg, at room temperature
2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp milk

Method:
Preheat oven to 180C. Line two baking trays with baking parchment/paper.

Using a food processor or electric mixer, beat butter, sugar and vanilla until pale and creamy. Add egg and mix well until combined.

Sift flour and baking powder over butter mixture. Add milk and stir/mix until just combined.

Using 2 teaspoons of dough at a time, roll dough into balls. Place on lined baking trays. Using a lightly floured fork, flatten biscuits slightly (remember to allow room for spreading).

Bake for 12 - 15 minutes, swapping trays over in the oven after 10 minutes, or until light golden. Allow to cool on trays for 5 minutes. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Dust with icing sugar. Biscuits will keep up to a week in an airtight container.