Chocolate cheesecake

Today was one of my friends' birthday, and with another friend we decided to invite ourselves over for a surprise celebration.

Originally I wasn't supposed to make any kind of cake, but I just couldn't resist the temptation, so this cake was the result of ingredients I happened to have available. :)
I didn't have cream cheese, but happened to have mascarpone, so I altered a previously used chocolate cheesecake recipe:




Chocolate cheesecake: (this recipe was for a ø15cm cake tin - for ø24cm multiply the amounts by 2,5)


90 g          dark or digestive biscuits
25 g          margarine

2               gelantin leaves
1 tbsp       water
125 g        milk chocolate (because I didn't have enough dark chocolate in my cupboards :) )
125 g        mascarpone cheese
0,2 dl        caster sugar
0,5 tsp      vanilla sugar
1               eggs (separated)
1 dl           whipping cream


Place the gelatin leaves into a bowl of cold water and melt 100 g of the chocolate. Chop the rest of the chocolate into small chips.

Crush the biscuits and mix with melted margarine. Place a baking sheet into a springform pan and spread the biscuit crumbs evenly by pressing gently into the bottom of the pan. Put in the fridge to set.

Whip the cream with vanilla sugar. Separate the egg yolk and mix it with mascarpone and slightly cooled melted chocolate. Whisk the egg white with sugar until it forms hard peaks.
When the gelatin leaves are soft, squeeze out excess water and melt them with a tablespoonful of boiling hot water. Add the gelatin into the mascarpone-chocolate mix, add the chocolate chips and carefully also mix in the whipped cream and egg whites.

Spread the mix on top of the biscuit crumb layer and leave to set in the fridge for several hours before serving.

Strawberry and rhubarb panna cotta (cake)

Last Friday I was with a group of people from work in Sokos Hotel Flamingo in Vantaa, and happened to also have a taste of vanilla panna cotta with summer berries. 

I have to admit that I had never eaten, let alone made a panna cotta before, so from the first spoonful my mind was racing with different ways to modify this dessert.

I browsed through the internet for different panna cotta recipes (and there are many!), and finally decided to combine them into my own version.

I wanted to fight the traditional way of serving this dessert and decided to make it in a springform pan (not a good idea), so I made a biscuit crumb layer in the bottom. Using a springform pan with this recipe was challenging, as the thin liquid panna cotta mix oozed out the sides before setting, and I had to spoon it back in the tin a couple of times. Luckily I was far-wise (?) and put the entire tin on a larger plate to begin with. (Perhaps it might have helped if I'd let the panna cotta mix cool down and set a bit more before pouring into the pan?)


Biscuit base: (for a ø20cm tin)

120 g   oatmeal biscuits
50 g     margarine

Crush the biscuits into small crumbs. Melt the margarine and add into the crumbs. Place a baking sheet into a springform pan and spread the biscuit crumbs evenly by pressing gently into the bottom of the pan.



Panna cotta:

6 dl       double cream
2 dl       semi-skimmed milk
0,5 dl    sugar
1           vanilla bean
5           gelatin leaves

Pour the cream, milk and sugar into a pan. Slice the vanilla bean lengthways and scrape the seeds into the cream. Boil the cream, milk, sugar and vanilla bean in a pan. Take off the heat, remove the vanilla bean, and carry on mixing every now and then. 
Put the gelatin leaves into cold water to soak for 5-10 minutes. When the gelatin leaves are soft, squeeze out excess water.
Put the gelatin leaves into the warm cream-mix and stir until they're completely dissolved. Let the mix cool down to body temperature before pouring into (cooled) dessert bowls. Let set in the fridge for a few hours.

If you want to try your luck with the springform pan, I recommend to try cooling the cream-mix down to a semi-set stage before pouring into the pan. Or alternatively you can spoon the oozed-out mix back into the pan every half an hour. :)


Rhubarb topping:

2 dl        water
2 dl        rhubarb sliced (approx.100g)
1 dl        jam sugar

Put the water and the rhubarb into a pan and bring to boil. Add the jam sugar into the boiling mix while stirring. Let cool down slightly and spoon over the already set panna cotta (over frozen or fresh strawberries). Place back in the fridge and let set for a while.

All kinds of cakes

strawberry and white chocolate cheesecake

I was planning on making a cheesecake to take to work, to celebrate the upcoming Christmas holiday, but because some of my work colleagues wished for other types of cakes, I decided to conduct a poll in my Finnish blog. The candidates on that poll were strawberry and white chocolate cheesecake, pear-flavoured layer cake, and a marble cake (a.k.a. "tiger cake").

pear-flavoured layer cake

Even after a dishonest poll the cheesecake was in the lead, but since I received an unexpected Christmas present of baking ingredients and my favourite chocolates from the colleague who suggested the pear-flavoured layer cake, I decided to make that one as well. And since it's Christmas, I also made the marble cake (or actually two) left in the last place in the poll.

I must be a little crazy, but all of these four cakes I made in one evening :)

The marble cake (or "tiger cake" as it's known in Finland) recipe is an age-old treasure, but this was the first time I'd ever made two of these cakes at the same time.



Tiger cake:

tiger cakes

250 g          baking margarine
2,5 dl           sugar
1 tl               vanilla sugar
4                  eggs
250 g          plain flour
1,5 tl            baking powder
0,5 dl           orange juice or milk
2 rkl             dark cocoa powder
0,5 dl           coffee, orange juice or milk



Beat together the sugar, vanilla sugar and softened margarine until fluffy. Add one egg at a time.
Mix the flour and the baking powder together in a separate bowl and add to the batter. Add 0,5dl of orange juice or milk and incorporate to the batter.
Take a few spoonfuls of the batter into another bowl and add the cocoa powder and rest of the liquid.

Pour half of the lighter batter into a greased and bread-crumbed bundt pan, add the dark batter and on top of it rest of the lighter batter. Mix the dark batter into the light one by twisting a fork in an up-right position around the pan whilst also moving the fork up and down in the mix.
Make a groove in the middle of the batter (in a circle around the pan) so that the cake will rise more evenly.

Bake in 175°C for 50-60 minutes. Allow to cool down slightly before turning the cake upright.

Independence day blueberry and white chocolate quark cake

Brilliant! A national holiday and a reason to make something yummy!

Different kinds of gelatin-based cakes are easy and fast to make, and I have had for some time now an idea to take a ordinary jellied cake "to the next level". This blueberry and white chocolate quark cake isn't that quick to prepare, as its two differently flavoured layers both require their own time to set.

And when I speak about layers, I don't mean layers as such, but more like a cake inside a cake. The outcome was as hoped, but patience this cake requires more than a traditional two or three layered gelatin based cake.

On top of everything I made two different size cakes - one for work and one for my family to have over an Independence day dinner. The loose base tins I had to use were ø20cm, ø24cm and ø26cm, and I also borrowed another ø24cm tin from my mum for the "hidden layer" of the bigger cake.

First I made the base in the larger tin, then
the smaller cake on top of that

Because I wanted to make a quark cake the top layer of which would also cover the sides, I had to calculate the volumes of each cake very carefully. The formula I used was more or less like this:
π*x²*h (inner cake) + π*y²*(h+1)-π*x²*h (outer layer), 
in which x is the radius of the smaller tin, y is the radius of the larger tin and h is the height of the inner cake (in centimeters). I had to check how to calculate the area of a circle, as after years of not needing that information, I had forgotten how to calculate it. :)
This time the actual making of the cake was a bit over shadowed by all this nerdiness, at least when it comes to the time used. But well begun is half done!

For the inner cake I made a blueberry quark cake and for the top layer I made a white chocolate quark cake slightly modifying the recipe of the orange and white chocolate cheesecake I made earlier. This time I used way too much gelatin for the top layer, and I had to whisk the mix frantically every so often while I was spreading it on top of the cakes. So this wasn't quite the perfect execution. Because the white chocolate quark was difficult to spread, I decided to add a blueberry "mirror" layer on top to try to improve the look of the cakes.


HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY FINLAND!

Mango and quark "cheese" cake

I received an order of a mango and quark "cheese" cake with this exact recipe so I decided to try (and taste) it a little beforehand.

I made the cake in a ø20cm loose base cake tin, and with this recipe the top layer of the cake turned out a little too thick. I think for the actual cake I will make a smaller quantity for the top layer to get a tidier finish.

Because this was just a practice version, I tried to decorate the cake with a chocolate ornament I saw in some other blog. Because it was just for practice, I just hand draw this ornament quickly on a piece of paper and then piped it with melted dark chocolate.

Because there was chocolate left over, I decided to add a couple of butterflies on top of the cake.

Finished cake with chocolate ornament and chocolate butterflies

Mango and quark "cheese" cake recipe:

Base:

150 g             oatmeal biscuits

50 g                baking margarine

Middle layer:

6                     leaves of gelatin

2 dl                 double cream

200 g             vanilla flavoured quark

300 g             mango purée

2 tsp              vanilla sugar

0,5 dl             sugar

2 tbsp            orange juice

Top layer:

1 dl                water

ca. 250 g      mango purée

1,25 dl           jelly sugar

Base:

Mix together biscuit crumbs and melted margarine and press carefully but firmly at the bottom of a loose base cake tin. Place in the fridge to set.

Middle layer:

Soak the gelatin leaves in cold water for about ten minutes until they're soft. Whisk the cream and vanilla sugar into a whipped cream. Combine the quark, mango purée and sugar in a separate bowl.

Squeeze out excess water from the soaked gelatin leaves and mix well with a couple of tablespoons of boiling hot orange juice. Combine the gelatin mix carefully whisking into the mango-quark mix. Mix in the whipped cream and pour into the pan over the biscuit crumbs. Leave to set in a fridge over night, or at least for five hours.

Top layer:

Mix water and the mango purée in a pan and bring to boil. Add the jelly sugar slowly while whisking, and boil for about a minute. Leave to cool a bit before pouring over the cake. Place the cake back in the fridge until the top layer has set

Orange and white chocolate cheesecake

For some reason every edible thing I see seems to want to turn itself into a pastry of some kind.


Therefore the oranges, cream cheese and white chocolate in my cupboard didn't stay as simply oranges, cream cheese and white chocolate for long, but turned themselves into a orange and white chocolate cheesecake

There would have been recipes for this combination readily available on the internet, but I decided to go by feeling and throw different ingredients together for this one.



So here's my version of this:



Base:

175 g        dark chocolate biscuits
50 g          baking margarine


Cheese layer:

5                leaves of gelatine
2 rkl           orange juice
2                oranges' grated zest
0,5             orange's pulp finely chopped
200 g        white chocolate
200 g        unflavoured cream cheese

orange slices are put to the tin after the biscuit crumbs
and before the cheese mix

0,5 dl         granulated sugar
2 dl            double cream
1 tl             vanilla sugar


Top layer:

2                 leaves of gelatin
2 dl             orange juice


To decorate:

orange slices
dark chocolate

Place grease proof paper on the bottom of a spring form pan (approx. ø24 cm). (Cover the sides with a plastic strip designed for the purpose if you have one, to get a smooth finish)

Mix together biscuit crumbs and melted margarine and press the mixture firmly but gently into the bottom of the pan. Put in the fridge to set while you make the cheese mix.

Cheese mix:

Soak the gelatin leaves in cold water for about ten minutes until they're soft. Melt the white chocolate in a double boiler. Whisk the cream and vanilla sugar into a whipped cream. Combine the cream cheese, orange zest, orange pulp pieces, granulated sugar and white chocolate in a separate bowl.

Squeeze out excess water from the soaked gelatin leaves and mix well with a couple of tablespoons of boiling hot orange juice. Combine the gelatin mix carefully whisking into the cheese-white chocolate mix. Mix in the whipped cream and pour into the pan over the biscuit crumbs. Leave to set in a fridge over night, or at least for five hours.

Top layer: 

Soak the gelatin leaves in cold water for about ten minutes until they're soft. Squeeze out excess water from the soaked gelatin leaves and mix well with a couple of tablespoons of boiling hot orange juice. Combine the gelatin mix thoroughly whisking into the rest of the orange juice. Pour the top layer on top of the cheese mix and let solidify in the fridge.