Cheesecake Debut

 Yes, today is the day I decided to finally start my food blog! I have put this off for a really long time (using your average "I'll do it tomorrow, when I'm not busy" excuse).

Firstly, I should probably start with a brief summary of the day.

I had tennis at 12, where I cringed while watching an 8 year old play better than me. I came out feeling very depressed about my tennis skills, which lack... a lot. Especially when compared to that 8 year old. 

Later, my mom insisted that I buy the ingredients straight away. So that's how I ended up going to Blue City looking like a dresiarz- with the typical coat with a fur-lined hood, sweats and tacky looking sports shoes. All I had to do to complete the "look" was shave my head bald. I swear, I saw an old lady glare at me... After many misunderstandings about what cream cheese was in polish (I ended up buying "aksmatiny" twarozek, whatever that is), we finally got all the ingredients. 

At around 2 I finally started making the cheesecake. 

The recipe I decided to use was Sam Stern's Our Fave Cheesecake:

Ingredients


For 8-10


225 g/8 oz ginger or digestive biscuits
75 g/3 oz butter
675 g/1 1/2lb curd cheese or cream cheese
175 g/6 oz caster sugar
3 eggs
1 lemon
Few drops vanilla extract
Chinese gooseberries
Strawberries or raspberries
300 ml/1 1/2 pint double cream

Method

1. Preheat oven to 150°C/300°F/gas 2. Use butter to grease a round 23 cm/9 inch loose-bottomed cake tin.

2. Stick biscuits in a freezer bag. Bash with a rolling pin till they're in fine crumbs. Or blitz in a processor. 

3. Melt butter in pan. Add crumbs. Stir to mix. Tip into the cake tin. Press evenly to cover. Firm up in fridge.

4. Tip cheese, caster sugar, eggs, lemon rind, vanilla extract and good squeeze of lemon into processor. Blitz briefly till just smooth. (No machine? Beat together with a wooden spoon.) 

5. Pour cheesecake to cover biscuit base. Bake for 35-40 minutes. Turn off oven. Leave cake in there to cool and firm up. Chill for 2 hours at least. 

6. Stick fruit in to decorate. Or cover with whipped cream and pile with fruit of choice.

Well that's the original recipe anyways, I kind of "tweaked" it... by accident. 

The Making Of The Cheese Cake (Broken Down):


1. Took out the GO cookies (nearest thing I could think of to digestives), put them in a mortar and crushed them to oblivion. Well, to fine cookie crumbs.

 2.  I  then put them into a pan... forgetting about the butter.


3. Had to transfer the cookie crumbs into a bowl, then put butter into the pan and let it melt.   THEN poured the cookie crumbs into the pan, for the second time.

4. Put the crumbs into a cake tin, pressed it into what I thought was a proper base and was ready to let it "set". I poked it out of curiosity,and to my dismay, felt it shift (for lack of better word) under my finger. It was heartbreaking.


5. I decided I would put a twist on things, and instead of mixing more butter into the crumbs, which had proved to be ineffective, I melted more butter, and drizzled it ONTO the cookie crumbs. (Note: The patches on the base are from the melted butter.)

6. Put the cake tin into the fridge, squishing some stuff underneath it because of the lack of space. The stuff was like vietnamese red sticky rice or something...


7. I put the cream cheese and double cream into a food processor. Then thought "Shit! The egg and sugar won't fit!" 


8. Had a panic attack because the cream and cream cheese mixture was spilling over the top. Then, following my panic attack, realized that I wasn't meant to add the cream to the mixture. It was for the topping...


9. Decided, what's done was done, and that I should move on. Also, decided that maybe in this case, IN is better than OUT. 


10. Had a brilliant idea. Poured the cream cheese and cream into a bowl, and using an electric whisk, whisked everything together.

11. Added sugar and egg, then whisked it again.

12. Squeezed in lemon, and whisked for the third time.

13. Took out the cake tin with base, and poured in the filling.

14. Remembered that I forgot to preheat the oven.


15. Preheated it.


16. Put the cheesecake in. Left it there for around 35 minutes.


17. Took it out.


18. Cleaned up, while I waited for the cake to set in the fridge. During this time pulled out the whisk thingy out of the actual electric whisker too hard and spattered the whole kitchen.

19. Right now, I am still waiting for it to set.


Overall: Not too bad :)