Baking Times: Cheesecake Bulletin

Listening to: Hey, Soul Sister, Train.

I’m going to be honest: I haven’t actually done that much baking at all recently. Apart from baking a batch of brownies that I took to Paris for my sister’s French friends and taking another batch to my local pub quiz, as well as a casual cheesecake I might have baked, I haven’t really baked at all. Don’t worry; odd as it might sound, I reckon I’ll probably have more time to bake when I’m back at university…

Anyway, to tide you over, here’s ‘my’ cheesecake recipe. I say ‘my’, because it’s more the recipe I happen to use than my own recipe: I inherited most of it from my friend James, and I think he inherited it from Delia Smith, though in my experimentation I changed a couple of things. He actually swears by a different recipe now, so I’ve heard, but if I do say so myself, this one’s rather tasty, so I think it deserves to be shared. Plus, I’ve picked up a few handy tips from making it.

Cheesecake Recipe

For a 9 inch (~23cm) cheesecake tin; the cheesecake itself is around 1.5 inches (~4cm) tall. That’s about 95 square inches of cheesecake. In my experience, it’s good for serving around 16 slices, maybe more. Good for around 4 days maximum, if kept wrapped in the fridge.

Ingredients

For the base:

– 225g oat biscuits (I use Hobnobs)
– 75g unsalted butter (I find unsalted works better, but salted works fine too)

For the filling:

– 350g full-fat curd cheese (I use Philadelphia)
– 150g fromage frais
– 200g natural yoghurt
– 3 eggs
– 175g caster sugar
– 2 tsp (teaspoons) of vanilla extract or vanilla flavouring

For optional delight, blend some strawberries and halve some others, and serve with the cheesecake.

Equipment

– Large metal mixing bowl
– A pan to melt the butter in.
– Whisk
– Wooden spoon
– Sharp knife
– A plastic bag, or a food processor, to crush the biscuits.
– Baking paper

Method

– Crush the biscuits in the food processor or in the plastic bag. Pour into a metal bowl. The melt the butter in a pan, before adding this to the biscuits and mixing thoroughly. The mixture should feel like warm, wet and slightly greasy sand. Line ONLY the bottom of your tin with the baking paper, and press the mixture into an even base. Leave the base to set in the fridge while you make up the filling.

– Preheat your oven to 150 degrees Centigrade (Gas Mark 2, 300 degrees Fahrenheit).

– For the filling, add the cheese, the fromage frais, the yoghurt and the eggs. Whisk this mixture. As it starts to feel more liquid, whisk in the sugar. When the whole mixture is free of lumps, add two teaspoons of vanilla extract/flavouring, and mix them in.

– Remove the base from the fridge and pour the filling over it. Place the cake in the oven for 30 minutes, before leaving it to cool for about an hour in the oven (that tip’s definitely stolen from Delia). Move it to the fridge and leave to set overnight (this is because I tend to do late night baking – an hour is probably fine).

– For the optional sauce, simply cut the leaves from the strawberries, place them in the food processor and blend. I’ve never been one for getting rid of the seeds, but if you’d like to, use a sieve.

– Remove the cake from the tin using the baking paper and slide it off the baking paper. This should ensure that the base is intact when it reaches the plate, because I used to have problems removing the cake from the tin.

– Cut a slice and serve. A tip here is to use a hot knife, so that the base doesn’t stick to it and you end up with a neat slice.

Rather than this tweaked recipe I use for cheesecake, the next recipe I’m planning on putting up is very definitely my own; white chocolate blondies, a modification on the brownie recipe. Because apparently, brownies become blondies when you make them out of white chocolate.

Good times, and good baking.

Hadrian For Heroes – Part 1

Some people said that I didn’t really know what I was getting myself in for… looking back, they were probably right.

With Autumn drawing near, people have started to ask me how my Summer’s been. So I’ve had to tell them about this…

Hadrian For Heroes

Hadrian For Heroes. It was a simple enough idea: walk the length of Hadrian’s Wall with three of my friends, and raise some money for charity. 84 miles. 5 days. Summertime. It couldn’t be that hard, could it?

There were a couple of caveats to that: I’d never been camping before, and I’d never done any serious hiking either. Hence, probably, people’s surprise that I was doing such a thing.

At any rate, here’s an account of the whole thing, because I promised I’d do one if I survived.

Day 1 – Wallsend to Harlow Hill

With some messages of good luck, a bunch of borrowed camping gear (thanks Oli), I was the first to arrive at King’s Cross Station at 7:30 on the Wednesday morning. The others rocked up shortly after, and after buying a quick sandwich and musing at why there are no bins in the station (we concluded that this was because of the grim possibility of planting bombs in them), we boarded the train to Newcastle.

Fast forward three hours, and… we still hadn’t reached the start. The Newcastle Metro, whilst admirable, proved confusing for four ‘Londoners’ (I use that term in the loosest sense). After correctly guessing which direction we should be going in, we finally reached the start point… Wallsend.

This was definitely *before* I realised quite how far 84 miles was. (Photo courtesy of Louis)

The first day’s walking was supposed to be straightforward: yes, it was quite a long day, weighing in at somewhere around 19 miles, but we figured that, on relatively flat urban terrain and with fresh legs, it wouldn’t be too hard. Indeed, for much of the day, it seemed quite easy: armed with my large supply of Dairy Milk (the only snack I’d brought along thanks to some sage advice) and fresh legs, the early miles were straightforward, even with a minor detour about half way through the day resulting in an extra mile walked. The feet were hurting a little bit, though that was probably my own fault, considering that I’d done no physical preparation whatsoever and hadn’t worn the walking boots I’d chosen in at least 4 years. That would come to bite me back later.

Then we hit the first major hill. I don’t like hills, as you’ll find out later, but after a short rain storm we managed to climb into Heddon-On-The-Wall, for a stop at a shop for some quick refreshment. Or rather, what would have been some quick refreshment, but the shop was closed. At 7 on a Wednesday.

Despite that disappointment, we were still only a few miles from our stop for the night. Things couldn’t get much worse, could they…?

And then it started to rain. And it continued raining. In fact, it would continue raining all night. Following an enforced detour due to some obstinate cows blocking the gate out of a field (the first of many encounters), and a long walk up to the campsite… we still had a tent to put up. And putting tents up in the rain, I realised, is definitely not fun. But thanks to my friends we did it with a minimum of fuss and arguing, before settling down for the night.

And then we ordered pizza. Whilst it did cross our minds that doing so wasn’t really in the spirit of camping, we all agreed that we were hungry.

Ordering pizza to the tent, while not strictly in the spirit of the great outdoors, was a good move. And a tasty one.

It rained and rained, but filled with pizza and sleeping in a warm sleeping bag, I was actually quite happy.

~

And, for posterity, here are some quotes I took from day 1:

Oli: ‘The day I did pizza, pirate metal, and…’

Louis: ‘It peaked, troughed and peaked again.’

Joe: ‘I’m not good at quotes.’

~

That was day 1. There’ll be another couple of posts on this coming soon, chronicling the rest of our charitable shenanigans.

Pictures from Paris

Currently listening to: Don’t Speak, No Doubt.

I’m not quite sure why, but I like cities. They’re big, sometimes scary places, but at the same time I get a certain kind of comfort from them – comfort that I’m one in a few million, anonymous, free to roam and discover.

Roam and discover is essentially what I did in Paris when I visited a few weeks ago. With free time and a week pass for the metro in hand, I’d like to say that I had a fair go at seeing as much of Paris as I could. I couldn’t help but feel like a tourist, given the rudimentary nature of my spoken French, but it was still fun.

I might not have succeeded in capturing Paris’ spirit in poetry, but at least I tried to capture it on camera.

And so, here are some of the pictures I gathered. And yes, I’m still young enough to go to Disneyland with my sister.

The pictures were taken on my 3 year old Sony TX1 – a camera that lacks in overall punch, but makes up for it in speed. In the week and half I was in Paris, I succeeded in taking just over a thousand pictures, most of which weren’t really any good, but here’s the best ten.

Enjoy.

It’s Been Too Long

Currently listening to: Glory of Love, Peter Cetera

It’s been too long since I last wrote one of these, for a variety of reasons, some of which will hopefully become clear soon. In between a lot of travelling and an 84 mile charity walk which I’ll be summing up (hopefully) in a future post, I haven’t really had much time to write. That’s no excuse really, but it’s the best I’ve got.

Luckily, I’ve been relaxing, or as much as I can, in Paris recently; I’m writing this post from my hotel room. And with such time, comes time to read and write. There are a few things I can’t post here because I’ve submitted them for a publication, but in between that I’ve had time to write casually in the various jardins Paris has to offer. So here are a couple of poems to tide you over until my next proper post.

The Curious

Flip flops, no socks.
Brown hair and a curious gaze.
A red plastic bag half full with dreams
And her last word, lost on the breeze.

Sleep comes, no rest.
A door now closed waits alone.
Ink flows and shadows seep
Portals, to the dark and the deep.

We are gathered here today to remember,
Remember those who lie as we walk,
Wandering the streets without a name,
Now only a glance, lost to curious chance.

I’m Tired

I’m tired of leaving without saying goodbye,
I’m tired of saying no when no should be yes,
I’m tired, not knowing what choice to make,
I’m tired of running, of walking away,
I’m tired of looks and thoughts and sighs,
I’m tired, not saying what’s on my mind,
I’m tired of dreams that long have passed,
I’m tired of shadows within my grasp,
I’m tired; but I’ll see you when I wake.

Notre Dame de Paris

Notre Dame de Paris,
Now a spectacle,
Not more or less than a pilgrimage for some,
But merely a view, a sight for others.
Once so spiritual
The pretence remains amongst the grandeur
But even as I look upon her beauty,
The world moves on without her.