Sarah's Raspberry Cheesecake

Having just posted my February bake - I've realised I should break away from baking with raspberries!

March's baking challenge called for a cheesecake. I must admit, I have a trusty lemon cheesecake recipe which I usually call upon - however I thought I'd make something I've not baked before - so I went for a baked cheesecake.

This recipe was from Rachel Allen, and I agree with the description on the BBC Food website - this was really light and fluffy. I used a bigger tin (23 cm) than the recipe called for (20 cm) but I just upped the recipe for the biscuit base and added 100g more crème fraiche and an extra egg.

Biscuit base
225g digestive biscuits
75g butter

Filling
500g ricotta
300g crème fraiche
175g caster sugar
4 eggs
zest and juice of a lemon
1 tbsp honey
2 tsp vanilla extract
250g raspberries

 This was really quick and easy to make as it required no whisking of cream or egg whites for example. Mix all the ingredients together, and stir through half the raspberries. Pour on top of the biscuit base, and sprinkle the rest of the raspberries on top. Bake for 40 minutes at 180C and leave to cool before chilling in the fridge for a few hours before serving.

We had a few friends over for Sunday lunch who were worthy participants for the taste test. This is Chris with his first portion...

I was surprised I liked this so much as I normally prefer refrigerated cheesecakes to baked cheesecakes, but this was so light and airy I would be temped to make this again - although I might try using blueberries next time, just to add some variety to my 5-a day!

Sarah's Raspberry and Amaretto Bakewell Tart

Apologies to my fellow QoTs, I am VERY late with my contribution for February! However, here is the my version of a Bakewell Tart. I followed (roughly!) a recipe from The Hairy Bikers which used ground almonds in the pastry for some extra almond goodness! The pastry was easy to make and very good to handle and roll out.

For the almond pastry, blitz all the dry ingredients in a food processor until breadcrumbs  then add the eggs and bring together using the 'pulse' setting of the food processor.

Almond pastry

425g plain flour

250g unsalted butter

100g caster sugar

50g ground almonds

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg

2 egg yolks

Chill in fridge for an hour before rolling out and lining a 23cm loose-bottomed tart tin. Bake blind for 15 mins at 180 C. When the pastry has cooled, spread with the raspberry jam.

Filling

400g ground almonds

175g caster sugar

8 eggs

1/2 tsp almond essence (I added a good slug of Amaretto instead!)

3 tbsp raspberry jam

50g flaked almonds to decorate the top

For the filling, mix everything together, saving the flaked almonds to sprinkle on the top. Bake at 165 C for 25-30 mins. 

This smelled so lovely when it came out the oven, it was a bit difficult to wait until pudding time! Tim really loved it and I will definitely make one again, the pastry was lovely and crisp with no soggy bottom! 

There was so much left that I froze the rest of it and have been defrosting a slice or two at at time. Goes well with custard, or vanilla ice cream.

Sarah's Amaretto Cupcakes

So, for my January bake I made Amaretto and Orange Cupcakes. This is a bit of an invention I must admit, however I am quite impressed with them. I just made a basic cupcake mix, and then added the zest of a large orange, and about 50 ml of Amaretto.



I tried to lighten the calorie load by not using butter icing so I used Royal icing instead - with half an Amaretti biscuit crumbled on top - yum yum!

Sarah's attempt at macaroons!

Well - these were a bit of a disaster!

For this month's challenge bake, I decided to use Lorraine Pascale's recipe for macaroons which I found on the BBC food website - see link here http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/macaroons_04669.

I used raspberries to flavour them, but I added a bit of red food colouring to make the colour more intense without making the mixture too sloppy. Overall the recipe was easy to follow and quite simple, but I was struggling without the use of an electric whisk for the egg whites. As a result, I don't think the mixture was stiff enough, and piping these babies out on greaseproof paper was a nightmare. I rested them before baking but after an hour I still didn't have a skin on the top - perhaps this is why they aren't nice and shiny. 

Although you wouldn't think it from the photos I did attempt to use a template to keep my macaroons the same size! For the filling I used fresh cream flavoured with rose water. 

Not sure that I'd get many points from Paul Hollywood for consistency...! They were nice though and I would have another go once I get an electric whisk (don't worry, it's on my Christmas present list!)

Sarah's Victoria Sponge

This recipe is from Waitrose and always works well (so far at least!). This time I used the zest, and juice from a lemon in the butter cream.