Mint Chocolate Cheesecake

In New Zealand the 6th February is a public holiday as it is the day that our Treaty was signed between the British and the Maori back in 1840 (Haha, look at my history teacher training coming out!).  This year the 6th of Feb happened to be a Monday which meant a long weekend baby!  Simon and I headed up North to my families beach house in Ruakaka.  The weather was pretty rubbish so there wasn’t much swimming going on.  However, I had a relaxing time reading my book and baking (I made Neenish tarts too, which will be posted up soon).  On the Sunday I felt like making something rich and indulgent.  I decided upon a mint cheesecake.  I didn’t have any recipes with me though (and there’s pretty much zero cell phone coverage and no internet), so I made this one up!  I was pretty impressed with the result too and will be making it again :)

Base:
1 cup biscuit crumbs (we use Farmbake Choc Chip Fudge Cookies)
⅓ cup butter, melted

Filling:
250g cream cheese
⅓ cup caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon gelatine
2 teaspoons hot water
1 cup cream
¼ teaspoon green food colouring
1 teaspoon peppermint essence
5 – 6 mint slice biscuits, roughly chopped
1 Cadbury mint bubbly chocolate bar, crumbled (optional decoration)

Combine the biscuit crumbs and butter.  Press into the base of a 20cm round spring form tin and then chill.  Whip the cream until it holds its shape, then refrigerate.
Beat the cream cheese, caster sugar, food colouring, peppermint and vanilla essence together until smooth.
Sprinkle the gelatine over the hot water and then stir to dissolve.  Add the gelatine to the cream cheese mixture and beat the mixture again. 
Add the mint slice biscuits and whipped cream, fold the cream through.
Cover the biscuit base with the cream cheese mixture and smooth out the top.  Refrigerate for at least two hours or until set.  Sprinkle the Mint Bubbly chocolate bar over the top to decorate.

Hope all my fellow Kiwi’s had a great long weekend!

One Dough – Hundreds of Biscuits

In the Easter 2011 ‘Indulge’ magazine put out by Countdown there is a fantastic biscuit recipe that I have had heaps of fun playing around with.  It is easy peasy and makes a good 50+ biscuits each batch.


All you need is:
250g butter, room temperature
¾ cup caster sugar
⅔ cup condensed milk
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
4 cups self raising flour

Use an electric beater to combine butter, sugar, condensed milk, egg and vanilla until light and creamy.  Add flour and stir with a wooden spoon until combined.

At this point you can divide your mixture (the magazine recommends in 3) and start adding different ingredients to make your different biscuits.  My favourite is a raspberry (I use a natural soft raspberry liquorice log, chopped up), pistachio nut and white chocolate combo.  I’ve also tried, triple choc – add cocoa powder, white chocolate, milk chocolate and dark chocolate drops, and chocolate chip biscuits – just add chocolate chips.  You could add dried fruit, smarties or m&m’s would be great for kids lunch boxes or birthday parties.  Give them a go and experiment, be sure to let us know how they turn out!

To bake roll two teaspoons of mixture into a ball and flatten with a fork.  You can also make mixture into a log, chill and cut into biscuits if you prefer a more perfect look.  Bake time and number of biscuits will vary depending on your fillings but a guide to bake time is about 12mins in a 180˚C oven, just keep an eye on them.  You should get at least 40 biscuits out of the mixture (the first time I used it and made three different types of biscuits I got 60).

*Tip – Due to the popular demand of the raspberry, white chocolate and pistachio biscuits in our house I divide the mixture in half and make into x2 logs which I place in the freezer, one just until it is hardening then I cut it into 24 pieces and lay them on a biscuit tray to bake.  The other, I leave until we are out or our supply is low and thaw until it is able to be cut, but is still semi frozen, and bake.

Before we left Melbourne…

We managed to squeeze in a little more chocolate.  I made Simon go to the Lindt cafe with me.  This is what happened…

We got free samples of this delicious cake upon being seated. 

Then my hot chocolate arrived.  It came as a wee jug of melted chocolate and a jug of frothed milk so I could mix it myself.  

My hot chocolate was accompanied by Simon’s chocolate milkshake.  Mmmmm mm.

Next came our food.  Simon ordered a chocolate lava cake and I had the chocolate lovers waffle.  Yes, that is another little jug of melted chocolate.

I poured the little jug of melted chocolate on my waffle.  I was a tiny bit embarrassed by the heart attack that sat upon my plate.  The waiter came over and asked if I would like some more chocolate.

This is the end result – dishes that looked like a chocolate tornado had swept across the table and chocolate food baby stomachs.  Now, I know what I ordered was really piggy, so I would like to add that Simon did eat some of it.  I couldn’t manage on my own.  Also, I apologise for the photography – we left our cameras at home and had to use a phone.  We are back in New Zealand now, the holiday is over.  I will be watching what I eat and getting back into exercising :(

Inspiration: Romantic Breakfast

High Tea

Over the summer Melissa and I went to high tea, at the Langham Hotel in central Auckland. We really enjoyed it but thought we could probably do better ourselves.  Over the weekend we put this theory to the test and made high tea for a group of the girls we work with.

We had a fantastic time putting it together and an even better time sitting down to enjoy it with friends. Our menu consisted of cupcakes, caramel brûlée slice, mini bacon and egg pies, melting moments, scones with jam and cream, and petite sandwiches.

There will be numerous posts to follow with recipes, so you too can create the delicious goodies we enjoyed or maybe even put together your own high tea. 

 
 
 

Pretty Coloured Icing

Look what I just found…

Hansells have set up a website – you can join a baking club, access a whole heap of recipes, watch videos, etc.  They also have this cute little chart in the ‘tips’ section which tells you what colour food colouring to add and how much you need, to get your desired colour when making butter icing.  Brilliant.  I found this through an advert in the latest ‘Indulge’ magazine that Foodtown, Countdown and Woolworths give out for free to their One Card Holders which is out now for April – May 2010.