A magical mousse

Did someone say chocolate? Yes, but not just any chocolate – dark, rich and creamy and smooth chocolate mousse. I apologize for the delayed first post of the month. I’ve been feeling a bit stuck -- it's that time of year where I have to re-think life and work, and torture myself with deep and existential questions.

Cheese is what you need

It has been raining every day in Sydney.  Cheesecake is the kind of comfort you need on rainy days or when the weather is cold.

I love the creamy, smooth quality of the cheese against the crunch of the biscuit base and the sweet aftertaste. You don’t need a lot of sugar in cheesecake – somehow its richness is satisfying enough.

Sweet, creamy, tangy and refreshing – are some of the words that come to mind after tasting my baked citrus cheesecake. I used the zest and juice of lemon in the cake and served it with fresh mandarins. I kept the cake simple so that the freshness of ingredients would stand out; fresh ricotta, cream cheese, eggs, lemon and agave made up the body of the cake and I used wholemeal biscuits for the base.

My baked citrus cheesecake was super easy to make so I hope you try it out for yourself!

And for more cheesecake type recipes see here and here.

baked citrus cheesecake

serves 6-8

crust

125g/12 biscuits wholemeal biscuits (you could also use graham crackers, granita)

1 1/2  tbsp melted butter

filling

250g or 1 1/2 cups cream cheese (package)

250g fresh ricotta cheese

3 eggs – 2 whole and 1 yolk

zest from 1 lemon, juice from half

2 tbsp dark agave syrup (use honey or other sweetner if you don’t have it)

1 tbsp demerara sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 170 degrees C.

Line the bottom of a 20cm springform pan with baking paper.

To make the crust, place biscuits in a processor and process until biscuits resemble sand-like texture. Place into bowl with melted butter and mix through. Place mixture into pan and press down.  Bake 5 minutes or until golden and take out to let cool.

To make filling: in a processor or with a beater mix both cheeses until softened, add in eggs one at a time, zest of lemon and juice, and agave syrup. Beat until everything becomes smooth . To get a dense and rich cheesecake make sure not to beat too much air into mix – it will just end up flopping in the centre. Once the filling is smooth, pour into pan on top of crust and sprinkle with demerara sugar (I do this to get a little bruléed crust). Cover pan with foil and place into centre shelf to bake* for 45 minutes – remove foil and bake another 15 minutes or until centre is firm.  Once baked, take out and let cool – refrigerate for a few hours – if you can wait! To serve, add mandarins or any other citrus fruit – pour over more agave syrup or use jam to add more sweetness. Enjoy!

*These are baking guidelines since ovens do vary – just make sure to keep an eye on the cake checking every 20 minutes or so.

Flavourful flakiness

When I was little my sister and I frequented a convenience store nearby our house. The store was a kids' dream – full of an endless variety of candy. While I would often go for hard, sugary candies like 'gobstoppers', my sister typically went for a yummy pastry filled with jam and cream, aptly named ‘passion flakie’.

Over time I have also come to appreciate creamy, flaky pastry items. While I do sometimes crave the trashy flavours of a store-bought, plastic-wrapped dessert, most often I decide to recreate a fresh, somewhat healthier version at home.

So here it is – my version of the passion flakie. I used fresh rhubarb to make a rhubarb, ginger and raspberry compote for a much more adult and classy version of this dessert. I made a cream cheese filling; sweet, creamy and vanilla-flecked. I used puff pastry – store-bought because I didn’t have the time or energy to make puff pastry and well, I just don’t make it as beautifully as I would like to. Once assembled together, these delicious little puffs of cream and sweet-sourness were devoured by my husband – just a few left!

rhubarb, raspberry and ginger cream puffs

makes about 10 little puffs – depending on how generously you fill them!

puff

1 package puff pastry

flour for dusting

icing sugar for sprinkling

compote

300g rhubarb, cut into 2 inch pieces

100g raspberries – frozen is fine

1/2  tsp grated fresh ginger

250ml water

30g raw sugar

2 inch piece lemon peel

1/2 vanilla bean

cream cheese

125g low fat cream cheese

1tbsp thickened cream

1 tbsp dark agave syrup

juice of a lemon wedge

Preheat oven to 220 degrees C

For the pastry: dust surface with flour and roll out pastry.  Using a cookie cutter, cut out 8cm circles and place onto baking sheet lined with baking paper. Place tray of pastry in fridge while prepping other ingredients.

For compote: place all ingredients except raspberries into pot and cook on medium heat for 5 minutes or until rhubarb is just soft. Take out rhubarb and add raspberries. Cook until thickened and raspberries have broken down. Add rhubarb back into pot and adjust for sweetness. Take off heat and let cool.

For cream cheese filling: bring cream cheese to room temperature, mix with other ingredients and place into fridge until ready to assemble.

Dust pastry with icing sugar and place into hot oven. Bake 5-6 minutes or until golden. Take out, let cool and slice through the middle to create two halves.  Assemble the puffs, first with a layer of cream and then compote, add the top layer and dust generously with icing sugar. Enjoy!

           

Rye not?

I miss a number of things about living in the Netherlands - mostly I miss my wonderful family living there.  But I also miss a couple of common or everyday Dutch items like beautiful dark bread.

Dutch people, much like other Northern Europeans, love their dark bread and take it seriously. I remember strolling markets and stores and seeing shelves stocked with many different shades of dark bread – baguettes to rolls to crispbread. Hardly any white bread was to be found. Given how healthy dark, whole grains are, I think this is a great way to approach eating.

Rye is one of those strong grains – hearty and rich with lots of flavour. I wanted to make a type of roggebrood (famous dutch rye bread), but I wanted it to be a snack like crispbread. I added caraway – a famous spice added to rye breads. Caraway lends a lovely perfume, almost like licorice but not entirely like anise seed. I also added pink sea salt before baking which added the perfect touch to the dense yet crispy rye.

I used my snack bread to create these little pink hors d’oevres. I topped the rye breads with smoked salmon, lemony cream cheese, fresh dill and shibazuke pickles (a Japanese pickled vegetable that you can find at most Asian food stores). I simply love the colour combination of the dark brown with different shades of pink and bright green. Almost looks too good to eat doesn’t it? Almost…

rye crispbread

makes approximately 24 crispbreads

recipe slightly adapted from epicurious  

*use organic if available

crispbread

1 tsp active dried yeast

1 cup warm water

1 1/3 cup rye flour

1 1/3 cup all purpose flour

1 tbsp caraway seeds, toasted

1 1/2 tsp pink sea salt

cream cheese spread

1/2 cup cream cheese

2 tbsp yoghurt

1/2 lemon for juice (1 tsp zest)

salt and pepper

topping

4-6 oz thinly sliced smoked salmon, cut into smallish pieces

24 pieces shibazuke pickles (if you can’t get these use slices of pink ginger)

sprigs of fresh dill

  

To make the crispbreads: first mix together yeast with warm water and let stand until foamy (around 5 minutes or so).  In a large bowl* add 1 cup rye and 1 cup plain flour, caraway seeds, and half the salt and mix in with yeast water mixture until incorporated. Gradually mix in remaining flour (2/3 cup).  Mix dough well until it begins to pull away from sides of the bowl, then knead/mix another 5 minutes.

Gather dough into ball and place into oiled bowl. Cover bowl with wrap and leave in warmish area to proof – takes about 1 1/2 hours.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

Cut dough in half and flatten each piece with lightly floured fingers to form 2 (6 by 4-inch) rectangles. Let stand a few minutes and roll out each piece onto lightly floured surface into a 15-by-10-inch rectangle (1/8 inch thick).  Transfer each sheet to lightly oiled baking sheet. Cut edges to make it look more neat and then dock all over with tines of fork. Let rest 10 minutes, cover with damp cloth.  I made perforated lines with a pizza cutter – not cutting through all the way but tracing to ensure that it would be easy to break off once baked. You could do this with the fork as well. Sprinkle with the rest of the salt.

Bake in upper and lower thirds of oven, switching halfway between until golden and crisp, roughly 20 minutes. Take out and let cool. Break into pieces.

To make spread: mix cream cheese, yoghurt and lemon zest and juice.  At first it seems like it won’t mix smoothly but keep mixing! Add salt and pepper.  Spread onto cooled crispbreads, top with slices of salmon, a pickle and sprig of dill. Voila!

 *I didn’t use an electric mixer since I don’t have one but the old fashioned way - using my hands and muscles - worked just as well!