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Heaven on a plate

JANE AND CATHERINE AND VANESSA AND AMANDA AND EDIE AND DOREEN’S FAMOUS CHEESECAKE

For the crust:

500 ml Ginger Nuts or similar (Catherine says Marie Biscuits, but I say, oh pooh, Ginger Nuts all the way)

113g of butter, melted, or a little more, if you want.

Method:

Bash the biscuits in a plastic bag, if you haven’t got the right equipment. (I’m on holiday. I’ve got some of my stuff, but not all.) You choose how finely you want them crunched.

Melt the butter and mix together until the texture looks like crumble. Line the base of a spring-form cake tin and as much of the sides as you can manage. Don’t worry about perfection. That’s it.

For the filling:

2  tubs low-fat smooth cottage cheese (650 ml.) Or, you can use full-fat if you are feeling robust.

1 tub (250 ml)sour cream

3 eggs

2 bottle tops of brandy

A generous slug of real coffee

3/4 cup (180ml) of sugar (Sorry, but you have to)

200g (2 bars) of dark Lindt or Cadbury’s Bourneville Chocolate

2T of cocoa

Preheat oven to 175/180 deg centigrade. Melt chocolate over heat. Mix cottage cheese and sour cream and blend well. Add the eggs, sugar, coffee, brandy and vanilla and beat well. Mix in melted chocolate and cocoa. When it’s a handsome cappucino colour, pour into crust and bake for 45 minutes. When you take it out the oven, it looks a little wobbly. That’s fine. Let it cool down and stick it in the fridge.

Just a note on the photo, it is a stock photo that I downloaded from the internet as I have been frustrated with the lack of good light or photographic equipment available in my house. I am hoping that after the Food Bloggers Indaba (http://foodbloggerindaba.com/) in June, I will have a better understanding of food photography and have better quality photos for this blog.

Have you found recipes in unusual places? Sometimes the best recipes are found when you’re not looking for them and it makes me very grateful for the age of technology that we live in because you never have to copy, cut out or paste into a recipe book again.

I spent some time with my mom and sister this Easter and I find it a little tricky to buy Easter Eggs for the adults that are not over the R100 mark that are fancy enough for adults. So I decided to rather bake something special. I did a little scratching around on the internet and found a recipe over here http://www.exclusivelyfood.com.au/2006/07/white-chocolate-mud-cake-recipe.html for White Chocolate mud cake that uses 500g of white chocolate that certainly sounded decadent enough. The best part about this recipe is that it is very easy to make and you actually need to make it a few days in advance to allow the flavours to develop. I made it on Thursday afternoon and served it on Sunday. It definately improves over  time. 

White chocolate Mud Cake

Serves about 16.

We use a 20ml tablespoon and 250ml measuring cup for all of our recipes.

300g white chocolate (we use Cadbury Dream white chocolate)
200g butter (if using unsalted butter, add 1/4 teaspoon fine table salt with the butter)
250ml (1 cup) milk
165g (3/4 cup) caster sugar
2 teaspoons (10ml) vanilla extract
2 large eggs, lightly beaten (we use eggs with a minimum weight of 59g)
100g (2/3 cup) self-raising flour
150g (1 cup) plain flour

Sour Cream and White Chocolate Ganache
200g white chocolate
88g sour cream

Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius (145 degrees Celsius fan-forced).Grease a 20cm square cake pan and line the base and sides of the pan with baking paper. Place chocolate, butter, milk and sugar in a large saucepan over low heat, stirring frequently. Remove from heat when chocolate and butter have melted, and stir mixture until completely smooth. Allow mixture to cool at room temperature for 15 minutes. Add vanilla and eggs to chocolate mixture and stir until well combined. Stir flours together in a large bowl. Add one cup of chocolate mixture to the flour and stir until a smooth paste forms. Repeat with another cup of the chocolate mixture. Add remaining chocolate mixture and stir until mixture is smooth. This gradual method of combining the wet and dry ingredients helps prevent lumps. Pour mixture into prepared pan. Bake for about 1 hour 10 minutes to 1 hour 20 minutes. When the cake is ready, a fine-bladed knife inserted into the centre of the cake should come out without any batter attached. Loosely cover cake with greaseproof paper or a clean tea towel and allow it to cool to room temperature in pan. The cooled cake can be iced with the white chocolate ganache immediately (see directions below), or stored and then iced on the day of serving. Store cake in an airtight container in the refrigerator and bring to room temperature before serving. The cake is suitable to freeze iced or un-iced.

Sour Cream and White Chocolate Ganache
Melt white chocolate in a small saucepan over very low heat, stirring frequently. When chocolate has completely melted, remove from heat and quickly stir in sour cream. Use immediately, or if your ganache is quite runny, set it aside at room temperature to thicken slightly before using.