New York via Bucharest Baked Cheesecake

What is so quintessentially New York is of course good old immigrant fare. Cooking desserts with sweet cheese is part of all European sweet cooking – from Polish cheesecake (“Sernik”) to Romanian sweet cheese doughnuts (“Papanasi”) or sweet cheese pie (“Placinta de branza”) to Hungarian dill flavoured cheesecake (“Kapros (dill) Turos (curd cheese) Lepeny“) to Slovenian “prekmurska Gibanica” and more….. every country, every region, every household has a recipe.

So I thought it was a bit daft making something so rooted in the region with imported “Philadelphia” cheese and besides I think it makes a heavier cheesecake than I like. Another thing I dont like is cheesecakes made with biscuit bases – why on earth go to the trouble of making a beautiful natural filling only to make a base full of hydrogenated fats and god knows what chemicals? So after a bit of tweaking and experimenting here is my recipe that works with local Romanian ingredients and uses your basic crumble mix with an egg yolk as the base – simple simple simple! Keep your crumble mix in bags in the freezer and you can knock up a cheesecake in 15 minutes flat. The Gluten Free base also is my GF crumble mix with an egg added so again easy and simple and no long difficult recipes just a few basic techniques linked together to create dishes.

Ingredients for quite a substantial (8-12 servings) Cheesecake in a 23cm springform tin or 6 x 10cm mini cheesecakes which are very cute

150-175g crumble mix + 1 egg yolk mixed in (it will still be crumbly but the crumbs will stick together with the egg yolk when you press into the tin)

4 eggs

175g sugar or 120g agave nectar/honey

zest of 1 lemon

500g sour cream 30% fat content

500g “branza dulce” ie fresh sweet cheese

1 tbsp cornflour – but not essential

Gadgets & Gizmos

Yes its true a springform cake tin really does help. If you line very well a normal tin then you can juggle with the cake when it is VERY cold ie one whole day after and flip it onto a plate and then flip it back over again. i did actually recently do this when, alarmingly, I had all my springforms in use and I had an order for a cheesecake! It worked but its a tiny bit nerve wracking!

How to

A small trick…take a square of baking paper and place over the base of your tin BEFORE locking on the spring part with the clasp. This really helps the cheesecake exit gracefully. I also line the tin with a little baking paper and oil again you dont have to but it makes life easier at the end.

Press the crumble and egg mixture into the base (ie on top of the paper) and bake at 180C for 8-10minutes. leave the oven on as the filling is so easy to make the whole thing will be back in the oven in 10 minutes.

Mix gently until just incorporated, the eggs, cream, sweet cheese, sugar and lemon zest. If you want to add a little cornflour this will stop the cake “weeping” and I personally quite like it. however if you have a sensitive palate you might just detect something a little “floury” in the texture. up to you. Combine the cornflour with 1 tbsp milk and add the milk/cornflour mixture.

Pour the mixture on top of the base and place in the oven for 30-40minutes. Its important that the centre still has a little wobble when you take it out. The cake will carry on cooking and will set after you take it out of the oven but if you wait until the centre is also absolutely solid then the final result will be a bit too dry. it will inflate quite a bit and then as it cooks deflate…

Try to refrigerate over night and eat the next day as it will taste better and slice easier. I personally like it with a raspberry coulis.

Lemon & Lavender Tart

This is a classic French lemon tart, made using the “custard” rather than the “curd” method and as I like lemon and lavender combos I’ve added lavender – if its too floral for you don’t bother. This method relies on a “custard” mixture being baked in the oven in a pre baked pastry shell (a kind of sweet quiche idea) and is very easy. A “curd” version involves making a lemon curd which range in richness from a slightly lean classic English lemon meringue Pie recipe adding water and cornflour to a full on “Italian Crostata al Limone” egg yolks and egg affair which I tend to use as my default.

Ingredients for a 20cm tart

6 eggs
300ml double cream (smantana dulce 30%)
230g sugar
4 lemons with the zest finely grated and juiced
1 Blind baked pastry case using all butter pastry

a few lavender flowers (approx 1 teaspoon) if using

Gadgets & Gizmos

A loose bottomed tin is what you need here. I know I’m not really pedantic about equipment and love to improvise but tarts really benefit from proper tins.

How To

Whisk the eggs and sugar to ensure the sugar dissolves – you don’t really need a sloppy mousse here as its not the aim but the sugar does need to dissolve.

Add the zest, eggs and lemon juice to the egg and sugar mix.

Fill the pre-baked pastry case with the mix and carefully (it has a tendency to slop so sometimes I place the case on the oven shelf and using a jug I pour the mix in…depends how accident prone you are! or how wobbly your oven shelves are)

Now bake at 180C for 20-25 minutes. Its a bit like a baked cheesecake idea..you want it done but a little wobbly in the middle so that when you take it out of the oven, the cooking process continues and it will be just perfect.

After you take it out it will deflate a little, but only a little. Dust with icing sugar to disguise any wrinkles and it will look and taste divine!

Italian Meringue

An alchemist moment awaits you when you make this ethereally light meringue.

The Italian variety is more stable than the classic French variety with less tendency to weep (a first?). Use it as a meringue or as a very clever base for many recipes – its truly a great technique to have up your sleeve. You just need a steady nerve and a steady hand for the hot sugar syrup. Best of all this hot syrup cooks the egg whites so the meringue is safe and that’s really important when it comes to ice creams and desserts.

This makes enough for a very generous 20cm lemon meringue topping and if its a bit too much make little meringues by blobbing the mix onto a tin and drying through at 90C for a couple of hours in the oven. Its the quantity I always make and just seems to work.

Ingredients

180ml water

200g sugar

4 egg whites

Half a tea spoon of lemon juice or vinegar

Gizmos

A sugar thermometer is good but I do it by eye now. Don’t feel like you have to have one. A food mixer whisk attachment or some kind of electrical elbow grease – really life is too short to do this by hand apart from needing three arms to be able to simultaneously pour in the hot syrup, hold the bowl and whisk like crazy.

How To

Do things in this order and you wont go wrong.

1. wipe your bowl and whisk with the vinegar/lemon juice in an anally retentive OCD manner. No grease ok?

2. Whisk the whites until they form soft peaks? what does that mean? well they kind of hold their shape a bit but definitely fall over if pushed and absolutely don’t stay attached to the whisk. If in doubt softer is better.

3. Put the water and sugar to boil fast. Don’t be tempted to multitask…its like hollandaise sauce…it will go horribly wrong if you turn your back. Do not stir – please do not stir as crystals can form and we don’t want crystals in our kitchen. Its just not that kind of place. Gently swill the water and sugar around a bit at the beginning to help the sugar dissolve.

4. the syrup needs to reach 121C ie the hard ball stage (in theory if you drop the syrup into ice cold water it will form a fairly hard glob and you can use this method). I use the eyeball stage as I am usually in a rush and I dont have time to be faffing around with thermometers in syrup. Dont get me wrong…I like the whole geeky thermometer thing but with a bit of experience you can eyeball it. So…your syrup needs to look pretty sticky and be really hot.

5. Start the mixer on medium speed and as it is mixing pour in the syrup. Now turn up the volume and whisk like crazy on max until the entire mass is glossy and voluminous – approx 5-7 minutes in my trusty Kenwood. Like any good meringue it stays in the bowl when you turn the bowl upside down!