Mars Bar Baked Cheesecake

So a while ago my friend Blake (hello if you're reading!) did me a favour in exchange for a cheesecake. I don't like cheesecake that much so I'd only ever made one before in my life but it had turned out pretty well (according to my friends - I didn't eat any) so I was keen to try it again. 

I used Faux Fuchsia's baked cheesecake recipe, which you will have to google because I don't know how to do links via the Blogger app. It's pretty straightforward but I didn't have my Kitchenaid yet and had to do the whole thing by hand, so even with Emily helping (thanks again!) it took half the day. 

I guess it turned out okay though because Blake asked for another one, only Mars Bar flavoured this time instead of plain. Except he only likes baked cheesecakes, and EVERY recipe for Mars Bar cheesecake is for the kind with gelatin that sets in the fridge (apart from one that just advises stirring chopped Mars Bars through your plain cheesecake filling), so I had to come up with my own variation. And here it is:

Ingredients

250g chocolate biscuits

100g melted butter

500g cream cheese

4 eggs

3/4 cup sugar

Vanilla essence

Nestle Top n Fill caramel

1 packet Fun Size Mars Bars

Method

1. Put your biscuits in a food processor for a few seconds to turn them into crumbs, or, if you're me, put them in a plastic bag inside a second plastic bag and bash with a rolling pin for half an hour

2. Brush a springform tin with a little melted butter, then mix the rest through the biscuit crumbs and press them into your tin (base and sides) to form a crust. Refrigerate for a bit. 

3. Meanwhile, mix the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla in your Kitchenaid until smooth

4. Add the eggs and mix some more

5. Pour the mixture into your biscuit crust. As you go, plop some of your caramel in then use a knife to swirl it all about. 

6. Bake at 160-170 degrees for about 45 minutes. Once your cheesecake is baked, chill it in the fridge for several hours or overnight. 

7. Top your chilled cheesecake with heaps of chopped up Mars Bars. Serve at room temperature for maximum gooey deliciousness. 

Tips

*I wasn't that impressed with the caramel Top n Fill, it was too thick to work with plus it cost four whole dollars. Next time I'll try making my own, or I might just use ice cream topping, which I think would be fine.

* When I say cream cheese I mean like Philadelphia, not that Kraft cheese spread in a jar. I only say this because I once knew someone who made that mistake. 

I have to say, even though I'm not wild about cheesecake and I don't much care for caramel, I really enjoyed this. I can't wait to try more variations of it!

I did burn my base though which was disappointing. Any tips for avoiding this? Any ideas for other cheesecake flavours?

Spinach And Cob Castle Dip

This easy retro dip is by far my most popular dish. I'm not really sure what that says about the rest of my cooking, but people always ask for the recipe so here it is!

Ingredients

1 cob bread

1 box frozen spinach

250 ml light sour cream

250ml regular sour cream

1 pkt French Onion powdered soup mix

Grated cheese (optional)

Method

1. To prepare the bread, cut a big circle out of the top and pull the inside out until you have a sort of bowl left. Tear the inside bits into small pieces for dipping, then put all your bread on a tray and pop it in the oven for a few minutes to toast it.  

2. Mix sour creams together and add French Onion soup mix to taste. 

3. Microwave frozen spinach according to instructions and combine with sour cream mix. 

5. Add cheese if you like, and warm it up in the microwave. 

6. Pour the dip into the bread bowl and serve. When you run out of pieces of bread to dip, start tearing up the crust. 

Tips

Be careful not to make any holes in the bread! If you do, just squash some extra over the hole before you put it in the oven. 

For some reason I can never get my hands on a cob when I need one. I try to keep one in the freezer, but a Vienna bread does the job too. Just don't get sourdough!

Double Chocolate Brownies

I'm mostly a baker of biscuits, or cupcakes if someone has a birthday, but lately I've been obsessed with brownies. You can have them as a morning or afternoon snack. You can serve them with icecream for a dinner party dessert. You can use them to bribe your coworkers when you need a favour (hi Brendan if you're reading!). What's not to love?

My recipe is based on Donna Hay's Triple Chocolate Brownies from the Marie Claire 'Flavours' cookbook. 

Ingredients

185g butter

185g dark chocolate

3 eggs

1 1/4 cups caster sugar

2/3 cup plain flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 1/2 cups white choc chips 

Method

1. Melt butter and dark chocolate (I use Nestlé or Cadbury) over a low heat until smooth. Allow to cool. 

2. Beat eggs and sugar in your KitchenAid, or use a rubbish Sunbeam hand mixer if that's all you have. 

3. Fold chocolate mixture into egg mixture. 

4. Add dry ingredients and stir to combine. (Donna says to sift them first but I can't be bothered.)

5. Stir through choc chips. 

6. Pour into your tin. Make sure you don't scrape the bowl too thoroughly!

7. Bake for 35-45 minutes at 180 degrees. Lick the spoon and scrape the bowl while you wait (this is the real reason I love to make brownies).

Tips

Donna uses both white and milk chocolate pieces in her brownies, and chops it all up herself, which is crazy. I just use a packet of Nestlé white choc baking chips. You could substitute nuts for some of the chocolate if you were so inclined, but brownies with nuts in them suck so probably don't do that. 

Attn: Suzi! Donna recommends a 9 inch square cake tin. I prefer to use my rectangular brownie/slice tin because that's how my mum taught me. I don't know the measurements but it looks about the same capacity as my square tin - anything similar should do.

More Like Suxbeam

I bought this Sunbeam Mixmaster Compact Pro mixer in the Boxing Day sales and finally took it for a spin the other day. 

Naturally there was butter involved. 

Turns out the mixer is hopeless: the beaters don't reach the sides or bottom of the bowl, and all the batter just gets stuck in them. No wonder it was on sale. 

The mixer part is detachable so you can use it as a normal hand mixer as well as a standing one, so I tried that and managed okay. But I'm taking it back, because if I'm going to make do with a poor quality hand mixer I'd rather use a $12 Kmart one and put the extra cash toward a Kitchen Aid. 

Bad form Sunbeam. 

Luckily I had the following with which to console myself:

Prawn Pasta

Emily came over on Sunday and I made this prawn pasta for our dinner. She was really sweet saying how much she liked it so I thought I'd share the recipe because it's a super easy dinner that you can make with things you already have on hand. (Assuming you have raw prawns on hand. Which I do.)

Ingredients

Pasta (spaghetti is nicest)

Peeled raw prawns (I get these frozen in kilo bags from the fishmonger at Southgate)

Olive oil

Lemon

White wine

Cream

Chilli flakes (or fresh if you prefer)

Minced garlic

Salt and pepper

Butter

Method

1. Put your pasta on to cook

2. Heat a bit of olive oil in a frying pan. Throw in the garlic, about a teaspoon, then put the prawns in and sprinkle a bit of chilli plus salt and pepper to taste. Stir it around for a while. 

3. When the prawns are approaching cooked, add your wine, cream, some juice from the lemon and some extra olive oil. Just add a bit at a time and stir it as you go until it's nicely combined and reduced. Don't use too much! You only want to end up with maybe a tablespoon of liquid per person. 

4.  Hopefully by now your pasta is cooked, so drain it and - SECRET INGREDIENT TIME - mix a bit of butter through it. 

5. Chuck the pasta into the frying pan, wiggle the pan about and pretend you're Jamie Oliver, then mix it with a spoon or tongs so it actually gets combined. If your pan's not big enough for all your pasta, just put everything in a large bowl and stir. 

6. Gobble it all up. 

Tips

*This would be good with other seafood e.g. smoked salmon if you had it, and you could also add some fresh or frozen spinach if you were so inclined or maybe some little tomatoes. 

*If you don't have wine you could use vodka, or chicken stock, or just leave it out. I buy UHT cream in a carton so I always have some in the pantry and you should too. 

*Invite a kind friend over to share it so she will say lovely things about your cooking. 

Cookie Recipe

Hello everyone! What have you been up to lately? I have been up to all sorts but tonight I'm going to relax and do some baking.  Here is the recipe I always use for choc chip cookies, now you can have a relaxing evening of baking too! (And a fabulous weekend of gobbling cookies.)

Choc-chip Mint Cookies (from the Family Circle "Gorgeous Biscuits" book)

Ingredients:

125g butter, cubed and softened

½ cup (125g) caster sugar

1 egg, lightly beaten

2 tsp peppermint essence (or vanilla)

1 ½ cups (185g) SR flour

1 tbsp cocoa powder

Pinch of salt

1 ¼ cups (220g) dark choc chips


Method:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius. (Also learn to type degrees symbol.)

Beat butter and sugar until creamy.

Add beaten egg gradually, beating well until combined.

Stir in peppermint essence.

Stir in sifted flour, cocoa and a pinch of salt.

Fold in choc bits.

Roll rounded teaspoons into balls and place well apart on trays; flatten slightly.

Bake for 15 minutes.

Gobble!



Makes 40, allegedly.

Cookie Thai-m

On Friday Meg came down to Melbs for a visit! Drinking the above cocktails was just one of the many fun things we did together.  The boys in my house reckoned we are exactly alike.  Can't say I minded at all.

Thanks Meg for a super fun weekend!


After the Great Ocean Road we went to Ross's place (hello if you're reading, thanks for being a stellar host!) for a drink or thirty.

Never have I ever seen such a lovely house!

That tandoori pizza was awesome.


On Sunday afternoon after Meg and I parted ways I went to the city with my housemates to die of heatstroke and eat a v late lunch.

I ordered eight kilos of tapas.  I liked it all but I didn't quite love it.


On Monday night we went to dinner at a Thai restaurant that is inexplicably called Cookie.  It was hella indie but really nice.

 

Those thingies on the left were tapioca dumplins, oh em gee they were good.  Next to them is a load of prawns.  I ate nearly all of them myself (thanks everyone!).

Some kind of beef, pad thai with chicken and prawns, some super delicious sweet potato thing.

 

Eggnet! This was really incredible, like an explosion of corriander and mint in my mouth.

 

When I did cooking in high school the kitchens always smelled of corriander because we inexplicably used it in EVERY dish.  Naturally I grew to hate it, but now I love it again.  It's probably my second favourite herb, the first being basil.

 

Anyway check out how they presented the bills:

 

Charming! I love a vintage Little Golden Book.

 

 

Remember how last week I said I might bake?

 

Well I totes did:

 

I like to bake just about anything that doesn't have fruit in it, and I love to eat same, but there is really nothing like fresh baked cookies.  I think I almost prefer baking these to eating them, and that is really saying something.  I wanted to make a microwave chocolate pudding too but we didn't have all the ingredients.  Alas.

Shortbread

I love shortbread! People always say how hard it is to make so for a long time I was too nervous to try it, but I'm so glad I finally did because it's not only delicious, but also incredibly easy. Even if you are not a baker you could definitely make this as a lovely festive treat.

I started with Jamie Oliver's Best Ever Shortbread recipe (from Cook With Jamie) but have made some changes.

Ingredients
250g softened butter
125g caster sugar
250g plain flour
125g cornflour or semolina (I prefer to use rice flour)

That's it!

Method

Prep: put your butter on the counter ahead of time so it will soften. Make sure you have rice flour or similar. Preheat your oven to 150 degrees. Find a square tin and line it with baking paper. (You can, if you prefer, use a round tin instead of square. You can not, despite what Jamie says, grease your tin instead of using paper. If you do you'll be sorry.)


Step 1: put the butter (chopped up a bit) and the sugar into a bowl.

Step 2: cream it in your pink Kitchenaid. If your mean boyfriend hasn't bought you one yet, borrow your Mum's or just use a wooden spoon. You will know it is creamed when it looks like this:

Step 3: add the flour and rice flour or similar. If you don't want to weigh out all your ingredients separately, just put your mixing bowl on a digital scale, set it at zero then add each ingredient straight into it so you are weighing them all in the bowl. Be careful though!

Step 4: mix it all up. You can't do this in your kitchenaid! It will go everywhere! Use a wooden spoon instead.

At first it will seem like it can't possibly work.

But soon you will have a lovely dough! Roll it into a neat ball.


Step 5: this is where Jamie and I really disagree. He thinks you should roll your dough out into a square then put that in your tin. I have no idea how you could do this and everyone I know seems to struggle most with this step of the shortbread process. Not me, because I have a secret: just chuck your ball of dough into the tin, then squash it about until it fits the square and is roughly level. Easy peasy!

See?


Step 6: prick your dough all over with a fork. Don't forget this step!!!


Step 7: put it in the oven for about 50 minutes.  The good thing about biscuits is that it is pretty hard to get the cooking time wrong - too little and they're extra soft and moist, too long and they're extra crunchy and perhaps a little too golden.  Either way they're still edible so don't worry too much.


Step 8: Once the time is up, sprinkle some extra caster sugar over it all and leave the tray to cool.  After it's cooled, lift out the whole thing by the edges of the paper and cut it into pieces.  Jamie recommends twelve gigantic chunks but I do about twice that.  You can always have a second (or third or fourth or tenth) piece.

 



Sweet And Salty And A Little Bit Nutty

Last weekend Em came round and we made Nigella's Sweet and Salty Crunchy Nut Bars.  Here is how:

We melted 300g of dark and milk chocolate (I think it was 200 milk and 100 dark, but you can do it however you like) with 3 tablespoons of golden syrup and 250g of butter.  The recipe said 125g.  Oops.

I smashed up about 160g of Crunchie bars.

We chucked that and 250g salted peanuts into the pan and mixed it all up.

Then we put it in a lined tray and let it set in the fridge for a few hours.  Easy!

It's super delicious, but because of the extra butter it was even more delicious but also very rich, so I chopped it into pretty small pieces.

Which is great because that means there are heaps more pieces for me to enjoy!  I've been snacking on it every day and there's still a bit left.

Thanks Em for coming over and showing me this lovely recipe!

Ad Break Apple & Rhubarb Crumble Recipe

Last night while watching MasterChef, I spied an apple pie and was hit with a craving for apple crumble.  I talked Mum into helping me make one, since she makes the best crumble in town, plus I'm lazy.

This apple crumble is the best thing a person can make or eat.  It's amazingly delicious; the juxtaposition of textures (soft filling, crunchy topping) and flavours (tart fruit, sweet crumble) is perfect.  It's very quick and easy and you don't need to stand over it, so you can make during the ad breaks of your favourite show.  It probably keeps well, though I've never had the self control to test that out.  It's a warm and hearty dessert, but it also makes a lovely breakfast (fruit = nutritious start to the day).  And since it's not proper baking, you don't need to worry too much about precise quantities so you can experiment.

Anyway, here is how you do it.

1. Make your crumble topping.  You need plain flour, caster sugar and butter; you can just guess the quantities but your ratio of flour:sugar:butter should be 2:1:1.  Mix it all together with your fingers or food processor (careful if you use a processor, you don't want to make it too fine). 

Lots of people add things like oats, almond or coconuts* to their crumble but these people need professional help.  Plain crumble topping is the nicest thing in the world. 

2. Into a square Pyrex dish or similar, empty a 500g tin of apples.  I used Woolworths Select, which is the best in my experience, but any will do.

Allegedly you can also peel, core, slice and cook your own apples.  Why would you?  It tastes awesome like this and you'll save like 10 hours.

3. Add another kind of fruit if you feel like it.  In a true TV chef moment, I had some "here's one I prepared earlier" stewed rhubarb in the freezer, which I got v. cheap at the greengrocer (Best Fresh, hi Lara!) one day.  Ordinarily I would use frozen raspberries, as we always have these in the freezer.  If anyone knows where I can buy frozen rhubarb, leave me a comment and I'll give you a crumble for yourself.  You could use pears in lieu of apples, if you hate yourself.

You don't need any sugar!

4. Put it in a 200 degree celsius oven and cook it until the top is golden.

5. BONUS ROUND! While it cooks, make some custard. This is super easy.  Just take some custard powder (Bird's is the best but Foster Clark's is what I used this time) and 2 cups of milk and follow the directions on the packet.  Don't do it in the microwave though; it only takes 5 minutes in the saucepan anyway, and it's quite fun.

And tada, you have a super delicious dessert made from pantry staples and you didn't even miss the Immunity Challenge.

It looks more glamourous when you don't pour thirty litres of custard over it, but then what would be the point?

Okay, now off you go to make a crumble.

*Naturally I meant to say shredded coconut, not whole coconuts!  But I couldn't bring myself to correct it after I realised my mistake.

In Which I Eat Food From The Crest, Bay Vista, The Meridian, Guzman y Gomez And My Own Kitchen, and read STYD June

I wore this outfit to a "Cover Your Face" themed party on the weekend (thanks Liz for having us).  It was heaps of fun and as you can see I'm bringing down the CPW of the Reject Shop mask I wore to Teen Spirit.  Sorry about the dodgy snap.

If you wondered, it's a Temt dress ($15, but I had a $10 credit note so only $5 really), fleece lined tights from the supermarket, Court Couture "Pearly" boots from DSW ($69 but it was buy one get one half price so I also got the boots I wore in Canberra), Glassons Merino cardi ($60 but on sale for $48, still outrageous), necklaces from Big W ($3?) and a Barbie watch my Dad brought back from Europe one time.

The Crest is doing a 2 for 1 meal deal for members.  Their burgers are pretty good and only $10 anyway, so it's a cheap lunch for me and James.

Plus you can draw on the tablecloths!

James and I had dinner at The Meridian pub in Hurstville the other night.  We bumped into my friend Jason (aka Asian Jason, because this is The Shire and being Asian is still a thing around here), who told us to get the Beef Pho, so we did.

It was pretty tasty and only $7!  SEVEN DOLLARS!  All the food there is comparably cheap so I will definitely be back.  But I probably won't order these disappointing shredded pork rice paper rolls again:

On Mother's Day I made smoked salmon on Turkish for lunch.

For dinner I made this:

It's chicken topped with a creamy mushroom sauce from Julie Goodwin's book.  The orange roast vegetables (carrot, sweet potato and pumpkin) have a sour cream and horseradish sauce and walnuts on top.  The recipe for this is in a magazine somewhere in my house, but I couldn't be bothered looking for it so I just made it up.

The Bet-Dawg and I gave Mum the new Jodi Picoult book, a turtle keyring and a red mini teapot with a strainer in it.

Here's some Mother's Day/Grammar Nerd trivia for you:  Mother's Day has the apostrophe before the S because it's meant to be a special day for your own mother, but Fathers' Day has the apostrophe after the S, because it's just a day for fathers in general.  Mother's Day is a proper holiday invented by some lady who thought everyone should celebrate their mothers.  Father's Day is just what happened when Hallmark realised how much money they made off Mother's Day. 

Isn't learning fun?

My Shop Til You Drop arrived a couple of weeks ago.  They had this promising feature on hosiery:

I wasn't that impressed though, they didn't mention nearly enough kinds of insanely warm tights.  Perhaps Expect Cowgirls should feature tights one day.

I'm really not into this trend of metallic shoes that look as though they are made of cheap plastic and sold in the children's toys section of Kmart next to the tiaras.

Here are some mozzarella-stuffed giant meatballs Mum made.  The recipe is from Justine Schofield.  As you can see, we love our ex MasterChef contestants in this house.

Something else we love is SWEETS.  James and I finally went to Bay Vista in Brighton-le-Sands.  It was SO GOOD.  Oh em gee guys, you have to try it. 

This is an ice cream sundae of some kind:

I had Belgian Waffles with melted chocolate from the chocolate fountain.  This is weird but I don't think I had ever eaten Belgian Waffles before.  I can't imagine why not, because they are AMAZING.  And this was only about $9, pretty reasonable.

We had lunch a while ago from Guzman y Gomez.  On the left is James's burrito, on the right is my mini burrito.  As you can see, they are almost the same size, even though mine was a fair bit cheaper. 

I'll be honest: we didn't love them.  I think we will try Mad Mex next.

Here's a cupcake I made Amy for her birthday:

Naturally I had some too.

Does anyone think I should change the name to Expect Heiffers?