Now cheesecakes are always popular and lemon, I love lemon anything so I thought I’d give it a go.

As you can see it worked out okay. I know to make the crumbs for the sides and base a lot finer next time though. The sides need to be a bit thicker too but it tastes great, There was a serving suggestion of cream on the side; trust me, you don’t need it. Next time I may do 50/50 lime. I also need to work on making the sides more presentable. I’m happy for a first try, second will be even better.

Lemon Cheesecake

250gm Marie biscuits
150g butter, melted
500g cream cheese, softened – I used lite cream cheese
3/4 cup caster sugar
3 teaspoons of finely grated lemon rind
1/4 cup lemon juice

1) Heat the oven to 16 degrees or 140 if it’s fan forced. Grease a 20cm pan. A springform pan is ideal for cheesecakes.

2) Place the biscuits into a food processor and whizz around until chopped up well. Add the butter and keep on whizzing until they are well combined.

3) Press this mixture in to the pan. About a third should go on the the base, you can use a spoon to stop it sticking to your fingers as you press. Then start pressing the remainder in to the sides of the tin. I found a height of about 3cm was fine.

4) Beat the cream cheese, sugar and lemon rind. It should be smooth when you start adding the eggs 1 at a time, making sure the egg is combined well before adding the next. When all eggs have been added add the lemon juice and beat for a minute.

5) Poor the mixture in to the tin. Bake it in the oven for 50 minutes – the filling should be wobbly in the middle and firm around the edges. Allow it to cool in the oven with the door open a bit. Once cool place in the fridge, overnight is great but if you can’t wait try and give it four hours.

This is Margaret Fulton’s Honey Chocolate Cake – but what the title doesn’t tell you is that there’s a good whack of booze in there thanks to some dry sherry and rum. It’s my first ‘slice in half and fill with cream’ cake and Mel provided me hints and tips on the consistency of the cream and sawing the cake in half evenly.

I’m pretty happy with my first effort at this sort of cake.

Update

Man, that sherry is strong. I’d probably lessen the amount in the recipe below if you’d prefer a more subtle flavour.

Ingredients

185g butter, softened
185g lightly packed brown sugar
1/3 cup honey
2 eggs, beaten
3 teaspoons rum (I used white ’cause that’s all we had)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 tablespoons cocoa poweder
260g self raising flour
a pinch of salt
1/2 cup sweet sherry …hic…

1 cup of cream and some icing sugar for finishing.

Method

Heat the oven to 180

1) Sift the flour, cocoa and salt and set aside

2) Cream the sugar, honey and butter until it’s light and fluffy. Add the egg mixutre in thirds, makign sure it’s well mixed before adding the next lot. Add the rum and vanilla essence.

3) I then alternated folding in some of the flour, then folding in some sherry.

4) Once mixed put the mixture in to a greased and lined cake tin, mine was 21cm, then in to the oven for 50 to 60 minutes. Mine was ready in 30.

5) Cool for a few minutes in the tin before turning out on to a rack and letting cool completely before slicing in half and adding the whipped cream. Dust with icing sugar and enjoy.

Ingredients

125g butter, softened
165g caster sugar, plus 2 tablespoons extra
1 egg
200g self raising flour
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

Method

1) Preheat the oven to 180

2) Cream the butter with the 165g of sugar. When it’s light and fluffy beat in the egg.

3) Add the sifted flour to the butter

4) Make marble sized balls of the mixture and roll them in the combined cinnamon/extra caster sugar. Line a baking tray with paper and push the balls out, leaving space between them.

5) They should be done in 10-12 minutes.

6) Cool them on a rack, they will be ready in next to no time.

My batch made 36.

I haven’t made many cakes so it was a bit daunting. I’d always thought chocolate cakes would be more difficult and this one wasn’t a cake as such, it was more about the fudge center. It also involved beating eggs and folding them in without collapsing them – scary stuff for a beginner.

I made the cake and was a bit scared. It looked very cooked, not fudge like at all. I left it to cool and it began to sink, which in this case was a good sign, but it still looked a little too well done.

In the end I had nothing to worry about.

Dear god it was yummy. Nice and chewy on the outside, just as it should be, and deliciously moist and fudgy in the middle. Talk about rich, two small slivers was more than enough.

This one goes on the roster.

It’s a simple as you can get.

Heat the oven to 180 degrees, butter and line a loaf tin.

Whisk together 1.5 cups of coconut milk (that’s close enough to a 400ml can), 2 large eggs and 75ml of vegetable oil.

Combine 1 cup of castor sugar, 2 cups of shredded coconut and 2.5 cups of self raising flour. Add this to the milk mix and beat well until it’s all combined. Lick the beaters.

Pour the batter in to the prepared tin and whack it in the oven for 50-55 minutes.

This one came out light, fluffy and packed full of coconut flavour. Tasted delicious with a bit of jam spread on it still warm from the oven.

One of Rae’s requests the other other day was for something ginger so I decided on Margaret Fulton’s ginger biscuits – perhaps the simplest biscuit I have made but my god, they are good. This is the third batch (thanks to a request from Ren) and they won’t probably won’t last the evening.

There was an error in the recipe. It said to pre-heat the oven to 180 before and then, after five minutes, reduce the temperature to 180. I kept the starting temp at 180 and then after five dropped it to 150 and they worked fine.

http://www.insanitytheory.net/kitchenwench/luscious-lemon-slices/

As soon as I opened up the page I knew I had to make it – I’m an absolute fool for anything that is lemon flavoured, and a lemon slice like this one is right up there. It was comparatively easy to make, nothing to technical to deal with but I was perplexed when it came out – the base was on the top and I thought it was a complete failure.

It took me a little while to realise I needed to turn it over on to the cooling rack. Forgive me, I am new at this.

It’s a great tasting slice, although I may have been a little bit heavy handed with the lemon juice, even by my standards. Rae says it can go on he make again list.

This far in to my adventure and I need a big ceramic mixing bowl, a micro plane (?) for zesting and a new heavy duty sifter.

This morning I paused on Neil Perry’s Strawberry and Yoghurt cake. It looked delicious and when I looked it seemed almost too simple to be true. No eggs and polenta made it different to anything else I have baked so after grabbing some polenta from Coles I set to work.

I took my time, didn’t stress and it worked! Two hours in the oven is a long time to wait to see how everything turned out but the wait was well and truly worth it. The kids weren’t too impressed with the yoghurt topping (“ugh, too sour” cried Moo) but they loved the cake. Rae loved it all. Next time I’ll whip some cream for the top.

You can find the recipe online at http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/food-by-neil-perry-20130211-2e78y.html

Rae had gone through Margert’s book and selected a few recipes for me to try and after a quick look in the pantry to see what I could bake with what we already had the winner was Raspberry Jam and Coconut slice.

I was pressed for time and it showed a little in the presentation of the finished product but they taste amazing. Considering I’ve all but given up sweet things the sugar hit from two of these had me buzzing but considering it’s the next morning now and they’ve almost all gone they’re going down as a success.

One thing this lot taught me is patience. I almost ditched the dough for the base because, to me, it seemed to be taking too long to come together in the processor, and I need to be more patient for the creaming stage.

I didn’t plan it but I’ve made two peanut butter sweets in a row. In her recipe Margaret says she adapted an American recipe for peanut butter cheesecake to Australian tastes – I assume it’s a little less ‘heavy’ and lighter on the peanuts.

This recipe called for Wheaton Chocolate biscuits but the local Coles didn’t have any so I opted for Chocolate Ripple instead – not sure but I think they may be heavier than Wheaton’s. I also had to adapt as I didn’t have a small enough flan tin so, to avoid spreading the crust too thin, I used a baking tin instead.

It was also my first go at decorating (and I use the term very very loosely) with melted chocolate. I need to work on the control here. A thicker bag and steadier hand would have helped.

I made it last night and let it chill overnight in the fridge before applying the chocolate. It’s now back in the fridge waiting for the verdict after tonight’s dinner.

Source : Margaret Fulton Baking
Complexity : Simple
Preparation Time : About 20 minutes
Baking Time : 15minutes, overnight to set.
What I Learnt : Heavy bags for piping.
Issues : Lack of proper sized equipment.