Even though I made a lot of macarons, it doesn’t take much to fill them, so I was left with a significant surplus of lemon curd mascarpone. Too much to just sit and eat it from the bowl. So, again taking my cue from not-so-humble, I decided to use it up in a cheesecake. A few years ago my Grandpa went to a “Man in the Kitchen” cookery course and came back with a lot of big ideas and a lovely lemon cheesecake recipe (as well as some cracking chicken kievs). It’s a baked lemon cheesecake and has seen a lot of outings since it entered our family repertoire. My favourite thing about it is the roughly chopped preserved stem ginger in the base. In all the years I’ve used this recipe I have never once augmented it, which is very unusual for me, but its time has come. I loved the smooth, cool texture of the lemon curd mascarpone and really only wanted the cheesecake as something to spread it on top of so I determined to make a lighter feeling version of Grandpa’s recipe and leave out the lemon juice and zest which would normally be in the filling and build up a bigger crunchy base as my pedestal. It turned out rather well, perhaps – sorry Gramps – better than the original recipe!
Posts Tagged ‘biscuit’
Left-Over Lemon Mascarpone Cheesecake
Sunday, March 7th, 2010Macarons
Sunday, March 7th, 2010So I’ve been reading a lot about macarons recently, mostly on the amazing http://notsohumblepie.blogspot.com/ and naturally had to have a go myself. The result isn’t exactly pretty, and the photography leaves a lot to be desired, but they were tasty and I have it on good authority that they tasted like macarons, so, win, I guess. I used not-so-humble’s Italian Macaron with Lemon Mascarpone filling recipe, although I made the filling with equal parts lemon curd and mascarpone and nothing else as my left over lemon curd from the RCPM cake was rather zesty anyway. I did use a drop of yellow food colouring in the meringue, but you can’t tell until you bite into one of the shells (oven temperature too high?). I would like to have another go at these when I get a free afternoon to try and smooth out the flaws. I think perhaps I erred on the side of caution and under-mixed the batter as the ‘nipples’ didn’t disappear into the piped discs. Also, I’m not sure whether it was a consequence of the oven temperature, the batter or the fact that I didn’t insulate my trays with a second baking sheet even though not-so-humble specifically mentioned several times what a difference it makes… but my feet weren’t all that impressive. The one thing I did do right, though, was use Lakeland “magic non-stick liner” instead of greaseproof paper. It really is magic. Not a single macaron stuck and the whole sheet easily slid off the baking tray to allow me to start on the next batch while they cooled. Best of all, you can just wipe it clean and re-use it. So, all in all, it was a fun experiment but the finished product needs a lot of work. See you again soon, macarons.
Apple Mini Kit-Kat
Thursday, March 4th, 2010
Despite looking exactly like a normal, unassuming kit-kat, this tastes and smells very strongly of apples…or an ester with strong appley characteristics. Perhaps the most baffling kit-kat experience yet!
Mixed Berry Marble Pocky
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009On every level I have always found pocky much more appealing than other biscuits and these beautiful pink specimens with their love heart adorned packaging were no exception. I can never say no to a flavour of pocky I have never seen before and these don’t disappoint. Pleasingly they look exactly like the picture on the packet – something that food all too often fails to live up to – and taste smooth sweet and yogurty. Mmmm. Love in biscuit form.
Sweet Potato Kit-Kat
Monday, November 23rd, 2009The picture doesn’t really convey quite how yellow this Kit-Kat is. It’s very presence brightens up my desk. Taste-wise, it is an interesting experience. The overriding flavour is that of the wafer biscuit but there are creamy hints of sweet potato and another tangy flavour I can’t quite identify which prevents it from being too sickly. However, if I hadn’t seen the package, I’m not sure I would be able to guess what flavour it was. It put me more in mind of McVitie’s Gold biscuits than of sweet potatoes.
Brown Tea Mini Kit-Kat
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009I love tea. A lot. I’m ashamed to admit it but I really can’t get through a day without at least one cup of tea. However, I have never been a tea and biscuits sort of girl. Tea and cake, definitely, count me in, but biscuits never cross my mind while I’m waiting for the kettle to boil. That said, when I found a tea flavoured Kit-Kat, I had to try it. Upon tasting it, I am sad to say that I was disappointed. There was perhaps the faintest hint of bitter tea if you tried very very hard to taste it but otherwise it tasted exactly like a regular Kit Kat. Just as well I like regular Kit Kats then.
NOTE: Interestingly, I had a sip of water 10 minutes later and there was a faint after taste of tea.
Sweet Bean Mini Kit-Kat
Monday, November 9th, 2009I’m currently working on a red bean paste cupcake but can’t quite make a decision on the frosting. The cupcake itself is going to be a vanilla bean sponge filled with red bean paste but as for the frosting there are so many choices. Vanilla bean, red bean, dark chocolate, mango buttercream, coconut buttercream, crushed pineapple cream cheese frosting, green tea/macha . How to choose?! Perhaps the only solution is to make them all in the smallest possible batches and taste test them. One thing I have learned from this little Kit-Kat is that too much sweetness can be a bad thing. While the aftertaste is pleasantly beany , the initial flavour is cloyingly sweet with flowery undertones that I’m not too fond of. Worth trying, but I won’t miss it terribly once it has gone.
Salt Caramel Mini Kit-Kat
Monday, November 2nd, 2009I have a real weakness for anything sweet and salty from Chinese crispy seaweed to salt toffee chocolates so naturally this Kit Kat was going to be a winner and the mini size keeps the sweetness from being over powering. That said, don’t expect too much from this little biscuit. It is, after all, only a humble Kit Kat, not a Michelin starred dessert.
The Gingerbread Man Hunt
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009For some time now I have been fantasising about gingerbread cupcakes topped with spicy frosting and a miniature gingerbread man and I decided this weekend that if I was going to do it, I would need the perfect biscuit – I guess I just assume that after that, everything else will just fall into place, wishful thinking?
Despite the abundance of Kit Kats in this ‘blog I am not normally a big biscuit eater* and they often get forgotten about entirely until I come across a really exciting cookie cutter or want to play around with a new piping nozzle. For such occasions I have a great biscuit recipe (developed from a buttery shortbread recipe when I needed something a little more malleable) that produces fool-proof biscuits that are crisp and crumbly when fresh and still smooth and melt-in-the-mouth even after a couple of days. My initial plan was just to add a few teaspoons of gingerbread spices to this mix and leave it at that but even straight away I was worried that I was missing something essential to the gingerbread man. I remembered then that my sister has made gingerbread men since we were kids and her recipe has remained largely unchanged and unchallenged so I thought it would make a good baseline comparison for a taste test. To tell the two biscuits apart (and because I just picked up this incredibly cute cutter set on ebay) I made my gingery-biscuit recipe and cut Miffy shapes from it and made my sister’s gingerbread biscuit recipe and cut teddy bears from it. The resulting biscuits were then baked, tasted and compared. And the verdict? Well, my quick fix recipe is definitely out of the running. Everyone agreed it was a very good biscuit, but just not what we were looking for in a gingerbread man. My sister’s recipe had the fiery taste and syrupy richness that I was looking for, but didn’t quite have the snap in the texture I felt was needed. I guess the jury is still out on the best gingerbread man recipe. I suspect I could cook the teddies longer to toughen them up, but am tempted to try for a treacly recipe with even more bite to it. This hunt is far from over, gingerbread man!
*honestly! I get a real kick out of trying all these weird and wonderful Kit Kats but all I do is test a finger here, a mini kit kat there, a third of a pack of Apple pretz in the middle of the night…
Apple Pretz
Monday, October 26th, 2009So I had a serious snack attack on Saturday night and broke into the Apple Pretz without taking a picture first. An empty packet is almost as good, right? The verdict is that these things are incredibly nomable and substantial. For skinny little biscuit sticks, they pack quite a satisfying carby punch. It took three sittings to eat this pouch (yes, I could have taken a picture while there were still some left but every time I reached for the camera I just ended up nibbling on some more pretz instead). They taste a lot like a caramel apple would if it had been made with dried apple rings. There is a definite appley taste, but also a salty, buttery caramely-ness to them that is a little strange in such a dry snack, but very moreish.