Tiramisù Mini Cheesecakes (Wheat Free)

Good Monday all my wonderful readers! I apologise timely for the lack of Friday recipe, and I have no reasonable excuse: I was busy socialising. I had a party on Saturday night though, and I made some very tasty mini cheesecakes, and these ones were a twist on the classic retro dessert tiramisù!

Fluffy sponge base, silky vanilla cheesecake with a coffee syrup swirl, topped off with some whipped cream and a dusting of cocoa powder... it is sinfully delicious, and actually very similar to a normal tiramisù, bar the raw egg.

Each person who has eaten one of these morsels has said to me that the coffee flavour in a cheesecake is very unusual, but very nice. The coffee is swirled in, making it quite subtle and not overpowering, but good and intense in some pockets where the syrup has collected.

This is what the cake looks like without the cream and the cocoa dusting...

Without the cream and cocoa dusting that makes this a 'tiramisù' cheesecake, it's a simple and elegant coffee swirl cake, which is equally delicious.

I love mashing up classic desserts, and if you've been following my blog regularly you will have noticed many varieties of dessert mash-ups, which mostly revolve around ice cream and cheesecake, which are my two favourite desserts. However, I have done a nice Neapolitan Coconut Ice mashup, which is neither cheesecake or ice-cream related.

But anyway, back to the actual making of this concoction. This was my second attempt at this particular recipe, the first one failing on account of a botched base sponge: I had both used the wrong sort of cake, and forgotten the baking powder. Thus, they were tough and stodgy, and dislodged themselves from the cream cheese layer. Fail.

I then put my thinking cap back on, and remembered that traditionally tiramisù is made with savoiardi biscuits (or lady fingers), which are little fingers of fatless sponge. I slightly enrich my fatless sponge with sunflower oil to make it more flexible, but it's still very light and airy. It worked much, much better, and even the cream cheese layer and the swirl worked out a bit better the second time too. I think the practise run did me good.

FREE FROM

☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Yeast
☑ Wheat
☑ Nuts

CONTAINS
☒ Eggs
☒ Dairy
☒ Gluten
☒ Refined sugar products

INGREDIMENTS

For 12 muffin sized cheesecakes:

For the sponge cake bases:

• 1½ ounces (40 grammes) white spelt flour
• ½ ounce (15 grammes) cornflour
• Pinch of salt
• 1½ ounces (40 grammes) caster sugar
• 1 tablespoon (15 millilitres) sunflower oil
• 1 medium egg
• 2 tablespoons (30 millilitres) milk, or water

For the vanilla cheesecake filling:

• 8 ounces (225 grammes) full fat cream cheese, at room temperature
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) caster sugar
• 1 medium egg
• 2 tablespoons (30 millilitres) natural yoghurt, cream, or milk
• 2 teaspoons (10 millilitres) vanilla essence, or the seeds of one vanilla pod
• Pinch of salt

For the coffee syrup:

• 2 ounces (55 grammes) caster sugar
• 2 fluid ounces (60 millilitres) strong coffee
• Optional: 1 tablespoon (15 millilitres) white rum or Marsala

To serve:

• 8 fluid ounces (240 millilitres) whipping cream
• 1 or 2 tablespoons (15 or 30 millilitres) icing sugar
• Cocoa, for dusting
• Optional: Grated dark chocolate, or decorating

METHOD

To make the bases:

• Preheat oven to 180ºC (350ºF, Gas Mk.4). Line a 12 hole muffin tin with large paper cases and set aside.
• Get a large mixing bowl and a smaller bowl, and separate the egg, putting the white in the large bowl and the yolk in the smaller bowl. To the yolk, add the oil and the milk and mix well until smooth and fully combined.
• Using an electric mixer, beat the white until it forms soft peaks, then gradually add the sugar, about a tablespoon at a time, beating all the while. Beat until it forms stiff peaks. (Once you have finished beating, you will need to wash the beaters as you'll be using them later to whip egg white again).
• Pour the yolk mixture into the whites and gently fold together. It should still be as fluffy and as increased in volume, but a little more yellow.
• Sieve in the spelt flour, cornflour and salt, then fold very gently until you get a batter that is relatively thick. Divide the batter between the 12 cases; it won't seem like much, but it rises quite a bit so don't worry.
• Bake the bases for 8 to 10 minutes, or until set and slightly springy to touch, and the faintest of golden brown. Remove from the oven, set on a wire rack, and reduce the oven temperature to 150ºC (300ºF, Gas Mk.2)

When your bases come out of the oven, immediately prepare the coffee syrup:

• In a saucepan, heat the sugar and coffee over a low heat until this sugar has dissolved. Bring to the boil, and cook for about 2 minutes, or until the bubbles are a little less rapid and the syrup has visibly thickened slightly.
• Remove from the heat and, if using, mix in the rum or Marsala.
• Using a pastry brush, gently dab some of the syrup onto the little sponge bases. If you don't have a pastry brush, use a spoon to sprinkle half a teaspoon's worth of syrup on each sponge.

Now, make the cream cheese layer:

• Like with the bases, you will need two bowls, both about the same size. Separate the egg, putting the white in one bowl and the yolk in the other.
• To the yolk, add the cream cheese and mix until smooth and creamy. Gradually add half the sugar to the cream cheese mixture, mixing between additions, so the cream cheese doesn't turn runny. Gently stir in the yoghurt and vanilla.
• Using an electric mixer once more, whip the egg white as before, gradually adding the remaining sugar and the pinch of salt.
• Once the white is beaten to stiff peaks, gently fold it into the cream cheese mixture in two additions. You'll have a lovely light batter.
• Divide the batter between the 12 cases, spreading out evenly. Give the tray a firm tap on the work surface to even out further and release any trapped air bubbles.
• Pour about a teaspoon (5 millilitres) of coffee syrup into the centre of each cheesecake and then, using the tip of a knife or a chopstick, swirl the syrup into the cream cheese layer. Don't overdo it, or you'll end up completely mixing the syrup in and losing the swirl effect.
• Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until set around the edges and a little bit jiggly in the middle. Remove from the oven and cool for about 10 minutes in the tray before transferring the cakes carefully to a wire rack.
• Chill for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight. Serve chilled.

To serve:

• Whip the cream and icing sugar to stiff peaks using , and then use it to fill a piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle. Pipe a little rosette on each cake, and dust with some cocoa powder. If you like, you can sprinkle some grated dark chocolate on top too for that extra decadence factor.

Now, as you've probably read, there are quite a few steps involved in making these, but none of these steps is very complicated. But the result is delicious and well worth the effort. These are a great little morsel to bring along to a party, because everyone can have a serving of cheesecake without the hassle of cutting up or plating up.

THIS TIME IN 2014: Spanner in the Works: White Spelt Flour No Longer Exists

THIS TIME IN 2013: Dinosaur Kimberleys (Wheat Free)

Dessert Mashup: Millionaire's Shortbread Ice-Cream (Egg and Wheat Free)

Yes, you read that correctly: an ice-cream interpretation of the delicious combination of caramel, biscuit, and chocolate. And here she is, in all her fatteningly glorious splendour!

I'm not exactly sure how this came to mind. I like translating desserts, and last year I made a delicious tiramisù ice-cream (which I will hopefully recreate for an upcoming blog), and I thought doing a dessert mashup for millionaire's shortbread would also be delicious.

This recipe is incredible simple. I used my caramel ice-cream recipe, adding an extra few pinches of salt to give it that salted caramel flavour that's so in vogue at the moment, and swirled some broken up shortbread and chocolate syrup through it.

For the shortbread, I baked a very small batch of the traditional 1:2:3 (sugar:butter:flour) shortbread recipe, using half an ounce per part (if that makes sense...), making it very flat for crumbling.

For the chocolate sauce, I melted together one part dark chocolate to four parts golden syrup, adding in a little salt for flavour. It goes fairly firm on freezing, but is absolutely delicious served warm over the ice-cream.

To make the swirl, I filled the freezing tub as follows: layer of ice-cream, layer of crumbles, layer of ice-cream, layer of chocolate sauce, etc., until I ran out of ice-cream. Excess sauce and crumbles can be used for decorating on serving the ice-cream. I then swirled it all up with the blade of a table knife. I popped it in the freezer to freeze overnight.

As with any ice-cream, it needed to be left on the kitchen counter to temper so it was scoopable, but it is absolutely delicious. I still have some in the freezer, and I'm permitting myself a scoop every few days. I've been so good over the last two weeks: I've lost 5 and a half pounds!

Dessert Mashup: Kołaczki Mince Pies (Wheat Free)

Here's another dessert mashup for ye! A blend of a British Isles classic, and a Polish traditional Christmas treat, Kołaczki mince pies!

Kołaczki (said co-watch-key) are little cream cheese pastry parcels filled with plum jam or poppy seed filling, that are formed out of a frilled square of pastry pinched at opposing corners, traditionally eaten in some parts of Poland around Christmas time (although one of my Polish friends had never heard of these, so it must be a regional thing). 

And for those of ye who don't know, mince pies are little shortcrust pastry morsels filled with mincemeat, which is a mixture of dried fruits, grated apple, citrus zest, shredded suet, brandy (or whisky), sugar, and spices. I decided this was the year that I'd mash them together, and they turned out really well.

It's more the shape that I nicked from the kołaczki, but everything else is traditionally mince pie-ish. I didn't use the kołaczki pastry, which is basically equal parts cream cheese and flour with a bit of butter thrown in for good measure, but instead I used something which I like to call "shortbread pastry", which is somewhere between shortbread and shortcrust pastry.

FREE FROM

☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Yeast
☑ Eggs
☑ Wheat

CONTAINS
☒ Dairy (use substitute in italics for dairy free)
☒ Gluten
☒ Refined sugar products

INGREDIMENTS:

• 12 ounces (340 grammes) plain spelt flour
• 6 ounces (170 grammes) butter, or margarine, room temperature
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) icing sugar, or caster sugar
• Cold water, to bind
• 1 jar (450 grammes) mincemeat
• Icing sugar and cinnamon, to decorate

HOW-TO:

• Preheat oven to 200°c (400°F, Gas Mk. 6) and line baking sheet with non-stick baking paper.
• In a mixing bowl, beat together the sugar and butter or margarine until smooth and creamy.
• Sieve in the flour, and then get your hands in and mix it together, rubbing the butter and flour together with your fingertips. It'll get very crumbly.
• Add in water, about a teaspoon (5 millilitres) at a time, mixing after each spoonful until you have a soft dough. It doesn't need to be chilled.
• Dust the work surface with flour and roll out the dough to a thickness of a quarter inch (3 millimetres). Using a knife or a fluted pastry wheel, cut the dough into strips about 1½ (4 centimetres) wide vertically and horizontally to make squares. Any squares that are wonky or incomplete can by gathered and re-rolled.
• Brush the squares with water, then put about a teaspoon of mincemeat into the middle of each square. Pinch the opposite corners together, and make sure to pinch them good and proper; they can fall open in the oven if they're not pinched properly, I've discovered. Alternatively, you can roll them up like tiny wraps.
• Place on the baking sheet and bake in the centre of the oven for 15 to 20 minutes, or until lightly browned and the mincemeat is beginning to bubble. If you cook them for too long, the mincemeat will run out of the pastry shells and go everywhere, so keep and eye out.
• Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly on the tray before moving to a wire rack to cool. To decorate, dust with a little icing sugar and cinnamon. These are nice warm from the oven, or cold; actually, they're nice however you eat them.

These went down a real storm due to their daintiness, and they are way less hassle than the traditional mince pie, which needs the muffin tin lined with pastry then each one topped with pastry; it's a pain. It seems the Polish had the right idea for making their Christmas treats a little more efficient.

Recipe Mashup: Apple Treacle Tart (Wheat Free)

Sometimes one can get a little bored in this kitchen of doing the same things, and that leads to experimentation. Sometimes experiments go very wrong, sometimes they work perfectly: this was a bit of both. So readers, I present to you the apple treacle tart!

This evolved over quite a thought process. I was trying to think of ways to make the concept of a toffee apple into a dessert, and see where that inspiration led me. I thought of toffee apple pudding, which is fairly standard, but then was led onto the concept of mixing together an apple tart and a treacle tart.

For those of you who don't know, a treacle tart is a British traditional tart made with a shortcrust case filled with a mixture of breadcrumbs, golden syrup, treacle and lemon zest; some versions include an egg,which is the one I know.

I thought I'd spruce it up by adding some apple slices on the top, thus introducing the toffee apple aspect. It tasted lovely, but the only issue was that the apples cooked too dry, and the filling was still a little unset in the middle, which led to big problems cutting the tart, There's nothing more annoying than an unset tart when it comes to cutting as it's just messy.

But, my brother and his guest really enjoyed eating it after dinner, and then the leftovers were promptly eaten by everyone else as well. So it wasn't a total disaster.

I wish I had more photos of it when it was cut, but I don't want to be that person who sacrifices sitting down and enjoying a meal with family for taking super stylish photos and bugging the Hell out of everyone.

I will be making another attempt at this recipe in the week to share properly. This is the recipe I used for this attempt, and it will be tweaked in further attempts:


For crust:
2 ounces (55 grammes) icing sugar
4 ounces (115 grammes) butter
4 ounces (115 grammes) spelt flour
2 ounces (55 grammes) cornflour
Pinch of salt

For filling:
4 ounces (115 grammes) breadcrumbs
5 ounces (140 grammes) golden syrup
1 ounce (30 grammes) treacle
1 medium egg
Pinch of salt
1 medium eating apple, sliced finely

Stay tuned for further attempts. I won't include the full recipe and method because it was a trial run.

THIS TIME LAST YEAR: On Holiday until Next Monday